Ryan Mountcastle - 3B - 2018 #3 Prospect

[weams]

 

[Ruzious]

17 hours ago, Frobby said:

You are completely misconstruing what I’m saying.   This started with you saying he couldn’t be a front line starter on a good major league team.   I’m just debating the point that good major league teams have above average starters at every position.   They don’t, or at least, not often.   That’s all I’m saying.  Nobody’s saying that if we want to build a contender, Trey Mancini should be a centerpiece.   

This is silly.  Nobody was arguing against your point, because it was so obvious.  Nobody misconstrued your point.  My point was - if you're going to start players like him, you better have a great team around them if you're going to win.  Hopefully that's the end of that discussion.     

[Tony-OH]

Not to keep up the Mancini debate, but Mancini to slash .276/.307/.484/.792 in the second half of the season last year. He's obviously more valuable as 1B or DH, but he's solid everyday starter if he's hitting more like his second half.

As for Moutcastle, I see his bat being more dynamic and impactful than Mancini. I think Mountcastle will hit for higher average and power than Mancini when it's all said in done if he can develop the hitting aptitude that Mancini has.

[Frobby]

23 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Not to keep up the Mancini debate, but Mancini to slash .276/.307/.484/.792 in the second half of the season last year. He's obviously more valuable as 1B or DH, but he's solid everyday starter if he's hitting more like his second half.

As for Moutcastle, I see his bat being more dynamic and impactful than Mancini. I think Mountcastle will hit for higher average and power than Mancini when it's all said in done if he can develop the hitting aptitude that Mancini has.

In that case, they’re going to find a spot for Mountcastle.    But what do you mean by “if he can develop the hitting aptitude that Mancini has?”    That sounds like a pretty important “if.”    Without hitting aptitude, how is anyone a good hitter?

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

In that case, they’re going to find a spot for Mountcastle.    But what do you mean by “if he can develop the hitting aptitude that Mancini has?”    That sounds like a pretty important “if.”    Without hitting aptitude, how is anyone a good hitter?

Mancini is a very smart hitter who is very good out figuring out what pitchers are trying to do to him. He makes adjustments based on that information and gets the most out of his ability because of that aptitude. Mancini does a ton of work pre and post game and scouting oppositions.

Mountcastle is working more off his God-given talents at this point, but he has improved in this area. 

[weams]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Mancini is a very smart hitter who is very good out figuring out what pitchers are trying to do to him. He makes adjustments based on that information and gets the most out of his ability because of that aptitude. Mancini does a ton of work pre and post game and scouting oppositions.

Mountcastle is working more off his God-given talents at this point, but he has improved in this area. 

And his god given talents appear to be greater. And he is so young.  He could be a major leaguer next season.  Trey will turn 27. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

5 minutes ago, weams said:

And his god given talents appear to be greater. And he is so young.  He could be a major leaguer next season.  Trey will turn 27. 

God given talent, tearing up Frederick and then AA. He still can be fooled and needs to make adjustments. Look at Sisco as a recent example of tearing up AA and below, only to have the bat be an issue above.

[weams]

2 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

God given talent, tearing up Frederick and then AA. He still can be fooled and needs to make adjustments. Look at Sisco as a recent example of tearing up AA and below, only to have the bat be an issue above.

I still think Sisco will have more of an MLB career than Trey as well. 

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, weams said:

And his god given talents appear to be greater. And he is so young.  He could be a major leaguer next season.  Trey will turn 27. 

24 when he debuted.   Mountcastle will be 22 this season.   I think he’s at least a half-season away from the majors, but hopefully he’ll deserve a call-up sometime during the season.   I’m looking forward to seeing him, but don’t want to rush the process.    

[Tony-OH]

7 minutes ago, weams said:

I still think Sisco will have more of an MLB career than Trey as well. 

Would you like to wager a Pepsi on that?

 

[weams]

9 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Would you like to wager a Pepsi on that?

 

Sure. I know that he may fail completely. 

[Luke-OH]

5 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Not to keep up the Mancini debate, but Mancini to slash .276/.307/.484/.792 in the second half of the season last year. He's obviously more valuable as 1B or DH, but he's solid everyday starter if he's hitting more like his second half.

As for Moutcastle, I see his bat being more dynamic and impactful than Mancini. I think Mountcastle will hit for higher average and power than Mancini when it's all said in done if he can develop the hitting aptitude that Mancini has.

The biggest difference for me between Mancini’s bat and Mountcastle’s is swing plane.

Mancini is an extreme GB hitter, which hurts his power production. He isn’t able to take full advantage of his raw power. Mountcastle on the other hand has good natural loft in the swing.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

1 hour ago, weams said:

I still think Sisco will have more of an MLB career than Trey as well. 

I'm not comparing Sisco to Mancini...

[Pheasants]

20 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

The biggest difference for me between Mancini’s bat and Mountcastle’s is swing plane.

Mancini is an extreme GB hitter, which hurts his power production. He isn’t able to take full advantage of his raw power. Mountcastle on the other hand has good natural loft in the swing.

Is this true of Mancini in general or just the middle of 2018?  I thought that hitting GBs became a problem rather than always being a problem.

[Luke-OH]

1 minute ago, Pheasants said:

Is this true of Mancini in general or just the middle of 2018?  I thought that hitting GBs became a problem rather than always being a problem.

This is from my offseason article on Mancini...I wrote that the most important thing for him to do in order to be more than a role player was add loft to the swing, here’s the link and the relevant section.

http://www.orioleshangout.com/2018/03/14/trey-mancini-future-star/

 

Step 3: Change his swing to add loft.

This is both the most difficult step and the most important. Mancini had just a .195 ISO (isolated slugging, a good measure of game power). For reference, players with similar ISOs in 2017 include such massive sluggers (sarcasm) like Eduardo Escobar, Didi Gregorius, Eugenio Suarez, and Keon Broxton.  With a max exit velocity of 115.6mph, good for 19th in baseball in 2017 you’d think he’d be higher than 100th in ISO among players with 400+ PA.

Why was Mancini not producing a stronger power output? Well, he pounded the ball into the ground a lot. You’ve probably heard of groundballs, line drives, flyballs, and pop-ups. Andrew Perpetua runs a site called xStats, which I highly recommend if you are interested in such things. He uses Statcast data to further break down batted ball types. I won’t go into all the particular categories, but there is one of interest to this discussion, “dribble balls”. Dribble balls are balls in play that leave the bat at below 0 degrees launch angle. These are balls that are hit downward and they result in very poor offensive production (.181 batting average, .195 slugging percentage league wide in 2017).

Why are dribble balls important when it comes to Trey Mancini? Well, he was one of the league leaders (14th of 145 with 500+ PA) in dribble ball rate at 39% of all balls in play. That’s not good. Mancini had a robust HR/FB rate of 19.8%, but was well below league average in putting balls in the air. We could stand to reason that Mancini’s power output could be improved substantially if he gets the ball in the air more often while maintaining contact quality.