Jump to content

2019 #12 Prospect: Keegan Akin - LHP


Tony-OH

Recommended Posts

I’m having trouble reconciling the pitching grades with the rankings.

FB: Kremer 50/50, Akin 55/55

CH: Kremer 35/40, Akin 55/55

SL: Kremer 40/45, Akin 50/50

CU: Kremer 50/50, Akin —/—

Command: Kremer 40/45, Akin 45/50

It seems Akin is better at everything, now and in the future, except that Kremer has a fourth pitch.    That’s nice, but two of Kremer’s pitches are not as good as Akin’s third best pitch.    Just based on that, I’d have to give Akin the edge here, if the grades are accurate.   So what are the reasons to the contrary?

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m having trouble reconciling the pitching grades with the rankings.

FB: Kremer 50/50, Akin 55/55

CH: Kremer 35/40, Akin 55/55

SL: Kremer 40/45, Akin 50/50

CU: Kremer 50/50, Akin —/—

Command: Kremer 40/45, Akin 45/50

It seems Akin is better at everything, now and in the future, except that Kremer has a fourth pitch.    That’s nice, but two of Kremer’s pitches are not as good as Akin’s third best pitch.    Just based on that, I’d have to give Akin the edge here, if the grades are accurate.   So what are the reasons to the contrary?

Curious about this as well. I suspect it has something to do with floors and ceilings. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, ChuckS said:

Promising stuff.  Although I can't imagine that throwing the ball every five days rather than every two to three is going to make a big difference with a guy's diet and ability to stay in shape.  

Here's my theory on this. When you are a starter, you get four days knowing you are not going to pitch so you eat and drink what you want. If you know you could pitch on just about any night, a player might not relax as much and take care of himself a bit more. 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’m having trouble reconciling the pitching grades with the rankings.

FB: Kremer 50/50, Akin 55/55

CH: Kremer 35/40, Akin 55/55

SL: Kremer 40/45, Akin 50/50

CU: Kremer 50/50, Akin —/—

Command: Kremer 40/45, Akin 45/50

It seems Akin is better at everything, now and in the future, except that Kremer has a fourth pitch.    That’s nice, but two of Kremer’s pitches are not as good as Akin’s third best pitch.    Just based on that, I’d have to give Akin the edge here, if the grades are accurate.   So what are the reasons to the contrary?

This is the difference between Luke and I. I think Luke is a little high on is scouting grades for pitches in this particular case. If Akin was throwing three average pitches, two above average he would be pitching effectively at the big league level vs putting up a nearly 5 ERA in AAA.

While Akin will show you average or even above average pitches, I take consistently of that pitch into consideration. Akin and Kremer are pretty close as prospects but I probably would have taken Akin over Kremer. Luke and I probably should have switched here because I think he's higher on Kremer and I'm higher on Akin.

Not everyone is going to agree and that's why this year we added "Another Take" so you can see the differences when there are some.

  • Upvote 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not seeing a ton of difference between Lowther, Kremer and Akin in terms of FV. Hopefully 1 of the 3 hits his ceiling and another turns into a nice swing man. Really like having several of these guys in the system. Throw in Harvey and Baumann and I think you have the makings of a solid future staff. Let's hope the top guys turn into what we hope they can.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, LookinUp said:

I'm not seeing a ton of difference between Lowther, Kremer and Akin in terms of FV. Hopefully 1 of the 3 hits his ceiling and another turns into a nice swing man. Really like having several of these guys in the system. Throw in Harvey and Baumann and I think you have the makings of a solid future staff. Let's hope the top guys turn into what we hope they can.

I don't necessary disagree. They are all similar but in that their ceilings are 3rd probably 4th starters. I do think Bauman and Akin have the best chance to go to the bullpen and be good pieces out there due to their velocity and one plus pitch,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I don't necessary disagree. They are all similar but in that their ceilings are 3rd probably 4th starters. I do think Bauman and Akin have the best chance to go to the bullpen and be good pieces out there due to their velocity and one plus pitch,

I kinda feel like their future role will depend on the team almost as much as the player. Akin would likely eat some innings for the O's as a starter this year if given a chance. It might not be his best role, but that might be his role on a bad team. Flash forward 3 years and he's really excelling (a true plus) out of the bullpen on a team with Rodriguez, Hall, Means, Hancock and Bundy starting. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

This is the difference between Luke and I. I think Luke is a little high on is scouting grades for pitches in this particular case. If Akin was throwing three average pitches, two above average he would be pitching effectively at the big league level vs putting up a nearly 5 ERA in AAA.

While Akin will show you average or even above average pitches, I take consistently of that pitch into consideration. Akin and Kremer are pretty close as prospects but I probably would have taken Akin over Kremer. Luke and I probably should have switched here because I think he's higher on Kremer and I'm higher on Akin.

Not everyone is going to agree and that's why this year we added "Another Take" so you can see the differences when there are some.

I really like the “another take” feature.    So far, there really aren’t any drastic disagreements, it’s more shades of gray.    But it’s useful to see how opinions can vary.    
 

I’m hoping to see both these guys in the majors at some point in 2020 so I can start forming my own opinions!

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’m having trouble reconciling the pitching grades with the rankings.

FB: Kremer 50/50, Akin 55/55

CH: Kremer 35/40, Akin 55/55

SL: Kremer 40/45, Akin 50/50

CU: Kremer 50/50, Akin —/—

Command: Kremer 40/45, Akin 45/50

It seems Akin is better at everything, now and in the future, except that Kremer has a fourth pitch.    That’s nice, but two of Kremer’s pitches are not as good as Akin’s third best pitch.    Just based on that, I’d have to give Akin the edge here, if the grades are accurate.   So what are the reasons to the contrary?

For me, I'm skeptical about a professional athlete who has a conditioning problem.  So, if their stuff is close, I'll lean against the one with the conditioning problem.  Having said that, I don't know how bad Akin's problem is.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

For me, I'm skeptical about a professional athlete who has a conditioning problem.  So, if their stuff is close, I'll lean against the one with the conditioning problem.  Having said that, I don't know how bad Akin's problem is.  

I'm not sure how much of his conditioning problem is just having a fat face. Athletes that don't look like athletes don't get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to conditioning. Some guys are just naturally bigger, and to quote Moneyball, we aren't selling jeans here.

Maybe he could be putting more of an effort in, but I am truly curious whether at least part of it is just a sub-conscious bias on the part of evaluators, where if he didn't look the way he looks and had the same up and down struggles, he would be seen as streaky and uneven while building up to the grind of throwing every fifth day for six months and not as poorly conditioned.

Tough to judge with the impact of the MLB ball, but Akin actually had the same FIP in 2019 with Norfolk that he had in Bowie at 2018.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is where I'm stoked about having a legit 1-4 or 5.  Seems like a few years ago a guy like Akin would be a top 5 type of talent and we'd be trying to talk ourselves into being excited about him.  Maybe there's something that the new coaching/analytics can do to dial in his stuff and perhaps he could be a John Means type but that's getting too hopeful.

Agreed with @MurphDogg his fat face does him no favors.  In that photo in the link, he looks like Chris Tillman.  And even if he's still on the heavier side, there have been plenty of pitchers who have done well and have been considered overweight.  I'm not sure what the correlation between weight gain/loss and command/consistency is but if there is such a thing I'd love to hear it.  The back of his neck could look like a pack of hot dogs for all I care as long as he can throw strikes, keep the ball down in the zone and have effective secondary pitches.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

This is where I'm stoked about having a legit 1-4 or 5.  Seems like a few years ago a guy like Akin would be a top 5 type of talent and we'd be trying to talk ourselves into being excited about him.  Maybe there's something that the new coaching/analytics can do to dial in his stuff and perhaps he could be a John Means type but that's getting too hopeful.

Agreed with @MurphDogg his fat face does him no favors.  In that photo in the link, he looks like Chris Tillman.  And even if he's still on the heavier side, there have been plenty of pitchers who have done well and have been considered overweight.  I'm not sure what the correlation between weight gain/loss and command/consistency is but if there is such a thing I'd love to hear it.  The back of his neck could look like a pack of hot dogs for all I care as long as he can throw strikes, keep the ball down in the zone and have effective secondary pitches.

Tillman may prove the point. He had some good years but he came into camp out of shape in 2015 and I am convinced that was the beginning of the end for him. Was terrible from start to finish that year and was never the same.

I thought Akin's 2018 was so disappointing that he was going to drop further than 12.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Posts

    • The same thing was happening was MacDonald was the DC and when Wink was the DC, that makes me put most of the blame on Harbaugh 
    • dWAR is just the run value for defense added with the defensive adjustment.  Corner OF spots have a -7.5 run adjustment, while CF has a +2.5 adjustment over 150 games.    Since Cowser played both CF and the corners they pro-rate his time at each to calculate his defensive adjustment. 
    • Just to be clear, though, fWAR also includes a substantial adjustment for position, including a negative one for Cowser.  For a clearer example on that front, as the chart posted higher on this page indicates, Carlos Santana had a +14 OAA — which is the source data that fWAR’s defensive component is based on. That 14 outs above average equates to 11-12 (they use different values on this for some reason) runs better than the average 1B.  So does Santana have a 12.0 defensive value, per fWAR? He does not. That’s because they adjust his defensive value downward to reflect that he’s playing a less difficult/valuable position. In this case, that adjustment comes out to -11.0 runs, as you can see here:   So despite apparently having a bona fide Gold Glove season, Santana’s Fielding Runs value (FanGraphs’ equivalent to dWAR) is barely above average, at 1.1 runs.    Any good WAR calculation is going to adjust for position. Being a good 1B just isn’t worth as much as being an average SS or catcher. Just as being a good LF isn’t worth as much as being an average CF. Every outfielder can play LF — only the best outfielders can play CF.  Where the nuance/context shows up here is with Cowser’s unique situation. Playing LF in OPACY, with all that ground to cover, is not the same as playing LF at Fenway or Yankee Stadium. Treating Cowser’s “position” as equivalent to Tyler O’Neill’s, for example, is not fair. The degree of difficulty is much, much higher at OPACY’s LF, and so the adjustment seems out of whack for him. That’s the one place where I’d say the bWAR value is “unfair” to Cowser.
    • Wait a second here, the reason he's -0.1 in bb-ref dwar is because they're using drs to track his defensive run value.  He's worth 6.6 runs in defense according to fangraphs, which includes adjustments for position, which would give him a fangraphs defensive war of +0.7.
    • A little funny to have provided descriptions of the hits (“weak” single; “500 foot” HR). FIP doesn’t care about any of that either, so it’s kind of an odd thing to add in an effort to make ERA look bad.  Come in, strike out the first hitter, then give up three 108 MPH rocket doubles off the wall. FIP thinks you were absolutely outstanding, and it’s a shame your pathetic defense and/or sheer bad luck let you down. Next time you’ll (probably) get the outcomes you deserve. They’re both flawed. So is xFIP. So is SIERA. So is RA/9. So is WPA. So is xERA. None of them are perfect measures of how a pitcher’s actual performance was, because there’s way too much context and too many variables for any one metric to really encompass.  But when I’m thinking about awards, for me at least, it ends up having to be about the actual outcomes. I don’t really care what a hitter’s xWOBA is when I’m thinking about MVP, and the same is true for pitchers. Did you get the outs? Did the runs score? That’s the “value” that translates to the scoreboard and, ultimately, to the standings. So I think the B-R side of it is more sensible for awards.  I definitely take into account the types of factors that you (and other pitching fWAR advocates) reference as flaws. So if a guy plays in front of a particular bad defense or had a particularly high percentage of inherited runners score, I’d absolutely adjust my take to incorporate that info. And I also 100% go to Fangraphs first when I’m trying to figure out which pitchers we should acquire (i.e., for forward looking purposes).  But I just can’t bring myself say that my Cy Young is just whichever guy had the best ratio of Ks to BBs to HRs over a threshold number of innings. As @Frobby said, it just distills out too much of what actually happened.
    • We were all a lot younger in 2005.  No one wanted to believe Canseco cause he’s a smarmy guy. Like I said, he was the only one telling the truth. It wasn’t a leap of faith to see McGwire up there and Sosa up there and think “yeah, those guys were juicing” but then suddenly look at Raffy and think he was completely innocent.  It’s a sad story. The guy should be in Hall of Fame yet 500 homers and 3,000 hits are gone like a fart in the wind cause his legacy is wagging his finger and thinking he couldn’t get caught.  Don’t fly too close to the sun.  
    • I think if we get the fun sprinkler loving Gunnar that was in the dugout yesterday, I don’t think we have to worry about him pressing. He seemed loose and feeling good with the other guys he was with, like Kremer.
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...