What do you expect from Ryan Mountcastle in 2021?

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

As I showed in his scouting report for this year, he has a hole down and away, and although he will chase at times, he showed a decent ability to lay off pitches in his hole. The key though to Mountcastle is he basically murders everything in the zone, especially inside where his quick bat speed gets the head of the bat to the ball effectively.

I think he's a guy who may be a bit streaky at times, but who will absolutely carry a teams at times when he's hot. Though of who have always pointed to his poor K-BB ratio as reasons why he will struggle in the major leagues always forgot to mention how high a batting average he held throughout his career at every level. 

That was his ability to mash pitches in the zone and also showed his elite plate coverage. If he finds a way to hit balls effectively low and away he's going to be an impact hitter for years to come, and even if that remains a hole, pitchers will need to be able to effectively hit that hole because when they don't, they are in for a world of hurt.

Mountcastle is an elite bat that will be in the middle of the Orioles offense for a long time.

When you say an elite hitter, how are you defining that?  To me, to be an elite hitter he needs to have a slash line of at least 300/375/500.

Do you think he can do that or are you defining elite differently than I am?  (Which is fine, just trying to figure out your personal baseline here)

[Tony-OH]

29 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

When you say an elite hitter, how are you defining that?  To me, to be an elite hitter he needs to have a slash line of at least 300/375/500.

Do you think he can do that or are you defining elite differently than I am?  (Which is fine, just trying to figure out your personal baseline here)

I think he can be that kind of hitter when it's all said and done but I'm not sure his OBP will be that high. I think he will be better than Mancini overall. Mountcastle is a special kind of hitter who may not be perfect, but has a unique ability to get base hits in an and out of the zone while also hitting for power.

Last year Mountcastle got very unlucky with pitches in the middle of the plate where he put up a zone worse .193 WOBA despite putting up a 95.6 exit velocity. I believe that will improve.

His power numbers will improve if he learns to lift low pitches more often or starts going with outside pitches more. He hits a lot of hard grounders on low pitches which ends up with a lot of singles and is why his average is so high.

For a rookie, he showed only one real weakness with a hole low and away and limited the damage there by laying off that pitch at times. To me, he'll be the best hitter on the 40-man roster and may only be second to a healthy Mancini right now. 

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

4 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

The thing that gives me hope is that he walked at a better rate than I expected him to when he got to Baltimore.  There still should be some room for improvement.

I'd be happy with a 40 point separation between his batting average and on base percentage.  Anything over that would be a nice surprise.

 

 

A .290/.330 split would be great for his first full season. There have been plenty of good baseball players who didn’t have a good walk rate for their career. 

I’m not saying Mountcastle will be on Kirby Puckett or Andre Dawson’s level, but you can have a good MLB career without walking much.

I’ll take a hitter that’s a bit too aggressive at the plate over a Chris Davis type who continually stares at middle of the plate strikes. 

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

A .290/.330 split would be great for his first full season. There have been plenty of good baseball players who didn’t have a good walk rate for their career. 

I’m not saying Mountcastle will be on Kirby Puckett or Andre Dawson’s level, but you can have a good MLB career without walking much.

I’ll take a hitter that’s a bit too aggressive at the plate over a Chris Davis type who continually stares at middle of the plate strikes. 

Puckett's on base percentage was .360.  If Mountcastle could do that, I'd be thrilled.  I think we all would be happy with that.

 

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Puckett's on base percentage was .360.  If Mountcastle could do that, I'd be thrilled.  I think we all would be happy with that.

 

Unless his defense in left is slightly below average in which case one person won't be.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

Puckett's on base percentage was .360.  If Mountcastle could do that, I'd be thrilled.  I think we all would be happy with that.

 

Puckett had a career .318 batting average and got a major boost playing in the Metrodome, where he hit .344 at home for his career. 

That's probably not possible playing at OPACY, but round that down to .290/.330 and I'll take it. And Mountcastle might improve his walk rate and increase his batting average & OBP splits. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=puckeki01&year=Career&t=b

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Puckett had a career .318 batting average and got a major boost playing in the Metrodome, where he hit .344 at home for his career. 

That's probably not possible playing at OPACY, but round that down to .290/.330 and I'll take it. And Mountcastle might improve his walk rate and increase his batting average & OBP splits. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=puckeki01&year=Career&t=b

I think Mountcastle's walk rate should improve, too.  

[wildcard]

I expect Mountcastle will be a really good hitter and an average first baseman defensively.  I expect him to play few games in left field because Hays, Mullins, Santander and Diaz are all better defensive outfielders than Mountcastle.  I expect Mountcastle will play some at DH.

[jabba72]

Interestingly, Kirby Puckett #3 and Robby Thompson at #52 were the only two picks outs of the top 52 to ever become regulars in the 1982 draft. Only 5 other picks in the top two rounds even played in the majors.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?draft_round=1&year_ID=1982&draft_type=janreg&query_type=year_round

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Puckett's on base percentage was .360.  If Mountcastle could do that, I'd be thrilled.  I think we all would be happy with that.

 

To do that, Puckett carried a BA of .318.     How many active players with at least 1000 career PA have a BA that high?    One - Jeff MacNeill, who barely crosses the 1000 PA threshold at 1024.    There are only 10 active players over .300.     So, I’m not really expecting that from Mountcastle.   There are 28 players over .290, so that’s a bit more doable, though not easy.   

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, Frobby said:

To do that, Puckett carried a BA of .318.     How many active players with at least 1000 career PA have a BA that high?    One - Jeff MacNeill, who barely crosses the 1000 PA threshold at 1024.    There are only 10 active players over .300.     So, I’m not really expecting that from Mountcastle.   There are 28 players over .290, so that’s a bit more doable, though not easy.   

I get that, and I'm not expecting Mountcastle to hit .300.  I'm just saying, if he could somehow get his OBP to .360, that'd be pretty awesome.  Better if it's not propped up by batting average.

[Frobby]

FWIW, Steamer projects Mountcastle at .276/.321/.475 with 26 homers, 84 RBI in 138 games.    That wouldn’t be too bad.   

BB-ref (which uses Marcel, I think) projects him at .283/.356/.463.   That BA/OBP spread strikes me as highly improbable.   
 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

51 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

Interestingly, Kirby Puckett #3 and Robby Thompson at #52 were the only two picks outs of the top 52 to ever become regulars in the 1982 draft. Only 5 other picks in the top two rounds even played in the majors.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?draft_round=1&year_ID=1982&draft_type=janreg&query_type=year_round

Interesting, I never knew Puckett was the third overall pick in the draft. For some reason I thought he was a middle round pick. Only three other players even made MLB from the first round in 1982 and they had a combined career WAR of -0.6.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?year_ID=1982&draft_round=1&draft_type=janreg&query_type=year_round&from_type_jc=0&from_type_hs=0&from_type_4y=0&from_type_unk=0

[DirtyBird]

Dongs

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

FWIW, Steamer projects Mountcastle at .276/.321/.475 with 26 homers, 84 RBI in 138 games.    That wouldn’t be too bad.   

BB-ref (which uses Marcel, I think) projects him at .283/.356/.463.   That BA/OBP spread strikes me as highly improbable.   
 

I'll take the Steamer projection on Mouncastle and be more than happy.