Shorebird's Mike Yastrzemski is a Complete Player

[DrShorebird]

Regular Shorebird fans are wondering how much longer we will be privileged to watch Mike Yastrzemski play. Mike consistently shows he can do it all at this level. He has a good eye, nice swing and can run the bases. He can field and has an excellent arm. He understands the game and can do what is needed to help his team. He is a plesure to watch.

[skanar]

I'm glad he's doing so well, and perhaps this thread is meant to be celebratory rather than analytical, in which case, I apologize for the cold water.

BUT.....

Yastrzemski needs to do it all AND MUCH MORE given his age/league. He's 23 in the SAL, which is pretty old. To even qualify as a prospect under my system (only 0.5% of non-prospects have had MLB success), he needs an .850 or higher OPS and a K rate under 18%. The only 23-yo SAL non-prospect to achieve major league success in my database (covering 1991-2005) is Nyjer Morgan out of 561 such players.

Right now, he has 136 PAs (150 needed to qualify for a rating), an .851 OPS, and a 26.5% K rate. He would not qualify as a prospect.

If he DID manage to drastically bring down his K rate while maintaining his OPS, he'd have at least a decent shot at success. Only 16 such players were in my dataset, and of those, 4 were MLB successes: Ryan Roberts, Jason LaRue, Reed Johnson, and Lew Ford. None were stars, and all were more defensively able than Yastrzemski: Roberts (2B), LaRue ©, and Morgan (CF) played premium positions and LaRue and Ford were at least capable of handling center (>1/4 of games played there).

The closest comps in my dataset to Yastrzemski's current numbers are Dave Duplessis (.851, 27.8%), Eric Danapilis (.849, 25.1%), and Chris Norton (.849, 27.6%). None of the three ever made the majors.

Those in search of additional cautionary tales may want to look up Claudio Arias (.962, 25.3%) and Jason Frome (.971, 24.0%). Neither made the majors.

Even superlative offensive performance is no guarantee. Four 23-yo players have OPS'd over 1.000 in the SAL, all with significantly lower K rates than Yastrzemski: Brian Barton, Dante Brinkley, Jeff Duncan, and Thomas Green. If you just said "who?" that's because the four of them have combined for 262 MLB plate appearances.

Overall, 577 players were age 23 in the SAL between 1991 and 2005. 39 had an OPS of .850 or higher, and about 500 of them struck out less than 26% of the time. Of all those players, only 5 went on to MLB success.

Of course there is never any guarantee. But the odds are stacked very far against Yaz Jr's future success. Even excellent success at Frederick at this age would make him just a middling prospect. I'm rooting for him, and I'm thrilled he's succeeding right now. But sadly, he needs to succeed in an even greater way before he counts as a prospect.

[Frobby]

Yeah, I don't think Doc was suggesting that Little Yaz was a prospect, just that he knows how to play the game. It will be interesting to see if they bump him to Freferick mid-year.

[Oldorioles]

I think he's in line for a promotion mid-year if he keeps it up. One of the few hitting bright spots at Delmarva.

[DrShorebird]

I have seen all that I need to see of Mike Yastrzemski. The point that I was trying tot make earlier is that he is a complete ball player and a joy to watch. In the four-game sweep of Kannapolis, he has thrown two runners out at the plate, hit an inside-the-park HR, bunted for hits, hit to all fields, hit the cut-off man letter-high 100% of the time and more.

He is Mr. Hustle. He had a leg injury earlier in the year, yet leads the SAL with eight outfield assists. He had a hitting streak of 15 games (4/29 - 5/16). He had an on-base streak of 18 games (4/27 - 5/18). He also had an eight-game hitting streak from April 13th to April 26th, including six multi-hit games in seven game span He had an RBI streak of four games.

At Delmarva we evaluate players by several factors that are not box score numbers, such as ability to learn, recent improvements, projected strength, hustle, speed, fundamentals, understanding of the game and more. At low A level Delmarva, stats are so yesterday in terms of player development. We look for what has been learned this week. We look at the first and second derivatives of the stats. Very few players come into Delmarva with the skills of a “AA” player. Hopefully, they will learn to become A+ and AA players under the teachings of the various Managers, coaches and special coaches using their experience and sophisticated training aids. We don’t see many come in like Manny Machado, Nick Markakis, Dylan Bundy, Jonathan Schoop and a few others. We do see several players develop while they are here, and still others develop later at Frederick and Bowie. “Prospect” is a word that others use. “Player” is a word we like to use. In spite of much ballyhoo about some “prospects” they often are not “players.” It’s been years since we have seen a real good team with real good players. This year, most fans are abuzz about how good this team is and well the “players” play the game.

There are several players here that I like this year and we will probably lose some of them near the All-Star Break. Good for them. Others will continue to develop and become fine players at Frederick next year.

[Ruzious]

Different people watch minor league baseball for different reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's plenty of room for everyone.

[DrShorebird]

Exactly.

[bpilktree]

I would think some dominoes start falling with the outfield position. Paguero has to be moved up in 3 days. That leaves a spot open for Alverez to play in Norfolk. That will allow a guy to move up to Bowie from Fredrick and then I would think Yaz to take that spot at Fredrick.

[JayThomas]

I would think some dominoes start falling with the outfield position. Paguero has to be moved up in 3 days. That leaves a spot open for Alverez to play in Norfolk. That will allow a guy to move up to Bowie from Fredrick and then I would think Yaz to take that spot at Fredrick.

Good theory.

[Rene88]

I would think some dominoes start falling with the outfield position. Paguero has to be moved up in 3 days. That leaves a spot open for Alverez to play in Norfolk. That will allow a guy to move up to Bowie from Fredrick and then I would think Yaz to take that spot at Fredrick.

The vast majority on the main board are convinced Lough isn't going anywhere and he is better than Peguero. I am not in this camp. I think Competition is healthy and Lough will pass through waivers.

What happens to Lough?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DrShorebird]

Many of us at Delmarva would like to see Yaz selected to the SAL All-Star team before he is promoted.

[DrShorebird]

Oh, by the way, for those who do enjoy stats at the Class A level, here is how Yaz is doing as of end-of-day Memorial Day.

Avg. .300 (3rd highest Shorebird)

HR 5 (leads Shorebirds)

3B 6 (leads Shorebirds)(2nd SAL)

RBI 25 (leads Shorebirds)

R 32 (leads Shorebirds)(6th SAL)

TB 91 (leads Shorebirds)(8th SAL)

SB 9 (2nd highest Shorebird)

H 54 (3rd highest Shorebird)(14th SAL)

OBP .363 (2nd highest Shorebird)

SLG .506 (leads Shorebirds)(14th SAL)

OPS .869 (leads Shorebirds)( 16th SAL)

[LookinUp]

We don’t see many come in like Manny Machado, Nick Markakis, Dylan Bundy, Jonathan Schoop and a few others.

Doc,

Are you implying that Yaz is a player of the caliber of any of these guys? I'm not asking skeptically. I get that you're high on him, but it's unclear exactly what type of player you think he could become.

[DrShorebird]

No, just the opposite. The ones you mentioned were the exceptions. My point was that we don't see many of them here. However, there are other players that come in unheralded and start to develop here and improve along the way and they eventually become major leaguers. I don't judge the players by their stats from the first 50 games at Class A level. Like racehorses, if it were only the numbers that count at beginning levels, then we could do away with all the scouts and just use a computer program.

What I am implying is that there is more to Yaz than his early stats and that I would pick him for my team anytime. I like the way he goes about the game and I like the way he goes about learning how to improve. I like his hustle. I like that he is leading in several categories which demonstrates that he is a complete player. I wouldn't put a ceiling on him unless and until he shows he can't improve further. He may be full of surprises. It's just too early to tell how high his ceiling really is at this time. He should be a SAL All-Star and then move to Fredrick to see how he does there. But don't be surprised if he does well there. Then maybe we can get a better feeling of just how far he can go.

By the way, he had a 3-run HR last night.

[LookinUp]

Thanks. That makes perfect sense.