Jud Fabian 2023

[RZNJ]

8 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

What his averages tell me is that if my young hitter was considering UCF under that coaching staff, I'd tell him to consider elsewhere. Watching Fabian hit in the pros makes me wonder how he ever could have hit that poorly against college pitching.

I’m not disagreeing but Wyatt Langford is going to be a top 3 or top 5 pick this year so I don’t think they’re going to have any problem recruiting hitters in the short term.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

I’m not disagreeing but Wyatt Langford is going to be a top 3 or top 5 pick this year so I don’t think they’re going to have any problem recruiting hitters in the short term.

Florida is never really going to have a hard time recruiting baseball players because it's a premier program on a premier conference on a great campus with great weather. I'm just saying I would have some issues as a parent of a young hitter going there unless I was assured my young hitter was not going to be changed to some ultra aggressive philosophy that could hurt his professional standing at some point. 

One thing to remember here is that most kids that go to Florida and other big-time programs are not going to be professional prospects anyways, so it really doesn't matter to most. For some ultra talented players like Langford, coaching philosophy's won't matter anyways.  

Either way, the key here is the Orioles scouting process and scouts were able to see through Fabian's flaws in college and so far they've been rewarded with a very nice outfield prospect.

Fabian is the first guy with sub-par college offensive stats who the Orioles took high in the draft and has been able to be adjusted into a good pro. The real test is coming up though at AA and AAA, so before anyone starts running victory laps (not saying your are), he has big hoops to get through still.

[Alasdaire]

Quoting Tony from the thread on Coby Mayo:

7 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Henderson would have been the number one overall pick last year had he gone to college and improved like he did with the Orioles. So it's not really that far off to suggest that the Orioles have drafted two potential number one overall pick out of high school in Henderson (2nd round overslot ($2.3 mil), and Mayo 5th rd overslot ($1.7). So basically for $4 million they got two more 1:1 caliber guys.

Pretty, pretty good if you ask me.

A slight variation of this idea is Fabian declaring out of high school and the O's getting him somewhere.

Jud was class of 2019 like Gunnar, and Perfect Game had Jud ranked 13th in that class and Gunnar 16th. Fabian got top-10 draft buzz early in his career in Florida, but that fizzled as Florida apparently botched his development.

What if the O's had been able to snag him that young and develop his raw talent like they did with Gunnar and Coby? Does he emerge by this point in time as another 1:1 caliber guy? He'll have to keep proving it, but fun to marvel at the combination of potential and ability to reach that potential this system has.

[Tony-OH]

Just now, Alasdaire said:

Quoting Tony from the thread on Coby Mayo:

A slight variation of this idea is Fabian declaring out of high school and the O's getting him somewhere.

Jud was class of 2019 like Gunnar, and Perfect Game had Jud ranked 13th in that class and Gunnar 16th. Fabian got top-10 draft buzz early in his career in Florida, but that fizzled as Florida apparently botched his development.

What if the O's had been able to snag him that young and develop his raw talent like they did with Gunnar and Coby? Does he emerge by this point in time as another 1:1 caliber guy? He'll have to keep proving it, but fun to marvel at the combination of potential and ability to reach that potential this system has.

Interesting thought. He certainly has the tools and you wonder with the extra PAs and advanced hitting development would he be further along then just getting to Double-A by now? With development he's done in such a short amount of time in the system, you have to imagine the answer is yes. 

Now would he be a 1:1 talent-level talent like Henderson and now Mayo has become? Who knows, but it's an interesting thought for sure and something young players need to determine when they make that tough decision to go to college or the pros out of high school.

For every Henderson that develops there's probably 10 kids who weren't ready, struggled, then got buried under the pressure of playing everyday in professional baseball all while knowing every year a new draft comes and they have more internal competition for PAs, especially if you are not a bonus baby. 

[Alasdaire]

3 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Interesting thought. He certainly has the tools and you wonder with the extra PAs and advanced hitting development would he be further along then just getting to Double-A by now? With development he's done in such a short amount of time in the system, you have to imagine the answer is yes. 

Now would he be a 1:1 talent-level talent like Henderson and now Mayo has become? Who knows, but it's an interesting thought for sure and something young players need to determine when they make that tough decision to go to college or the pros out of high school.

For every Henderson that develops there's probably 10 kids who weren't ready, struggled, then got buried under the pressure of playing everyday in professional baseball all while knowing every year a new draft comes and they have more internal competition for PAs, especially if you are not a bonus baby. 

Excellent final point. There are probably a couple dozen high schools kids every year with the type of talent that Gunnar/Fabian/Mayo have. But realizing their ceiling takes a combination of not just ability and development but also character/work ethic/coachability.

I think it was Kyle Gibson who said during a recent interview that he was impressed by how polished all of the young guys coming up were. That he was struck by how mature and focused they were. That's partly a platitude, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's a point of emphasis with the front office with scouting players.

I know it is for the Ravens. Since the Ray Rice incident, they have crossed off anyone with character issues. Sometimes they pass on the most talented player (eg Tunsil vs Stanley), but it turns out well for them overall because the guys they take then take advantage of the infrastructure the Ravens have and become their best selves. Well, other than wide receiver

The Athletic piece on Fabian from last year where they got into how he took his strikeout issues into his own hands made me feel feel like he had the character/work ethic to make the most of his ability.

[Paul in Virginia]

 

 

[LTO's]

14 hours ago, Paul in Virginia said:

 

 

I remember Keith Law saying Fabian was undraftable for him because he "can't hit a breaking ball." 

[Brooks The Great]

1 hour ago, LTO's said:

I remember Keith Law saying Fabian was undraftable for him because he "can't hit a breaking ball." 

I'm too lazy to look it up because I think Law is a tool, but didn't Law also have Cowser ranked super low to start this season?

[OriolesMagic83]

2 hours ago, Brooks The Great said:

I'm too lazy to look it up because I think Law is a tool, but didn't Law also have Cowser ranked super low to start this season?

I thought didn't even have him ranked.

[Brooks The Great]

41 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I thought didn't even have him ranked.

That might be what I'm remembering. Didn't Longenhagen at Fangraphs have Cowser ranked after 100 prior to the season? I want to say 103 or lower. Big whiff by him if so. I get that a lot of these guys have to make a stand to validate their rankings, but I remember thinking to myself that Longenhagen's credibility would be damaged by missing that badly on Cowser. Law is just a contrarian clown, but in the end not all that much different from a lot of the other prospect sites.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Brooks The Great

[deward]

10 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

That might be what I'm remembering. Didn't Longenhagen at Fangraphs have Cowser ranked after 100 prior to the season? I want to say 103 or lower. Big whiff by him if so. I get that a lot of these guys have to make a stand to validate their rankings, but I remember thinking to myself that Longenhagen's credibility would be damaged by missing that badly on Cowser. Law is just a contrarian clown, but in the end not all that much different from a lot of the other prospect sites.

Law and Longenhagen both concluded that Cowser's swing and miss and vs lefties issues last year meant he was a tweener - wasn't going to hit enough for an OF corner and wasn't going to stick in CF defensively. They were projecting him as a future platoon guy. Fortunately, Cowser seems to have corrected those issues. I haven't seen if either guy has updated their ranking.

[Brooks The Great]

Just now, deward said:

Law and Longenhagen both concluded that Cowser's swing and miss and vs lefties issues last year meant he was a tweener - wasn't going to hit enough for an OF corner and wasn't going to stick in CF defensively. They were projecting him as a future platoon guy. Fortunately, Cowser seems to have corrected those issues. I haven't seen if either guy has updated their ranking.

I understand their reasoning, but they were wrong, and it was a gamble by them to go against industry consensus and doubt a guy with Cowser's elite discipline skills to not improve whatsoever on his splits. Cowser may still have issues against lefties in the majors, but ranking him so low was a big miss by those guys.

[deward]

18 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

I understand their reasoning, but they were wrong, and it was a gamble by them to go against industry consensus and doubt a guy with Cowser's elite discipline skills to not improve whatsoever on his splits. Cowser may still have issues against lefties in the majors, but ranking him so low was a big miss by those guys.

Oh, I don't disagree, I was just laying out their thought process as I recalled it. I thought they were both too low at the time and were both placing way too much emphasis on Cowser's initial struggles at AAA (I remember that one of the complaints was him struggling with AAA off-speed pitches). 

[btdart20]

39 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

I remember thinking to myself that Longenhagen's credibility would be damaged by missing that badly on Cowser.

People get stuff wrong all the time.  Especially with prospects.  Longenhagen is still good at what he does.  Tony pointed to LHP struggles as a ding against Cowser with a potential strong-side platoon ceiling.  That was fair last year.  Cowser has answered those concerns as much as he can this year.

[Sports Guy]

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