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January 26, 2007
Room for Improvement?
Loyal readers may remember that a few months ago, I did a checkup on a couple of surprises around the Mets’ minor league franchises using Jeff Sackmann’s wonderful creation MinorLeagueSplits.com. It opens up a whole new set of data to analysis by which some of the mysteries concerning why prospects suddenly fail may be cleared up. Close examination of the data may highlight certain conditions in particular where prospects thrive, opening up new insights concerning their strengths or weaknesses. So, with the season completely finished, I thought I’d take a look at another player who surprised the Mets in 2006 and consider what may be in store for 2007. At the end of last year, Carlos Gomez caused a lot of dissension among Mets fans and prospect analysts. He impressed scouts with his tools—particularly his blazing speed—but his lackluster .275/.331/.376 season failed to convince more numbers-oriented analysts. Ricardo Gonzalez saw little in that performance to suggest he was on his way to becoming an elite prospect, and I agreed. The Mets obviously didn’t, taking an aggressive stance with Gomez by moving him up to AA Binghamton. A year later and Gomez’s prospect status is on the rise again. In 2006, Gomez overcame a rough start (through the end of June he was hitting .221/.290/.333) to finish up the year at .281/.350/.433, on the surface a marked improvement from his previous season at Hagerstown. But was the improvement real? The first thing to consider is the differences between the South Atlantic League and the Eastern League. Unfortunately, I don’t have league stats from 2005 handy, but let’s take a look at the 2006 differences. The average hitter in the SAL hit .255/.331/.376 while his EL counterpart batted .252/.323/.381. No major difference. There are some significant differences in home ballpark, however. Take a look: Park H 2B HR BB K Hagerstown 0.90 1.00 0.85 0.92 0.89 Binghamton 1.06 1.11 0.95 1.17 1.14 Anything below 1.00 favors the pitcher; anything above 1.00 favors the hitter. Thus, a hitter is no more likely to double in Hagerstown than in the average SAL park, but is expected to homer 15% less. While we don’t have 2005 data, I think it’s fairly safe to assume that Gomez’s season at Hagerstown was a little more impressive than the raw statistics indicate. Here’s some positive news, though: Gomez performed better on the road than at home, particularly with regards to his doubles and homeruns. Split AB H 2B 3B HR BB K Home 217 61 9 7 2 14 50 Road 213 60 15 1 5 13 47 He certainly didn’t fare worse on the road than he did at home, which is a good sign that a portion of his performance is really getting better. An aspect of his game that definitely progressed was his baserunning. In 2005, Gomez showed he had speed but didn’t know how to use it. He stole 64 bases and got caught 24 times. That’s not a terrible percentage, but it certainly could have been better. In 2006, Gomez seemed to pick his spots better, stealing far less often, but more successfully. He swiped 41 bags, getting caught just nine times, a ten percent increase in success rate. He’s using his speed to much more effect now. One of the things I was most excited about Gomez was his boost in on base average. Such an improvement often demonstrates a batter’s overall development as he learns the strike zone. However, at closer inspection, Gomez’s on base average was less a result of any change in walk rates than it was his getting hit by a large number of pitches. There is some skill involved there, but it’s not a trait he’s shown in the past. In fact, there is a very small decline in his walk rate (5.9% to 5.5%) and a large increase in his strikeout rate (16.3% to 20.0%). There isn’t much evidence that he learned the strike zone at all. Unless he learns to control himself a little more, that speed won’t be put to as good use as it could be. It would be unfair of me to not mention that he did show improvement in August on this front. He drew twelve walks after August 1, which nearly doubled his total for the season. If he can keep that up, he’d become a valuable player. Finally, there’s the issue of Gomez’s line drive rates with regards to his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Gomez had a very high .350 BABIP last season, which far exceeds expectations when you consider his 13.2% line drive rate. Generally, line drive rates plus .110 should equal a player’s BABIP. Anytime a player outperforms that number he can be considered lucky. In this case, Gomez far exceeds that. Obviously, Gomez’s speed accounts for part of that—he can outrun a lot of groundballs that others can’t, but it also seems like he isn’t hitting the ball with authority. From July onward he did hit line drives at a more respectable 17.7%. His BABIP, however, was still extremely high (.467 in July, .397 in August). The real question is if he can maintain his late season progress over the course of a full season. He’s shown glimpses of potential across all areas of his game, but he has not been able to really impress for an extended period of time. Without a doubt, he’ll be the most intriguing prospect in the Mets system to watch in 2007. Gomez is still a good prospect due to his age. He’s extremely young for the Eastern League, and the mere fact that he held his production steady with some minor improvement despite skipping over High A is a big positive. And there is no doubt that he’s very talented. But he is still a prospect with some serious flaws, namely his power and his plate discipline. If even one of those develops, he could become an elite prospect, but he hasn’t shown it yet. References You can find Park Factors from 2003-2006 here. 25 Responses to “Room for Improvement?”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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Thanks for the detailed look, Alex. I pretty much agree with your conclusions — Gomez is all about talent and projectability; he hasn’t really proven anything yet with the bat.
Honestly, I think we’re being a bit optimisitc if we expect both Milledge and Gomez to turn into well-above-average MLB hitters. It’s just as likely that one of them will turn into Endy Chavez.
I feel like a lot of people are more stoked about Gomez than Milledge right now, mainly because:
1) we haven’t watched Gomez fail at anything
2) his tools (especially the speed) are so tantalizing
If we had to trade one and keep one, though, I’d probably keep Milledge. His up-and-down year at AAA proved little, but the combination of
1) his quick bat,
2) attempt to work on his patience at the plate, and
3) some of the line drives he ripped off big league pitchers last year,
has me thinking he’s the safer bet of the two to wind up a good ML hitter.
No mention in the article of two things: He was very young for AA, and he had some nagging injuries out of spring training that took him awhile to recover from. These factors, combined with skipping St.Lucie, can´t be ignored. There are non-number factors to consider in prospect analysis after all….
I mentioned his age and skipping St. Lucie at the end of the article. And last I looked age was a number. I’ll reiterate what I said there: the fact that Gomez held his own despite skipping a grade is a major positive. He’s extremely young for his level, and the fact that he didn’t get destroyed means he did something very right.
As for the injury it had honestly escaped my mind at the time. My mistake, and you can add it to the evidence in favor of his late season performance.
That said, there are legitimate questions about his plate discipline and power numbers. I’m not saying I don’t think he’ll be better in 2007; in fact, if I had to answer whether he will or not, I’d say he will. But my point is, he shouldn’t be considered an elite prospect until something else develops.
A very good piece Alex. Minorleaguesplits.com is an awesome website.
Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes (in other words, I agree). And the funny part is, Gomez is likely to have a much longer learning curve at the major league level because his plate discipline is far, FAR worse than Milledge’s.
Me too. I also think Milledge is a much better bet to be a productive major leaguer. Whiel Gomez’s physical gifts are fantastic and without peer in our system, Milledge also is quite the tools package himself.
Having said that, and I know I bring this up all the time, but Beltran was a ball of physical tools just waiting to erupt, and he struggled his first few years in the minors, but alwyas getting promoted because he showed glimpes of his potential. He erupted at the age of 21. Will Gomez do the same?
You didn’t mention the fact that this guy K’d 97 times in 400 or so at bats. Thats awful! Especially for a “speed” guy without much power. On top he only walked 27 times.
Gomez, Milledge, Fernando!, Humber, Pelfrey, Guerra and Pena are all similar in that they have high potential. I’m sure all of them won’t become stars, but if 1/3 of them pan out the future looks bright for the Mets. Whether it is the draft or IFA signings, their philosophy seems to be take the player with the highest potential over the more polished player with a lower ceiling. The fact that they don’t need to rush these guys gives them a better chance to succeed. Look at plyers we have now from other organizations who were rushed to the majors, and are now in Mets rehab-Perez, Vargas, Burgos, etc. For a team that is aiming for championships and not just to put a cheap product on the field, I think they are taking the right tact. Hopefully, Gomez continues to improve in NO this season and is ready to compete for a corner OF spot next year. All that being said, the problems of plate discipline and lack of power are definately things that need work. His winter ball numbers aren’t very pretty on either account. No extra base hits, 26 Ks, 2BB in 91 ABs.
BATTING GM AB RN HT 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB AVG. OBP
GOMEZ,C 35 91 11 22 00 00 00 005 02 26 12 .242 .271
Alex– I missed your reference to his age at the end– I guess my eye was looking for a number– My bad. My only point was that there are things that stats can´t quantify, and that stats always need to be balanced with a human evaluation. I liked the analysis, and am hoping that Gomez can harness his evident tools and contribute to the Mets at a ML level.
lack of plate discipline is probably milledge’s biggest flaw as a prospect too.
gomez is scouted as being often over aggressive as a hitter but i think he’s supposed to have superior strike-zone awareness to blastings. milledge has tended to allow the strike zone to expand on him whereas gomez just tries to hit everything really hard, i believe.
either way, it’s not bad having two incredibly tool-sy kids whose *only* substantial knock is plate discipline
A lot of people think that, but I never got this.
Milledge’s minor league career OBP: .384
Milledge’s OBP in Norfolk last year: .388
Milledge’s minor league career ISoD: 81 (which is good)
Milledge’s ISoD in Norfolk last year: 111 (awesome)
Now some of that is getting hit by pitches, sure. But his plate discipline is not a problem. It can be improved upon, sure. But it is already more than acceptable. And it’s not uncommon for prospects to press and not show their plate discipline in their first taste at the big league level too.
The other thing that is hard to quantify here is the drastic improvement in the level of competition Gomez was facing.
Yes, Alex tried to neutralize his 2005 and 2006 numbers by showing the leagues’ averages and the park factors, but what about the level of competition?
Obviously, it take much greater skill to post a .783 OPS in AA than in low-A because you are facing much better pitching and much better defenses.
This hard to quantify factor is something else to consider in looking at Gomez, yes he has a long way to go, but let’s remember than prior to 2006, neither Reyes or Milledge had any plate discipline. So, while Gomez is younger than they were at comparable levels, I think he could make the same leap this year or next.
And I did see the kid play twice in Hagerstown in 2005. He looked lost at the plate in the early season game (but man did he show off a CANNON from the outfield); but he looked like a much, much better and more confident hitter at the end of the season. And I will tell you this, the boy can flat out fly. I couldn’t tell in person if he was faster than Reyes (which they both admit) but he made everyone else look like they were standing still!
IIRC, Milo’s minorleague OBP was buoyed by lots of HBPs. He did show dramatic improvement last year, that is correct. While his OBP might have been decent in lower minors, he had a high batting average which helped push it up.
I think the biggest knock on LM before last year was a really poor K:BB ratio.
Lew, I cited the HBPs. It wasn’t a huge impact last year. Take Milledge’s Norfolk stint, and average him out to 600 plate appearances (roughly a full year), and I think Milledge walks 71 times while being hit 23 (my quick and dirty math). So he obviously turned whatever corner he had to in pitch recognition and strike zone management.
And like you mention, his K/BB ratio also improved greaty. He is really coming around. It’s a shame the Mets rushed him.
danny, i agree that blasting plate discipline improved, but it also helped that he was the only one in norfolk who could do some damage with the stick, so pitchers were very careful i guess
Danny, your numbers are compelling in their own right but from a scouting standpoint that’s what the word on him is. I don’t think it’s necessarily like, “oh lastings: he never walks.” i do think from the small sample i have seen that people seem to have a valid point when they talk about lastings having problems chasing (bad and good) breaking balls, especially away.
That was last year. Everyone agrees Milo made a huge jump in plate discipline last year.
The stats to look at are 2004-2005. I think he had a less than stellar K:BB ration and his OBP was mostly BA driven….at least that’s what I remember.
My point is I could see Gomez making the same kind of jump in 2007 or 2008 that Milo and Reyes made in 2006.
Here is K:BB for Milo:
2004 - 74:26
2005 - 88:33
Definitely not good. His OBP both years was about 60-70 points above his batting average. He walked more than Reyes at comparable levels, but he definitely did not have good strikezone judgment.
Yeah, but Gomez has never hit like Milledge, at any level. Ever. He’s not even close production-wise. Milledge is about production and projection, even before last year. Gomez remains mostly about projection.
I agree on that, here is I think they break out:
Milledge = close to sure thing as all star level performance
Gomez = 10% chance of turning into Carlos Beltran; 40% chance of being an annual allstar candidate; 50% chance of being a bust
Gomez ceiling >> Milo’s ceiling
Milo >>>>> of a surething than Gomez
I absolutely 100% agree with that Lew.
Milledge’s ceiling is stupid high.
That Gomez’s is admittedly higher is just nutso.
Players like Gomez used to be more valuable 20 years ago. These days, everybody hits like a cleanup hitter. If Gomez doesn’t develop either a lot more power or a lot more plate discipline, he’s going to be a bench player. Slappy singles hitters who don’t walk a lot don’t last in major league lineups long. Of course there is also the Carlos Beltran problem. CF doesn’t look like it’s going to be vacant for quite a long time, and Gomez would by far maximize his value by playing in center.
If Gomez gets off to a hot start, the Mets should trade him. I think he could end up being a pretty decent player, but we have other needs and an awful lot of young outfielders.
Milledge = close to sure thing as all star level performance
Gomez = 10% chance of turning into Carlos Beltran; 40% chance of being an annual allstar candidate; 50% chance of being a bust
Those are awfully rosy predictions. Milledge a “close to sure thing” all star? Gomez 40% chance of becoming a perennial all-star? Gomez looks like a career 4th outfielder to me and Milledge is far from a “sure thing.”
Also there´s a level between ¨annual all-star candidate¨ and ¨bust¨. How about ¨decent everyday player¨??
I still think it’s more likely that Milledge becomes Milton Bradley than an all-star or a bust.
As for his plate discipline, I’ll reiterate what others have said (big improvement from ‘05 to ‘06) with one extra detil: Lastings reads all the press he gets, noticed that a knock on his plate discipline kept coming up, and resolved to work on that. I think that is just awesome.