Yea I feel like their draft approach has been to pick guys with tools at the college level who are still raw but have shown some success at a higher level because they think that reduces the risk, but they seem to bomb out anyway. I feel like Ryan Clifford may be less toolsy but has a solid approach already for a young guy so I have a good feeling about him. Same with Barber, but he just has to stay healthy
Tyler Brown had a strong finish to his season in AA. I'm interested in seeing how he does next year. Does he start in AAA?
It's *a* strategy. When the club takes tools >> hit college players, it puts the club in a weird spot. The clubs knows it wants to re-tool the player's swing/swing decisions. If the player goes to his first full season ball and does reasonably well, he asks himself "why do I need to re-tool my swing". If he does bad, his low-risk profile evaporates. It's a lot of pressure on the hitting development team. Though, most of their other non- top15 college hitters haven't done great either (Beer, Reed, Kessinger). They seem to do better with HS hitters who get a longer development tract. (Not unlike the pitching side and IFA pitchers)
The AA season has ended and it looks like 3B Joe Perez has been called up to AAA to finish the year. This is likely just because he’s on the 40 man roster but his ops was over 800 in AA since 8/1 so he had a strong finish to their season. Would be great if he could get some time over the next 2 weeks and start next season as a big time breakout candidate in AAA.
Pedro Leon has about a full seasons worth of ab in his milb career and he’s posted 26 HR with 56 SB. I think he compares favorably with Adolis Garcia who has been a solid (yet strikeout prone) everyday OF. In his last season in AAA at age 26, Garcia put up 4% bb and 30% k, with a .265 ISO. This season as a 24 year old, Leon put up a 14% bb, 28% k, and .215 ISO. I think when you consider this was Leon’s 2nd season since a multi-year layoff and that he was promoted fairly quickly, he still has a chance for significant improvement and has a superstar ceiling. But even if he doesn’t improve much I think an outcome like Garcia’s is a lower-median one for Leon.
I'm hoping they scrap the IF experiment and let him focus on CF full-time this winter and next season.
That’s another factor that might’ve limited his offensive progress. Even if they keep giving him time in the infield, it should become less of a burden/distraction for him since he’ll be more experienced doing it.
I thought at some point midseason that I heard they gave up on Leon in the IF because he was struggling with arm angles. Granted, this could have just been SS.
Just looked it up: he played 19 games at 2B and only 3 at SS. That's 180+ innings that he should have spent in the OF. He started 3 of his 15 September games at 2B.
It's just time for it to stop. He can play all 3 OF positions, that's all the versatility you need out of him. He just needs the reps to play them better, especially CF where he's long on tools but apparently short on technique.
I blame Click. He moved up Dirden. Trading Brinson and Siri opened up more of the OF, but then Click doubled down and put Meyers in AAA. With Storey telling Dirden, Julks to play in the OF sometimes, someone has to sit or play in the IF.
They’ve given up on Leon as a SS, but not as an infielder as a whole. He got significant action at 2B this year. The high K rate is still concerning, though. He had a good month of July with a low K rate, but then, back to his usual rate in August and September.
As much power and defensive value as he has, and as high as his walk rate has been, he can probably be a 35% k rate guy in the majors and still be an everyday player. But I’m still hopeful there’s potential for a big step forward for him in that area.
I don't blame a guy that gets hurt while playing the game hard, but not stupid. While some of my blame Click is in jest, it is up to him to get players playing time to develop, and he needs to be able to adjust to having injured players.
