SB Nation User Blog: OmahaHi

My Case for Grant Desme at #5

OmahaHi — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:05:14 -0000

I think Grant Desme should be number 5 on the prospect list. Here is a write up on scouting reports I did back in mid-august about Desme. WARNING the link below is LONG. Some highlights of that write up and my final thoughts after the jump.

everything you ever wanted to know about Grant Desme

The highlights-

1) "Talent in baseball is not normally distributed. It is a pyramid. For every player who is 10 percent above the average player, there are probably twenty players who are 10 percent below average." -Bill James Primer

Desme's (fangraph) speed score right now is around 8.2. For some perspective, that's 2nd in the California League (Min 190 PA). and 4th in all A+ ball. However the 1st-2nd-3rd place guys have an OPS of 603, 745 and 646 respectively. Looking into all the higher AA leagues we see there are only 3 total players there with a speed score over 8. So Desme is close or at the top of that speed pyramid, and I don't think you can say him being old for the league matters on speed.

2) Isolated Power, or ISO, is a statistic that was created-invented by the famous general manager Branch Rickey and Al Roth in the 1950's (this pair also invented On Base Percentage). Isolated Power attempts to separate and measure a player's ability to hit for power as exhibited in extra base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). Where batting average counts all hits equally, and slugging percentage gives credit for total bases, but also counts singles, ISO measures just the player's extra-base abilities. Isolated power is basically a ratio of Extra Base Hits per at bat. Desme is leading all the (A+) leagues in Isolated Power at .368.

3) How about OPS? What does OPS tell us? It gives up a great tool to compare players on their overall offensive contribution. In order to be among the league leaders in OPS, a player must hit for average, display a great batting eye (to collect walks), and hit for power. An OPS over 900 is considered quite good, and an OPS over 1000 is sure be among the league leaders. Desme is hitting +320 OPS points better than his team (1052 vrs 732). AA player Chris Carter +189 ( 1004 vrs 807)

Now I want to look at how many 1000+ OPS guys are in each level of baseball (min 190 PA) 2009.

players in A or A- ball,... 0....... players in A+,... 6.......... Players in AA ball,.. 3........ AAA players,.. 8......... ML players 2. Or less than 20 in all of the major and minor leagues (down no farther than A- ball). Pyramid says Bill James, Pyramid.

"Minor league batting statistics will predict major league batting performance with essentially the same reliability as previous major league statistics."- Bill James Primer

This was his rookie year, and even though he is old for the league, a move to Midland may not depress his numbers considering the Team OPS of Midland is 807 and for Stockton is a much lower 732. A look at Chris Carters jump-

Chris Carter A+ Stockton- avg. 259 obp 361 ops 930 so 156

AA Midland 337 435 1011 119

People are suspect of A+Stockton inflated numbers, what about AA midland having a team OPS 80 points higher?

Desme's Minor League Career comined- G R D T HR RBI S CS BB SO OBP OPS

145 106 34 6 33 97 42 7(86%) 60 169 365 922

Does he need to walk more? Mabey after two years off and the way he was crushing the ball he decided it was better to keep crushing the ball for now. Does he need to strikeout less? Yes but he only hit into 6 double plays in 145 games. And his numbers just got better and better as the year went on, so he was learning something-

OPS by month-

April-732.......May-822......June-(before call-up) 918......June ( after call-up)-658..........July-1086.......Aug-1227

I'm a glass is half full guy. I think the fact that Desme is putting up numbers like he has (top of the pyramid), after missing two years, more than makes up for him being old for the league. All he did was dominate the league he was put in, and get better every month. I don't think AA is going to give him any more trouble than it did Chris Carter. His combination of proven dominating speed and power are so unusual that he easily makes the top five ahead of guys who have not proved anything at all (Green, Inoa), and ahead of guys who have done good for there age, but have never dominated their team, let alone a whole league or two or more.

Grant Desme's outragous upside is what makes me salivate. He was his leagues triple crown winner his last year in college, he should be the A+ league MVP his first year in the pro's, and I think he will adjust just fine to AA in his second year of minor league baseball and improve on his flaws when needed just fine as he goes for the AA triple crown next year.

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Mt. Everidge has got around. What should the consensus nickname be?

OmahaHi — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:49:06 -0000

I was reading the A's official site when I came across this

Mt. Everidge making a name for himself.

Did this possibly come from here?

AN comments on july 28th and Aug 4th

I did think of that nickname on July 28th, but I can't say if anyone else used it in print prior to that. If no one can prove otherwise, I just may have to take the credit for that particular one Mr. Urban.

I have heard of a rumor that someone is doing a revamp of AN terms " time to update ANcillary terms?" and want to see what the accepted nickname should be for him. Feel free to throw out some new nicknames for the other rookies and see if we can get some consensus before the next update.

I have looked over the nicknames used for Everidge and tried to get most of them in this poll- There are a lot of good nicknames so I grouped a few together.

Poll

What should the nickname for Tommy Everidge be?

Mt. Everidge

35 votes

Tommy Time

35 votes

Tommy Two Tone

1 votes

Tommy Knocker or Tommy Gun or Tommy the Tank

11 votes

Buddha Stick

8 votes

Tommy Two Tons, Tommy Burger or Tommy the "Fatboy" Everidge

5 votes

There are to many good nicknames to stay with just one

11 votes

106 votes | Poll has closed

O.T. Does anyone have a good idea on where to shoot a good baseball movie?

OmahaHi — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:10:40 -0000

I just got done turning in our teams film for the "San Jose" 48 Hr Film project. Our amateur film team did a short ( 5 min) WW2 movie shot out of Petaluma called "Vernicher". ( We had a real Tank! )

Our team won The Jury's Selection Award in last months "San Francisco" 48 hr film fest out of 75 competitors. I was thinking on doing a baseball movie next and wondered if anyone had any ideas on a good place to film one around the bay. a real ballpark's time would have to be donated. Thanks, and let me know what you think about the movie.

click here for movie Vernichter

The Speed of Bill James, The Power of Grant Desme, Who is the next Big Thing?

OmahaHi — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:27:39 -0000

I am going to take you on a little drive. It can be a long drive or a short drive depending on if you want to access the many links provided in this post. I hoped to have answered many of my own questions in writing it. I have succeeded in that regard and maybe more. Now for the drive...

This is an extensive scouting profile of A+ Stockton Center Fielder Grant Desme, using some Bill James statistics and primers. One of the primers has to do with the ability of players to move inbetween positons. Another primer is the on the projectabilty of minor league statistics. There are also several scores and formulas used to try and quantify players speed. I have also tried to find different ways of comparing players power.

When I started this profile, I wanted to know more on how Desme's injury's affected him and also the chance of moving him back to his High School and Early College position of Short-Stop. There will be a massive amount of information on him if you are interested. If your not, there should be alot of other information that could be helpful in discovering the player on your favoriter teams system that may have unique skills.

6'2, 205lb. Age 23. 2009 Combined Stats between A and A+....105 gm..... 29D, 6T, 26 HR, 80 RBI, 37 for 41SB, 900+OPS.

Selected by Oakland Athletics in 2nd Round (74th overall) of 2007 amateur entry draft. He was the fourth player taken in that draft by the A's after Simmons, Doolittle and Brown. Bats right, throws right.

Coming out of Hi-School he was a highly-regarded, swith hitting short-stop who could play either middle infield position...Had the ability to hit with power to all fields. High School: Played four years of baseball at Stockdale High School...In 2003, batted .419 with 25 runs scored, 18 runs batted in, five doubles, three triples and a home run....Co-MVP of the SWYL as a senior. He then went to San Deigo St and transferred to Cal-Poly the next year. His last year in College he earned the Big West’s triple crown for the regular season with a .405 batting average, 15 home runs and 53 RBIs in 50 games. He also stole 12 of 15 bases that season despite missing the final six games of the year due to a fractured wrist.

Desme also led the Big West in slugging percentage (.733), on-base percentage (.494) and total bases (143) en route to Big West Player of the Year and Louisville Slugger second-team All-America honors.The junior led the Mustangs in a total of 12 offensive categories. In national statistics for the regular season, Desme was 16th in slugging percentage (.733), 22nd in home runs per game (0.3), 28th in batting average (.405), 57th in runs scored per game (1.08) and 71st in RBIs per game (1.06).

With the broken wrist, the A's knew recovery should be expected to take at least a year. So the A's expected to not be able to play him until around July 2008. However, Improvement on a wrist injury will continue for at least two years. And thats right about now. To see if that might be making a difference in his hitting, I'm going to do his OPS splits by month. (split info here)

April-732.......May-822......June-(before call-up) 918......June ( after call-up)-658..........July-1086.......Aug-1227 (that just so happens to also be his OPS his last year of college before breaking his wrist, also 1227). Info on broken wrists here.

His shoulder injury happened in 2008 and was a torn labrum. I could could not find much information on the injury but it took him most of 2008 to heal. torn labrum info here. Whether its regular playing time or a completely healed wrist, Desme is now putting up numbers rarely seen. To see how rare, I want to look at his speed, check out his defense to find his future position, and also want to look at his power with some comparable OPS.

What I'm not going to do right now is spend any time looking deeper into his strikeout/contact problems. I think it is a big problem that needs steady improvement. And that, along with his age, is the reason he is not higher up on the prospect lists at the moment. However a post can only be so long and this one will be long enough without the weaknesses analysis. This is his rookie year, and even though he is old for the league, a move to Midland may not depress his numbers considering the Team OPS of Midland is 807 and for Stockton is a much lower 732.

First- I want to show his Speed and Defense.

Speed

Here are some different scouting report blurbs-2007-he's an average runner in terms of pure speed, although he does have good first step quickness. Desme has shown good instincts for stealing bases. 2008- he is just an average runner to first (4.3 seconds).

Here is also a scouting report number. The ratings are based on formulas that sum a player's entire career based on available statistics in their database, including minor league and college data. Full Summary here

S couting Report
Power:	95
Speed:	71
Contact:	19
Patience:	65

He has a better speed number than 71% of all other players. I think his speed number is on the low side (for him) because of what he didn't do in college. In almost 500 at bats in college. Desme went 20-5 in Stolen Bases. In almost 500 at bats in the minor leagues, Desme has gone 39-5 in Stolen Bases. I'm not sure what happened between "average" and now but somethings changed for the better. Now look at his power score. Wow, He's not going to improve much on that one.

Now, for a different way to check his speed, I will use a speed Score formula originally proposed by Bill James in 1987. His formula took six elements and put them on a scale of 1-10, then took the average of the six elements. These elements included stolen base percentage, stolen base attempts, triples, runs scored, grounded-into double plays and range factor. The higher the number the better. 5 is average.

Desme's (fangraph) speed score right now is around 8.2. For some perspective, that's 2nd in the California League (Min 190 PA). and 4th in all A+ ball. However the 1st-3rd place guys have an OPS of 603, 745 and 646 respectively. Looking into all the higher AA leagues we see there are only 3 total players there with a speed score over 8.

For what that means- its time for a Bill James primer:

"Talent in baseball is not normally distributed. It is a pyramid. For every player who is 10 percent above the average player, there are probably twenty players who are 10 percent below average."

Defense-

scout blurbs- Jan 2008-I like his arm strength in CF but feel his range will deteriorate and be pushed to an outfield corner.

April 2009-On defense, Desme has been thrown into the center-field fire this year, and has shown he can indeed play both sides of the ball. While he profiles as a future corner outfielder, he possesses range, speed, and a good throwing arm. Yet, he hasn’t played center field since his sophomore college season at Cal Poly, and admittedly not very well. "I wasn’t a very good outfielder in college really," Desme said. "The first year was really rough."

The 2006 season was his first year in the outfield, having played shortstop through his freshman year at San Diego State. Since transferring, he has patrolled the outfield, and has shown considerable improvement, much in part to his downtime with the wrist injury. For most of his stay in the Arizona League last season he could not swing a bat, limiting him to outfield practice. "The only thing I could do is just shag B.P. every day, so I think that helped me a lot,"

full article here

It would seem like being injured actually helped him to spend all of his time on upgrading his Defense and somehow his speed, maybe he just observed pitcher's move's more than he ever did before out of boredom, so now he's just smarter? Running around for B.P. balls all day got his legs to grow some muscles he didn't have before? Is it almost to the point where it might be time to think about trying him at SS again?

Before we are tempted to move him back to Shortstop, lets look at a Bill James primer about defense:
The defensive spectrum looks like this:

( - - 1B - LF- RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C - - )

with the basic premise being that positions at the right end of the spectrum are more difficult than the positions at the left end of the spectrum. Players can generally move from right to left along the spectrum.

"Right-ward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work"

"True shortage of talent almost never occurs at the left end of the defensive spectrum."

List of Bill James primers here. I like the primer about the lead off batter the best (Ricky ball anyone?).

Almost never works is a good reason not to try. But Desme may be the exception to the rule with his unusual improvements. According to that defensive primer, It would seem like a move to 3rd could be a good/easy move, especially for someone with his SS experience and arm. A move to 2nd would be the next step to the right of the spectrum if the A's did want to try and move him to a harder position than 3rd. Otherwise it seems CF seems to be a good spot to keep him right now and a move to SS is not going to happen.

Power-

A blurb- While the power display harkened memories of Dave Kingman, Ports manager Aaron Nieckula said Desme is equipped with more than just dead-red pull power. Nieckula’s take is Desme’s power ranges from left field to the right-center gap. "He’s not a dead pull guy," Nieckula said. "You can pitch him away if you want … but he’s going to punish you." .......................Dave Kingman's career major and minor league stats here

Isolated Power, or ISO, is a statistic that was created-invented by the famous general manager Branch Rickey and Al Roth in the 1950's (this pair also invented On Base Percentage). Isolated Power attempts to separate and measure a player's ability to hit for power as exhibited in extra base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). Where batting average counts all hits equally, and slugging percentage gives credit for total bases, but also counts singles, ISO measures just the player's extra-base abilities. Isolated power is basically a ratio of Extra Base Hits per at bat.

Desme is leading all the (A+) leagues in Isolated Power at .368. Jonathan Gaston is the only other (A+) player with an ISP over 300. Gaston also has a speed score of 7.6 and is one of the only two other comparable players too Desme I found in A+. T.J. Steele is the other with a great speed and power combo. He has a 7.5 speed score and a .232 ISP. There was no one in (AA) that broke even a 7 speed score that had good power.

Side note: Both Gaston and Steele both play for the Astros (A+) affiliate in the California League. The Astro's AA affiliate also plays in the 8 team Texas League with the A's (AA) team the Midland Rockhounds. The A's have pulled off trades with three of those 8 teams (S.Deigo, Colarado, St.L) in less than a year and seem very comfortable trading with each other.

How about OPS? What does OPS tell us? It gives up a great tool to compare players on their overall offensive contribution. In order to be among the league leaders in OPS, a player must hit for average, display a great batting eye (to collect walks), and hit for power. An OPS over 900 is considered quite good, and an OPS over 1000 is sure be among the league leaders.

Desme is hitting +320 OPS points better than his team (1052 vrs 732). AA player Chris Carter +189 ( 1004 vrs 807). Abert Pujols +389 (1134 vrs 745) . ......For more on the A's, (AA) Midland Rockhounds team with my player analysis go here.

Now I want to look at how many 1000+ OPS guys are in each level of baseball (min 190 PA) 2009.

Here is another interesting Bill James Primer:

"Minor league batting statistics will predict major league batting performance with essentially the same reliability as previous major league statistics."

.....................one can only hope Mr. James, one can only hope........

Even more on Desme-............ don't worry, the ride is almost at an end.

He is one of the most athletically gifted players in the A’s system, something that has been evident in his speed-and-power numbers, as well as his defense. However, his approach at the plate is, at times, overly aggressive, something that may be a product of the missed season.

Here is a really, really good mid-season top 50 prospect report which includes this years rookie A's. here . I liked it a lot because of the inclusion of our rookies.

another 2007 scouting report


Hitting Ability:	Desme has the potential to hit for average and makes adjustments, but struggles with good breaking stuff.
Power:	He's got decent power now and has the chance to have solid-average to plus power in the future.
Running Speed:	He's an average runner in terms of pure speed, though he does have good first step quickness.
Base Running:	Desme has shown good instincts for stealing bases.
Arm Strength:	Cal Poly's right fielder, he throws well enough to stay there as a pro.
Fielding:	Recruited as a shortstop, Desme is a very athletic outfielder.
Physical Description:	Desme is a strong athletic shortstop-turned-outfielder.
Update:
Strengths:	Desme has five-tool potential and can do just about everything well.
Weaknesses:	While he does make adjustments at the plate, he struggles with breaking stuff.
Summary:	Desme was a college bat on the rise before a broken wrist ended his season early. It’s not expected that his injury will have a huge impact on his draft status. A five-tool player, he could be one of the better college position players in the draft, especially considering the dearth of college offensive talent in this class.

a nice article about Desme 12 games after being called up to A+ in early July, when he was hitting .227 here

Here's is Desme's total college and minor league stats: here

One last Bill James primer, "The chance of getting a good player with a high draft pick is substantial enough that it is clearly a disastrous strategy to give up a high draft choice to sign a mediocre free agent."

Now Mr. James actually said that about a first round pick, but I think it still applies. Essentially, by signing a Orlando Cabrera, you may never get a Grant Desme. And although it doesn't look like Desme is ever going to be a SS again, he may have the athletic ability, arm and infield comfort level of a prior Short Stop to be able to man one of the other defensibly important infield position's.

As far as his injury's go, I never was able to determine just how he broke his wrist or tore his labrum. I don't know if it was baseball related, a freak accident or chronic weakness. I do know that no one seems to be concerned with it at this point and that he seems to have fully healed and maybe even oddly benefited from it.

The name drop of Dave Kingman was one I really liked even though the speed does not compare. Kingman was the reason I was an A's fan for 3 years, even though Rickey Henderson got me started. I hope everyone enjoyed the ride.

The Speed of Bill James, The Power of Grant Desme, and the chance to move Desme back to a Short-Stop.

OmahaHi — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:48:43 -0000

This is an extensive scouting profile of A+ Stockton Center Fielder Grant Desme, using some Bill James statistics and primers. When I started this profile, I wanted to know more on how Desme's injury's affected him and the chance of moving him back to his High School and Early College position of Short-Stop.

6'2, 205lb. Age 23. 2009 Combined Stats between A and A+....105 gm..... 29D, 6T, 26 HR, 80 RBI, 37 for 41SB, 900+OPS.

First- I want to show his Speed and Defense.

Speed

S couting Report
Power:	95
Speed:	71
Contact:	19
Patience:	65

Desme's (fangraph) speed score right now is around 8.2. For some perspective, that's 2nd in the California League (Min 190 PA). and 4th in all A+ ball. However the 1st-3rd place guys have an OPS of 603, 745 and 646 respectively. Looking into all the higher AA leagues we see there are only 3 total players there with a speed score over 8.

For what that means- its time for a Bill James primer:

Defense-

scout blurbs- Jan 2008-I like his arm strength in CF but feel his range will deteriorate and be pushed to an outfield corner.

full article here

Before we are tempted to move him back to Shortstop, lets look at a Bill James primer about defense:
The defensive spectrum looks like this:

( - - 1B - LF- RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C - - )

"Right-ward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work"

"True shortage of talent almost never occurs at the left end of the defensive spectrum."

List of Bill James primers here. I like the primer about the lead off batter the best (Ricky ball anyone?).

Power-

Now I want to look at how many 1000+ OPS guys are in each level of baseball (min 190 PA) 2009.

Here is another interesting Bill James Primer:

"Minor league batting statistics will predict major league batting performance with essentially the same reliability as previous major league statistics."

.....................one can only hope Mr. James, one can only hope........

Even more on Desme-............ don't worry, the ride is almost at an end.

Here is a really, really good mid-season top 50 prospect report which includes this years rookie A's. here . I liked it a lot because of the inclusion of our rookies.

another 2007 scouting report


Hitting Ability:	Desme has the potential to hit for average and makes adjustments, but struggles with good breaking stuff.
Power:	He's got decent power now and has the chance to have solid-average to plus power in the future.
Running Speed:	He's an average runner in terms of pure speed, though he does have good first step quickness.
Base Running:	Desme has shown good instincts for stealing bases.
Arm Strength:	Cal Poly's right fielder, he throws well enough to stay there as a pro.
Fielding:	Recruited as a shortstop, Desme is a very athletic outfielder.
Physical Description:	Desme is a strong athletic shortstop-turned-outfielder.
Update:
Strengths:	Desme has five-tool potential and can do just about everything well.
Weaknesses:	While he does make adjustments at the plate, he struggles with breaking stuff.
Summary:	Desme was a college bat on the rise before a broken wrist ended his season early. It’s not expected that his injury will have a huge impact on his draft status. A five-tool player, he could be one of the better college position players in the draft, especially considering the dearth of college offensive talent in this class.

a nice article about Desme 12 games after being called up to A+ in early July, when he was hitting .227 here

Here's is Desme's total college and minor league stats: here

I hope to have opened some eye's about one of my two favorite A's prospects. The name drop of Dave Kingman was one I really liked even though the speed does not compare. Kingman was the reason I was an A's fan for 3 years, even though Rickey Henderson got me started. I hope everyone enjoyed the ride.

Poll

Grant Desme is now my new favorite A's prospect

Yes

16 votes

No

43 votes

Right there with Chris Carter

61 votes

120 votes | Poll has closed

Midland RockHounds leading all AA teams in OPS. (A's affiliate)

OmahaHi — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:38:04 -0000

The Midland RockHounds are leading all of the AA leagues (Texas, Southern, Eastern) in team OPS. I thought I would take a deeper look into the Rockhounds and their roster. There is about one more month before the AA playoffs and I wanted to see where the season has been. I also wanted to see who the players are, with a few that have been, or probably will be, on the AA team. First the overall team.

About the team-

Midland plays in the 8 team Texas League. Midland's average player age is 24.3 years which is about the 11 youngest team in AA (info here). For reference the A's (AAA) Sacramento team average age is 25.5, 2nd youngest of the AAA teams. Good article on this here: (The Hardball Times). They say AA teams are mostly built around prospects and most of the A's best ones are there.

The parent organizations of other teams in the Texas League are: The Colorado Rockies, St.Louis Cardinals, S.D. Padres, Houston Astros, K.C. Royals, L.A. Angles, and the Texas Rangers. Three of them have been very recent trading partners, one a multiple past trading partner (KC), and two unlikely trading partners (AL West). If the teams are more comfortable trading with each other because they see the other teams best prospects more often, watch out for an Astros trade.

Midland leads the Texas League with a 63-51 record. That may be because the Midland offense has been truly spectacular this year. I'm going to use OPS for a standard evaluation the rest of this post. I'm not going to try and equalize parks or do anything fancy otherwise. Everyone can quickly figure out a players OPS without much problem and it's good enough for this analysis.

The AA team easily leads the Texas league in team OPS at 811. They also lead all AA teams in all leagues. The Tigers AA affiliate leads the Eastern League at 775, the White Sox affiliate leads the Southern League at 769, and 2nd place in the Texas League is the 747 Royals affiliate.

Furthermore, the 811 team OPS is the most prolific AA team OPS in any AA league in at least over the last 5 years. This is as far as I went back with the best I found in the last 5 years being 794. Which also happened to be the 2005 Midland team with Andre Ethier. That's kind of impressive. Midland has Three of the top 10 OPS guys in the Texas League in #1 (Carter), Cardenas and Donaldson. And yes, Carter leads all of the AA league's in player OPS.

The pitchers have not been near as impressive as the hitters. The team ERA is 2nd to last in the Texas League at 4.75. A 4.16 ERA in 2006 with Brad Ziegler was the best the team has done in the last 5 years. You can say Midland is a hitters park for sure and the Texas League a hitters league maybe. Someone else is going to have to tell us by how much. Also with the A's graduating 4 pitchers (Bailey, Anderson, Cahill, and Outman) to the ML club from AA last year, the cupboard may be a little bare.

Now the player info: a few are not on the AA roster but have been included to provide some perspective.

Top prospects for the A's AA team: hitters;

Chris Carter 1B-22 yrs- 38D, 21HR, 336/433/574. 1006 OPS. He leads the Texas League in just about every important stat. BA-336, HR-21, Hits-148, D-38, OBP-433, extra base hits-61, runs-101. 15th round pick in 2007. part of the trade for Dan Haren via Carlos Quentin and the White Sox. He was the #10 prospect for the Sox in 2007(BA). Has 3 other 900+ OPS seasons.

Carter's OPS is +183 points above the AA team OPS average of 811. remember that number +183.

Grant Desme (2nd round, 2007, 23 yrs) is probably the only other hitter doing better in the A's organization than Carter, hitting 1039 OPS for A+ Stockton, but more significantly hitting +309 above the A+ team OPS of 730. Just to see, ML OPS leader Albert Pujols, has a 1129 OPS or +386 better than the Cardinals team OPS. On to the rest of the guys-

Adrian Cardenas-2B-22 yrs- recently promoted to AAA. Part of the Joe Blanton trade in 2008. Was the Philly's #2 prospect (BA) last year. And was a #1 pick in 2006. 838 OPS in AA.

Jemile Weeks-2b-22 yrs- A's 1st round pick (12th) in the 2008 draft. 853 OPS in A+. Put up two 1000+ OPS years in college. recently promoted to AA.

Josh Donaldson-C-24 yrs- Cubs first round pick in 2007. Part of the Rich Harden trade. Has a few 950+ stops in the lower minors. currently 811 OPS.

Cory Brown- CF- 24yrs- 1st round sand pick Oakland (#59) 2007. 1229 OPS his last year of college. his lowest OPS in four low A stops has been 842 with a current 910.

Tommy Everidge-1st-27 yrs. played his first 55 games at AA this year with a 869 OPS. 10th round 2004. Has had a solid start to his ML career and does not look over-matched like so many other hitters that have come up to the A's the last few years. His 759 OPS is good for third on the current ML A's team, SSS and all.

Mathew Spenser- LF-23 yrs- 3rd rd pick in 2007. Part of the Joe Blanton trade. 853 OPS. 911 OPS last year in A+.

Brett Wallace-3B-23yrs-first round (#13 overall) in 2008. Part of the Matt Holliday trade. #1 ranked prospect for St.L in 2009. played his first 32 games in StL AA team this year with a 841 OPS. Currently has an 760 OPS in 78 AAA games. The A's were happy to get a #1 prospect 3rd baseman, and I think the Cardinals have been happy with that trade for now with Holliday's 1303 OPS in 16 games.

5 out of those 9 didn't get drafted by Oakland which really shows you the work done the last 1 1/2 years re-stocking the system . And if you notice the A's are only missing a SS. The A's tried to rectify this by drafting and trading for:

Grant Green-SS-21yr-13th pick in the 1st round 2009. Green put up a OBP heavy OPS of 1000+ his last few years of college. Green could be playing for AA now. If he had signed right away (he has not signed yet) he could have been put in A+ and then been promoted by now or soon if he hit well. This dose not happen often but Wallace did it. The A's then hedged their bets by trading for a hi-upside SS in:

Tyler Ladendorf, SS, 21 yrs. 2nd round 2008, from the Twins in the Orlando Cabrera deal. He put up a fat OPS his last year in college and went 65/65 in SB his freshman year. OPS of 728 in the 87 low A games he has had to start his career and he would need an extended hot streak to make the jump to A+ with AA being a possibility later in 2010.

There you have it. The A's seems to have decided to target the hi-picks in trades and have done (for what we know at this time) at least a good job in the last few drafts with not picking busts. They are young, all being around 23 years of age. This group has helped produced a prolific team OPS which has to be a good sign the A's are on the right track. The team seems to be balanced with good to great offensive prospects (counting the guy's that have been promoted out this year) at every hitting position besides SS.

Four-Five AA players are playing with the A's with some success right now from last years AA team so it is entirely possible that four-five more will be playing with the 2010 A's with some success this time next year . I may do a future AA pitcher report but that list won't be near as impressive. Someone else will have to do a perspective of the defense of these hitters mentioned.

A long look at the A's (AA) affiliate, the Midland RockHounds

OmahaHi — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:17:23 -0000

About the team-

Midland plays in the 8 team Texas League. Midland's average player age is 24.3 years which is about the 11 youngest team in AA (info here). For reference the A's, (AAA) Sacramento team average age is 25.5, 2nd youngest of the AAA teams. Good article on here: The Hardball Times. AA teams are mostly built around prospects and most of the A's best ones are there.

The AA team easily leads the Texas league in team OPS at 811. They also leads all AA teams in all leagues. The Tigers AA affiliate leads the Eastern League at 775, the White Sox affiliate leads the Southern League at 769, and 2nd place in the Texas League is the 747 Royals affiliate.

The pitchers have not been near as impressive as the hitters. The team ERA is 2nd to last in the Texas League at 4.75. A 4.16 ERA in 2006 with Brad Ziegler was the best the team has done in the last 5 years. You can say Midland is a hitters park for sure and the Texas League a hitters league maybe. Someone else is going to have to tell us by how much. Also with the A's graduating 4 pitchers (Bailey, Cahill, Anderson and Outman) from the AA club last year the cupboard may be a little bare.

Now the player info: a few are not on the AA roster but have been included to provide some perspective.

Top prospects for the A's AA team: hitters;

Carter's OPS is +183 points above the AA team OPS average of 811. remember that number +183.

Adrian Cardenas-2B-22 yrs- recently promoted to AAA. Part of the Joe Blanton trade in 2008. Was the Philly's #2 prospect (BA) last year. And was a #1 pick in 2006. 838 OPS in AA.

Jemile Weeks-2b-22 yrs- A's 1st round pick (12th) in the 2008 draft. 853 OPS in A+. Put up two 1000+ OPS years in college. recently promoted to AA.

Josh Donaldson-C-24 yrs- Cubs first round pick in 2007. Part of the Rich Harden trade. Has a few 950+ stops in the lower minors. currently 811 OPS.

Cory Brown- CF- 24yrs- 1st round sand pick Oakland (#59) 2007. 1229 OPS his last year of college. his lowest OPS in four low A stops has been 842 with a current 910.

Mathew Spenser- LF-23 yrs- 3rd rd pick in 2007. Part of the Joe Blanton trade. 853 OPS. 911 OPS last year in A+.

Four/Five AA players are playing with the A's with some success right now from last years AA team so it is entirely possible that four/five more will be playing with the 2010 A's with some success this time next year . I may do a future AA pitcher report but that list won't be near as impressive. Someone else will have to do a perspective of the defense of these hitters mentioned.

Does a 16-43 record (.271 PCT) in the Dominican Summer League mean the A's should start up a team in the Venezuelan Summer League?

OmahaHi — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:04:59 -0000

Signing one stud pitcher does not make a solidly scouted DSL team.

The best OPS on the A's DSL team is Rojas at 897. He is #14 in the DSL and we have no other hitter in the top 100. The best pitcher ERA is Merestil at 1.73 good for #19 in the DSL with no other pitcher in the top 100. Merestil is around 50th in K.

I know the A's have come out and said they are going to be more aggressive down there and they did spend a lot of money on one guy last year, but 2 players in the top 200? I don't know if they need to fire some scouts down there or if they have just been too cheap for too long, but that's not going to cut it.

Although they seem to be not getting enough high quality prospects out of the DSL, there are a ton of ex-DSL players on the ARZ rookie and A- Vancouver teams so its at least possible they had a nice crop graduate out of the DSL the last fews years leaving it bare. There is not many names creating much buzz and there has been no significant DSL player from the A's system play well for the A's in many, many years. (Casilla's best year has been a 3.93 ERA when he had a 1.59 whip.)

I don't know what it costs to run a team in South America, but I think its time for the A's to start up a team in the Venezuelan summer league. There seems to be some good talent coming out of there. They could start trying a new player acquisition philosophy, with different scouting strategy's, and do it from the ground up.

For reference there are about 40 ML players from Venezuela with only 7 teams in the VSL or 5.7 created per team. The 75 players from the Dominican have 33 teams helping produce them, or 2.27 players created per team. A dollar spent in the VSL could be equal to 2 1/2 dollars spent in the DSL. That's a huge market inefficacy. The A's did sign several Venezuelan IFAs this year so they are at least aware that is a market needing tapping.

Note: All players in the ML born from other country s doesn't mean they all came from a minor-league system in that country, so the numbers will be off, but most did play there. Also I would need to do some more research to see if the quality of players, say All-Stars vrs Non-All Stars, would be highly significant between the two.

I also think some sort of partnership with a minor league system is Asia (Japan especially) would be a good use of resources and put them well ahead of most other teams in that department. Once other teams caught on (and they would) the goal would be to start an Asian Summer League with the other five West Coast teams. Clearly the future of any small-market team is the minor leagues. There is no reason the A's should be limiting themselves to just the draft and one high priced Int FA signing a year, in just one league. There are 47 ML players from Japan/Taiwan/South-Korea/Australia. I'm sure there could be another 100 Japanese players if 1)all the Japanese players wanted to play in the U.S. and 2) the Japanese teams didn't control them. That market could be worth more in total ML players than the DSL and VSL combined. If the A's were to start now they would get the first early returns and be in a position to reap the continued rewards from the new Asian Summer League.

In conclusion,

1) There is something wrong with the Dominican system and it may need to be blown up with radical new strategy's and money.

2) The A's need to start a team in the Venezuelan Summer league to take advantage of the 5.7 players created per team.

3) The A's need to form a partnership with a team based in Asia, with recruiting from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia, to take advantage of and gain the early rights to, the 50-150 possible ML players that could come from that region with the creation of an Asian Summer League.

4) We are a low-revenue team and these things cost money. I'm going to put each option as costing the A's 2 1/2 to 5 million extra a year with the consequence that it will directly come out of the yearly payroll. The real cost could be much less when you factor in the A's will recoup those costs and much much more in 5 years with cheap ML salary's if things worked out as planned. The money has to come from somewhere to start out though. So imagine the A's this year with a payroll 7.5-15 million less than it is now if you choose all options. This is a harsh reality for a small revenue team, regardless of it being a good idea or not.

Poll

What should the A's most do with the lower minor league's assuming the major league payroll would need to be 2.5 milion-5 million dollars lower per option for the next five years?

Start Kicking ass and taking names with the Dominican Team. Blow it up with some new bold idea's and more money.

3 votes

Start a new team in the VSL

1 votes

Create a partnership with a team in Asia with the eventual goal of a new Asian Summer League

2 votes

All of the above

9 votes

None of the above

2 votes

Two of the above

3 votes

20 votes | Poll has closed

Is a walk off Triple a bad play? The coming out party of Rajai Davis with a rare statistical anomaly

OmahaHi — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:56:24 -0000

Why go?

After watching Rajai Davis win the game with his walk off triple Monday night with 2 strikes and 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth with runners on first and second, I started asking myself the last time I have ever seen a walk off triple. I haven't. It's always a walk off double. I think I should have at least herd of one happening before in the last 20 years of Sportscenter, but it's so obscure and random it's not something I would casually remember if another team did it.

Now I confess that I do not know if Davis touched third before Ellis scored, but i don't think he was that close or that he tagged 3rd before Ellis touched Home. I thought that the game is over the second Ellis touches home and Davis would olny get credit for the last base touched before the end of the game. But the official rules must give the official scorer some leeway and that scorer choose otherwise.

But its possible for a fast runner to get the 270 feet home to 3rd faster than the first-base runner could get 260 feet, 1st to Home with a ten feet lead. If it's possible then walk-off triples must happen on a small but semi-frequent basis. Not that I can find any data on it. They must be very rare.. So rare that walk off doubles's may happen up to 50 times more offen than triples. Now take all the walk-off triples ever scored, now put in that it was 2 strikes and 2 outs and see how many of those have ever happened. We may never see that again in our lifetime on Sportscenter.

I would like to know how often other rare end of game consequences happen and see which one is the rarest. A walk-off balk. A walk-off steal of home. But there is one other reason why I think a walk-off triple is super-rare. Because it is not a good play. Therefore most players would not try it. And even if they did, the official scorer may not give them the triple so what is the point. What possible positive outcome was there for Davis to keep running after getting to 2nd? All he can do is get thrown out at 3rd before the run at home scores. Not that that was going to happen in this case but still why go?

To answer my own question, I can think of few possible outcomes that could be beneficial however unlikely .

1) If the runner at first was slower, and the ball coming back to the infield was quicker, Davis, thinking that the runner would be thrown out at home, went for third and successfully deaked the first baseman into throwing it to 3rd, too late.

2) The runner from first could also have changed his mind halfway down the third base line on trying to score, and thinking that runner was going to get caught in a pickle, Davis goes to 3rd, leading to a botched rundown and the player getting home. I think alot of these scenarios, including the one tonight could be classified more than one way. How long does the official scorer have to change his ruling before it becomes, officially, a super rare, walk-off triple?

Ok, now one last illogicall question for you to mull over on this strange play. Can we agree that the official scorer can make rulings where he can interpret the rulebook in different ways? K, with me so far? Now what if Powell had been on first and Davis had gone for an inside the park HR, touching home plate a split second after Powell, how could it be scored and has something like it ever happened before?

I would like to thank Rajai for winning the game tonight, and doing it in a obscure and exciting way. He has been playing really well as of late and has helped make the team fun to watch in a down year. I also think this is the night he has officially got my vote in his bid to be a starting outfielder for the A's moving forward the next year or two. I have always liked him on the team and saw good value in him being a 4th outfeilder- Defensive replacment- pinch-runner. But now, dare I say, he is the first one of our young outfeilders to officially break out over the last few years and I don't know if I ever epected that. Nor did I expect to be happy with a breakout not tied to being a HR hitter.

Poll

How you feeling about Rajai?

I've always liked him. He's now proven he belongs and should get to start every day. while he's hot.

69 votes

I used to think we should have DFAed him a few months ago. He is playing well right now as a four OF, but it probably won't last. He should still get DFA's if he slumps hard.

66 votes

He still should be DFA'd or traded. Not good enough.

6 votes

He always should have started

6 votes

147 votes | Poll has closed

Walk off Triple's. How often?

OmahaHi — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:03:52 -0000

The A's Rajai Davis hit a walk-off triple in the bottom of the ninth tonight against Texas to win the game 3-2. There were runners at First and Second. Once the second runner scores, the game is over and there is no reason for the official scorer to award third base. I suppose with Davis's speed he could have been to third when the second run scored, but the replays only show he was near it.

I don't know if I have ever seen that ruled anything but a double before on a game I was watching but I'm sure it happens a small amount of times. It made me wonder just how rare that is. Does a walk-off double happen 100x more often than a walk-off triple? Does anyone have a stat site that would keep track of what type of walk-off hits happened? For that manner game ending walks, error's, balks etc. I would think one of the rarest of all outcomes might be stealing home.