How many players do you judge based on their first 175 plate appearances? Disagree that he’s not a good defender. Definitely needs to improve route running, but he is far from a defensive liability.
How about you give me one example of a player coming off his first season in MLB with more than 200 PA that hit BA .263, OBP .351, OPS .743, OPS+ 108, and was DFA’d in the following offseason.
You’re conveniently ignoring the question I posed that you could answer to give legitimacy to your argument. Give me an example of a player like Kemp who was traded for a meaningful return. Otherwise you’re doing the message board equivalent of a 3 year old plugging his ears and repeating himself. To answer your question, I judge players on thresholds. At 50 PA you can usually tell if a hitter is completely overmatched or not, but other than that you can’t draw any conclusions. At 200 PA you usually have a pretty good idea of what a guy can do, especially if they’re older than 25. At 600 PA, the book is almost always written, and any significant changes would be a surprise. And to be safe I usually reserve absolute final judgement until a guy gets a full full season in the majors with at least 400 PA in a single season. So I don’t fully judge a player based on their first 175 PA, but I do think it’s useful evidence, and I think the only reason to ignore those PA would be to support a bias.
You are asking for me to find a needle in a haystack. If you think the opposite is easy to proof, go for it. Find the Tony Kemp type player coming off BA .263, OBP .351, OPS .743, OPS+ 108 that was DFA’d.
If finding a player like Kemp who was traded for value is as hard as finding a needle in a haystack, don’t you think that says something about his trade value????? I gave you 5 players with career offensive profiles extremely similar to Kemp’s who have been DFA in the last year. It took me 5 minutes to put together. I’m not doing any additional legwork to disprove your silliness that you’ve stubbornly dug in on.
Hmmm—maybe the Gerrit Cole trade is evidence. 4 ‘mediocre’ Kemp like players for SP1 Cole. The key to that return was upside.
You didn’t even bother to examine your 5 players. I took 30 seconds to look at Blanco and see that he hasn’t been relevant in 3 years. No way he was DFA’d when he had an OPS+ over 100.
Blanco hasn’t been relevant in 3 years, just like Kemp has NEVER been relevant. Take a player like Justin Bour. He’s been a FAR superior player to Kemp in every way. He was non-tendered coming off a 107 wRC+ season with a 119 career wRC+. He clearly had zero trade value and his absolute value was clearly established when he signed a 1 year $2.5M deal with the Angels. It is impossible to make an argument that Kemp is more valuable than Bour.
Comparing Kemp to Moran, Musgrove, Feliz, and Martin is laughable. All of those players were much younger, much more highly thought of by scouts, and featured infinitely more upside. You’re reaching, homes. Please let it go.
Bour falls into the categories with Gattis and Chris Carter. He can only DH, and that inconsistently. He hit .226 last year. Kemp isn’t a Bour-type player.
Yeah you’re right. Kemp is more like Colin Moran. Or Joe Musgrove! Or Kyle Tucker! Kemp for Realmuto!
The difference in our opinions is in Kemp’s upside. You discount what he djd at the plate in 2018. I do not.
I don’t know what you mean by “better”. Do I think I’m smarter than you or a better overall person? Hell no, I don’t know anything about you, and I don’t think much of myself. Do I think I’ve made a stronger point than you regarding Tony Kemp’s value? Yes. Do I think you know that, but rather than admit it or ignore it, you have continually made things worse by making more and more ludicrous claims? Hell yes.
Stick with the stats. Either u think what Tony did in 18 was a fluke or you don’t. That’s what separates us. If you think 18 was legit, no way he’s DFA’d. If you assume it was a fluke, I can see your point.
Nope. I think what he did in 2018 represents 295/470 of the big league sample size we have to draw from. So I’m not ignoring it or think it’s a fluke. But I am also not ignoring his minor league track record, his scouting profile, or his first 175 big league PA. I also looked at what the outcomes have been for players with profiles similar to his. And in total, all that evidence points to him being a AAAA player, the type who is DFA or traded for peanuts.
Kemp had a minors career OPS of .810. I don’t know which stats you are using, but .810 shows room for growth, not regression.
One thing you guys haven't focused on in your "debate," is that Kemp has five more years of team control. This will be worth a lot to Luhnow/Crane, as we all know those guys count pennies. Wouldn't be surprised if one guy is DFA'd, it would be Marisnick, who only has two years of team control left and is already much more expensive than Kemp. Yes, Marisnick is an elite outfielder, but there are plenty of Marisnick's around the league that the Astros could pick up if they feel they need a defensive specialist. At the end of the day, I see Kemp or Marisnick, along with Reddick, being traded soon in order to clear a place for Tucker.
No it doesn’t. Minor league stats don’t typically translate directly to the majors, especially for 5’5”, 160 lb LF who were old for almost every level they played at in the minors. Kemp projects for a wRC+ of 98, fWAR of 0.5 over 70 games. Not a terrible player. But the definitely of a 5th OF and the type of guy who gets DFA or traded for peanuts.
