#13 2020 Prospect: Terrin Vavra - 2B/UTL

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, hoosiers said:

I will plant the Adam Hall flag here - probably on my own island - well as a comp to Vavra - not necessarily at 13.

Both Hall and Vavra played in the South Atlantic League last year. 

Vavra had extreme home away splits and by extreme I mean Home 400/484/640/1124 and AWAY 224/320/316/636.

Hall's overall numbers trail Vavra due to that extreme split, but in (IMO) the most legitimate comp between the two - Hall outhit Vavra on the road with a respectable 291/360/369/729.  League average numbers for the South Atlantic League last year were 239/316/362/677 which Vavra's road numbers trail.  Vavra's road numbers also trailed those of the promoted 2019 draft picks Johnny Rizer and Toby Welk in the Sally League in 2019 - prospects I don't think we will see anywhere near here.

As Tony mentioned, included in Vavra's numbers are superior BB/K numbers which were 62/62 in 2019 with similar home/away splits.  Hall did walk in about 9% of his PAs, but struck out much more often in 117 times - nearly a quarter of his PAs.

I believe Hall has a better middle infield defensive profile with a chance, albeit a low one, to stick at SS but capable of playing a competent major league 2B IMO.  

A final important factor to me is that Hall is two years younger than Vavra and played about one year younger than the Sally League average in 2019 while Vavra was a year older than league average.

Tony has the inside word here and the Os had to like something in Vavra to take him in trade so I will prepare in advance to eat future crow when I say I prefer Hall to Vavra.

I think Hall is a similar prospect as Vavra overall and maybe with a minor league season this year he would be ahead of him. There is just a lot of unknowns with the new guys including guys like Vavra that came over in trade.  I have concerns over the K rate of Hall with such a little amount of power.

Hall slashed a pedestrian .286/.374/.392/.766 against right handers with a 95-32 K-BB ratio in 412 PAs in 2019. Vavra slashed .340/.429/.526/.955 with a 44-50 K-BB ratio in 352 PAs against righties in 2019. Vavra might be a platoon guy since he didn't hit lefties well, but most pitchers are still right-handed so I think Vavra gets the nod from me for now because I think the bat may play a little better at the upper levels.
 

Either way, they both are most likely 45 players in my mind but both have time to improve. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

9 hours ago, ChosenOne21 said:

I doubt you can find many farm systems in MLB whose 13th prospect's likely outcome is MLB regular

 

9 hours ago, Philip said:

That’s what I was wondering. A while ago, I checked about a dozen farm systems to see where the final 50 FV player was.  I don’t remember where the Orioles were exactly,  high single digits like eight or nine or something, and I do remember that compared well with the other systems I checked.

To be fair, I think “bat-first super utility player” is a little different than a traditional utility player we think of who is traditionally a defensive fill in for the left side of the IF (and 2B). At least as far as outcomes and value go. 

[Philip]

1 hour ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

 

To be fair, I think “bat-first super utility player” is a little different than a traditional utility player we think of who is traditionally a defensive fill in for the left side of the IF (and 2B). At least as far as outcomes and value go. 

I think of Ryan Flaherty. He wasn’t “a poor man’s Ben Zobrist” because Zobrist was a really versatile starter. But Flaherty was valuable everywhere even though he didn’t hit very well.

a utility guy needs to defend, if Vabra can’t, I don’t see a place for him, unless he’s BLAZING with the bat and that’s not the case atm.

[BohKnowsBmore]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

I think of Ryan Flaherty. He wasn’t “a poor man’s Ben Zobrist” because Zobrist was a really versatile starter. But Flaherty was valuable everywhere even though he didn’t hit very well.

a utility guy needs to defend, if Vabra can’t, I don’t see a place for him, unless he’s BLAZING with the bat and that’s not the case atm.

What constitutes blazing? .400 OBP AND ~.900 OPS each of the last two years is pretty good. 

[Philip]

11 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

What constitutes blazing? .400 OBP AND ~.900 OPS each of the last two years is pretty good. 

Yeah...in the minors.

I don’t know anything about the guy, but if his defense is bad, he’s not really a utility guy, because utility guys by definition are glove-good at multiple positions. If he hits really well, he’s a 1B/DH type, and if he doesn’t hit well, he’s nothing. I just checked his stats at BBR and his D at both positions is poor.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Philip

[Tony-OH]

9 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Does anyone know where to get minor league team home and away splits?  A quick perusal of Ashville hitters 2019 splits only reinforced the idea that Vavra 's 2019 numbers were possibly inflated due to a favorable home park.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=vavra-000ter&type=bgl&year=2019

Those splits are a bit of a concern as well. I'm more concerned over the platoon splits, but it would have been nice to have seen Vavra hit this year at High-A to see if those splits changed. 

[LookinUp]

36 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

It seemed that his teammates had significantly better home splits as well.  A tad bit concerning. 

Agreed. I do get the feeling that Elias' targeting of players is with a little more specific projection/opinion of what we can do for the player in mind than our org has had in the past. I'm sure we've always thought we can "help" an acquired player get to the next level, but this development team probably has a little better plan for doing so and thus a better shot at actually accomplishing that than our previous regimes over, say, the last 40-50 years.

[Frobby]

11 hours ago, Philip said:

Yeah...in the minors.

I don’t know anything about the guy, but if his defense is bad, he’s not really a utility guy, because utility guys by definition are glove-good at multiple positions. If he hits really well, he’s a 1B/DH type, and if he doesn’t hit well, he’s nothing. I just checked his stats at BBR and his D at both positions is poor.

Only if you choose to define them that way.   Take a guy like Brad Miller.   He’s had an 8-year career mostly as a utility guy  and has played 7 positions.    He’s a poor fielder and yet keeps finding work because he can hit a little.   

[BohKnowsBmore]

11 hours ago, Philip said:

Yeah...in the minors.

I don’t know anything about the guy, but if his defense is bad, he’s not really a utility guy, because utility guys by definition are glove-good at multiple positions. If he hits really well, he’s a 1B/DH type, and if he doesn’t hit well, he’s nothing. I just checked his stats at BBR and his D at both positions is poor.

By definition none of our prospects will have done or shown anything in the majors (or very little if they have). He’s shown a good lefty bat which gives him some value as a super utility guy potentially, a designation you lamented. Seems like a bit of a tautological criticism to say “well it’s just the minors.”

[Philip]

2 hours ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

By definition none of our prospects will have done or shown anything in the majors (or very little if they have). He’s shown a good lefty bat which gives him some value as a super utility guy potentially, a designation you lamented. Seems like a bit of a tautological criticism to say “well it’s just the minors.”

Defense gets harder as one progresses through the minors because Exit velocity increases with more advanced hitters. So it is possible for defense to decline a bit. But I’m not sure that mediocre defense regularly improves during the journey through the minors. It is not wrong to point out that Vavra has not shown impressive defense in the minors, nor am I blowing anything out of proportion. And I certainly haven’t said,” it’s just the minors,” because defense is defense. Fumbling a ball in AAA is no different than booting one in the bigs. If miller is an example of a good hit bad glove utility guy, we might find that he is an exception to the rule. Certainly he would be as an Oriole. To qualify hitting by saying “it’s the minors” is entirely valid. On what planet do you think AA pitching is like ML pitching?
i wasn’t lamenting anything. I was just surprised that our 13th prospect didn’t have a higher likely outcome.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Philip

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

I was just surprised that our 13th prospect didn’t have a higher likely outcome.

It was 2nd division starter or utility guy, right? And with a 50 ceiling. That's a ML player who, best case, is a good starter on a good team or likely is still a guy with some value to a ML team. Especially if he can hold his own in the outfield. My take here is that:

1) Tony's understandably being conservative in general on this list because he hasn't seen a lot of these guys for a full year.
2) He's going by what he's heard.
3) There are guys lower on this list that are a bit farther away but who have higher potential.
4) Vavra, based on Tony and rankings from other sites with some credibility, has some potential to be a real contributor to the ML team within 2 years.

I actually think Tony's grade is pretty accurate based on the feedback, but whether he should be ranked over Baumler, Mayo, Rom, Smith, Hall, Wells, Bradish, Stowers, Hernaiz, Haskin and others is up for debate and, ultimately, not really important. Heck, at least one site has him at 7. They must think he's decent.

All those guys have risk and they all have had a big layoff from baseball, or at least from being seen. Vavra got put here because he's closer, he has produced on the field, and thus has somewhat lower risk, is my guess.

[Frobby]

On 10/20/2020 at 12:12 PM, Philip said:

That’s what I was wondering. A while ago, I checked about a dozen farm systems to see where the final 50 FV player was.  I don’t remember where the Orioles were exactly,  high single digits like eight or nine or something, and I do remember that compared well with the other systems I checked.

I think generally people tend to overestimate the number of players that a good farm system typically produces over a given period of time.   Let’s define a 50 as a guy who produces 10 WAR in the 6+ years he’s under team control.    In 2013, 200+ players debuted, but only 33 met that standard.    So basically, an average of one per team per year.   

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think generally people tend to overestimate the number of players that a good farm system typically produces over a given period of time.   Let’s define a 50 as a guy who produces 10 WAR in the 6+ years he’s under team control.    In 2013, 200+ players debuted, but only 33 met that standard.    So basically, an average of one per team per year.   

Yep, same thing when folks call a mid to late first round pick a bust because they are merely a ML player and not a really good ML player.

[BohKnowsBmore]

6 hours ago, Philip said:

Defense gets harder as one progresses through the minors because Exit velocity increases with more advanced hitters. So it is possible for defense to decline a bit. But I’m not sure that mediocre defense regularly improves during the journey through the minors. It is not wrong to point out that Vavra has not shown impressive defense in the minors, nor am I blowing anything out of proportion. And I certainly haven’t said,” it’s just the minors,” because defense is defense. Fumbling a ball in AAA is no different than booting one in the bigs. If miller is an example of a good hit bad glove utility guy, we might find that he is an exception to the rule. Certainly he would be as an Oriole. To qualify hitting by saying “it’s the minors” is entirely valid. On what planet do you think AA pitching is like ML pitching?
i wasn’t lamenting anything. I was just surprised that our 13th prospect didn’t have a higher likely outcome.

Ok, I didn’t say you did. Was talking about offense.
 

- You said lack of defense only works if he has a strong bat.
- I asked you to define strong bat because he’s shown .400+ OBP and .900+ OPS in each of the last two seasons. 
- you replied that it’s only been shown in the minors, which could be said of most guys on this list (or any team’s farm), so it doesn’t really mean much as a rebuttal. 

[Philip]

19 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

Ok, I didn’t say you did. Was talking about offense.
 

- You said lack of defense only works if he has a strong bat.
- I asked you to define strong bat because he’s shown .400+ OBP and .900+ OPS in each of the last two seasons. 
- you replied that it’s only been shown in the minors, which could be said of most guys on this list (or any team’s farm), so it doesn’t really mean much as a rebuttal. 

Oh, yes that’s a valid point. I should have said it remains to be seen. His offense in the minors has been good but lots of guys hit well in the minors without that success translating into the bigs. Yes that kind of goes without saying, but defense is defense regardless of level.