What are the rookies gonna be ??

[*bengalfan74*]

In the big picture down the road? For the most part it's still too early to say for sure, especially with CES and Marte. And like we talked about in a thread a couple months ago quite often rookies have a tiny bit of an advantage at the plate early on. Opposing pitchers and teams just don't have a great hold on their weakness at the plate yet, however:

McClain - age 24 seems to be pretty steady at the plate. Confident, not easily shaken and so on. He's batting .293 with 351 at bats so he's well past flash in the pan range. I feel pretty confident he's gonna be a solid piece going forward.

Steer - age 25 batting .271 with 458 at bats posting 18 HR's and 70 RBI's. Has decent speed and has been an unsung hero for the most part this season. Again I feel confident he's a solid everyday player.

Friedl - age 28 Not quite as young as the rest but still in game time fairly early in his career. One thing that I've always disliked about our MGR. Bell is the jumping around lineup he loves. I mean I jsut wonder what his production would be if Bell would leave him at leadoff all the time? Anyways I feel pretty good that he can be a regular CF. You don't have to have killer numbers at plate from CF anyways, and he's been pretty dang good.

Now here to me is where the questions start coming in

Elly DLC - age 21 With his speed, arm, and athleticism I have no doubt he's a bona-fide MLer. His only big question mark is can he learn to not swing out of his shoes at every pitch thrown to him? Will he stop swinging at balls that bounce a foot in front of the plate? I still don't think it's any big leap to pencil him in as a long term ML starter.

CE Strand - age 23 He will look like a true slugger for a couple of at bats then swing at stuff not even in same zip code of strike zone the next two AB's. Which is fairly common for rookies. The rest of the season will give us a little better feel of course. He has 118 at bats so far and 40 K's. I'm on the fence about him.

Marte - age 21 way to early to tell. It's hard to balance trying the rooks out and making a playoff run, I get it. But I still wish Bell would quit bouncing these guys around the lineup and field like superballs. I think it would help with their games on the field and at the plate.

I know overall I like where we're at waayyyy more than I ever dreamed I would back in April.

[The D.O.Z.]

Pretty good assessment for what we have seen thus far. You left out the rookie pitchers though, so I'll give my take on them:

Abbott: call me a Greene hater all you want but this guy is THE guy of this staff moving forward. Good pitch selection, doesn't get rattled, and is battling through the late season having never thrown this many innings prior. If he stays in a good off-season program and comes into ST refreshed, he's my opening day starter barring a disasterous March.

Williamson: started slow, and on most contending teams he's a 5, but he's really worked hard on his game and has turned himself into a pretty dependable MOR type for THIS staff. Like Abbott, if he stays in a nice off-season program / routine and can build up his innings, he is my 3-5 guy depending on IF we add a vet.

Richardson: too small of a sample size but he has good stuff. I would let him compete for the 5-spot in ST next year with the other nearly-ready prospects and see what shakes out. If he shows well, there's your BOR guy. If he shows well but another guy beats him out, there's your long relief guy (we have sorely needed that type this year in my opinion), and if he needs more seasoning, he has minors options so there's that.

Phillips: has yet to make his ML debut and I would expect it's due to his lack of control thus far in the minors. Another guy with electric stuff but needs innings and needs to work on throwing strikes. I suspect he will be in the mix next year for a role, probably in competition with Richardson, Stoudt, and (hopefully) a vet FA.

[samhain]

The overall makeup of the team is pretty fantastic. The only player I'd toss in that has not been mentioned is Benson. He's been a huge surprise in terms of his ability to sustain success. His plate discipline is quite possibly the best on the team. Though h gets overshadowed due to having a freak athlete like EDLC on the team, he's a specimen. He also hustles his butt off.

I hope they decide to be more active in adding this offseason. A few smart additions could go a long way, and the cap space will be bountiful.

[The D.O.Z.]

(08-25-2023, 08:14 PM)samhain Wrote: The overall makeup of the team is pretty fantastic. The only player I'd toss in that has not been mentioned is Benson. He's been a huge surprise in terms of his ability to sustain success. His plate discipline is quite possibly the best on the team. Though h gets overshadowed due to having a freak athlete like EDLC on the team, he's a specimen. He also hustles his butt off.

I hope they decide to be more active in adding this offseason. A few smart additions could go a long way, and the cap space will be bountiful.

I like Benson as a RF / DH option. He is pretty good in RF but takes bad angles and looks lost in LF. He's still only 25, so he should improve. Why he bats so low in the lineup consistently while The Chin regularly switches up the lineups with everyone else is beyond my understanding. I would like to see what he could do in a more "pressure" spot, say the 5-6 spot?

[*bengalfan74*]

(08-25-2023, 07:06 PM)The D.O.Z. Wrote: Pretty good assessment for what we have seen thus far. You left out the rookie pitchers though, so I'll give my take on them:

Abbott: call me a Greene hater all you want but this guy is THE guy of this staff moving forward. Good pitch selection, doesn't get rattled, and is battling through the late season having never thrown this many innings prior. If he stays in a good off-season program and comes into ST refreshed, he's my opening day starter barring a disasterous March.

Williamson: started slow, and on most contending teams he's a 5, but he's really worked hard on his game and has turned himself into a pretty dependable MOR type for THIS staff. Like Abbott, if he stays in a nice off-season program / routine and can build up his innings, he is my 3-5 guy depending on IF we add a vet.

Richardson: too small of a sample size but he has good stuff. I would let him compete for the 5-spot in ST next year with the other nearly-ready prospects and see what shakes out. If he shows well, there's your BOR guy. If he shows well but another guy beats him out, there's your long relief guy (we have sorely needed that type this year in my opinion), and if he needs more seasoning, he has minors options so there's that.

Phillips: has yet to make his ML debut and I would expect it's due to his lack of control thus far in the minors. Another guy with electric stuff but needs innings and needs to work on throwing strikes. I suspect he will be in the mix next year for a role, probably in competition with Richardson, Stoudt, and (hopefully) a vet FA.

I hate to bash Greene up simply because he's still young and learning, but. There's going to come a point and sooner rather than later that, that excuse is going to stop holding water. He's racking up some innings now and still can't quite get over the hump as far as being a true top of the lineup starter. I hope he can develop a better offspeed pitch and soon.

[*bengalfan74*]

(08-25-2023, 08:14 PM)samhain Wrote: The overall makeup of the team is pretty fantastic.  The only player I'd toss in that has not been mentioned is Benson.  He's been a huge surprise in terms of his ability to sustain success.  His plate discipline is quite possibly the best on the team.  Though h gets overshadowed due to having a freak athlete like EDLC on the team, he's a specimen.  He also hustles his butt off.  

I hope they decide to be more active in adding this offseason.  A few smart additions could go a long way, and the cap space will be bountiful.

Oh I still like Benson and I'm pretty sure he's at a minimum a good/great bench player, spot starter in RF and DH type. I just wish he would start hitting LH pitchers a little better.

But there I go back to my main complaint about Bell and his musical lineup theory. Perhaps Benson would do better vs. lefties if he got the chance?

[CJD]

I think EDLC and McLain are going to be the two stars of the team. They just have everything you want. Great physical tools and excellent advanced stats too (Elly is 85% in avg exit velocity, 83% in hard hit %, 100% in sprint speed, 99% in arm strength, 81% in OAA etc. McLain is above average in xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, Hard hit %, barrel %, chase rate, and arm strength with elite speed and OAA). The sooner they get them signed long term, the better. EDLC will probably be harder than McLain due to his agent and his hype, but these guys will be the face of the franchise.

CES looks like a decent hitter with some power. I could see him being a 25 or 30 HR threat when all's said and done with an average somewhere around .250 or .260. Maybe not a star, since he does chase way too much, but he should be a solid 5 or 6 hitter for the length of his rookie control.

Marte is too early to tell, but he seems to be average or above average in just about every tool, so he'll be a valuable member of the team too.

Steer is the wild card to me. He has been way better than I thought he would be. If he can maintain a ~25 HR .275 pace that he's had this year, he'll be an ideal clean up hitter with McLain and Elly ahead of him. He has elite chase rates, sprint speed, walk rate, strikeout rate, speed and above average whiff %, xwOBA, arm strength and exit velocity but...wow. He is a terrible defender. He may end up being a career DH unless he gets his shit together. 1% in OAA at the moment.

Friedl is a bit harder to predict. He has been successful this year, but a lot of his metrics are very bad. 9% percentile in avg exit velocity, 4% percentile in hard hit %, 2% percentile in xSLG, 27% in xBA, 6% in xwOBA, 3% in barrel %. He is excellent at not striking out (82%), not whiffing (87%), not chasing (73%), with great defense (83% OAA) and speed (77%), but part of me wonders if his offense is a house of cards waiting to be blown down.

I think Abbott will ultimately be a great #2 or 3 starter. He may not be an ace ( he gives up a lot of hard hits, barrels, and exit velocity with average walk, whiff, and chase rates.), but he will usually give you a good 6 innings most nights. And he has plenty of room to improve.

Williamson, I'm a little less bullish about. He has had a good season, but his advanced stats make me wonder if they may be due to luck. below average exit velocity allowed, hard hit %, xERA/xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, Barrel%, K%, Whiff%, Chase rate, fastball velocity, and extension.

Ashcraft has similarly underwhelming advanced stats, so we'll have to see how these three young pitchers do. What he really struggles with is inconsistency. The one thing he does seem to have an uncanny knack for, however, is missing the barrel of the bat. He's got below average xBA, xSLG, whiff rate, K rate, chase rate and extension, but he is elite at allowing low exit velocities and barrel% and about average at allowing hard hits and walks. I don't have a way to view his stats by month, but I imagine a lot of his terrible numbers come from that 2 month stretch where he was one of the worst pitchers in baseball. So the big question with him is whether he is this guy we are currently seeing, or if he's the guy from June. Or maybe somewhere in between...

Greene is coming back from injury, so I will spare him the advanced stats evaluation (They're bad), but he does get a lot of whiffs and strikeouts so at least there's that.

Lodolo it's too early to tell because of his injuries.

Richardson it's WAY too early to tell, but he needs to control his pitches better. He's all over the place right now (6 walks, 5 K in 7.1 IP, averaging almost 20 pitches per inning)

We have a lot of young, exciting players on this team and the ceiling is nearly limitless. It'll be interesting to see which ones hit that ceiling.

My money is on Elly, McLain and Abbott becoming the best players of the above, but Ashcraft is definitely one to keep an eye on, based on where he ends up between his two extremes.

[basballguy]

(08-25-2023, 01:09 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Elly DLC - age 21 With his speed, arm, and athleticism I have no doubt he's a bona-fide MLer. His only big question mark is can he learn to not swing out of his shoes at every pitch thrown to him? Will he stop swinging at balls that bounce a foot in front of the plate? I still don't think it's any big leap to pencil him in as a long term ML starter.

I know overall I like where we're at waayyyy more than I ever dreamed I would back in April.

Great writeup....I don't follow the reds real closely anymore (though I've started to with the winning) so it helps me to see what people are saying..  

I get huge Adam Dunn vibes when I watch him bat (obviously not field or run lol).  I think (hope) he'll work out the plate discipline kinks he has.  

[*ochocincos*]

(08-25-2023, 01:09 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: In the big picture down the road? For the most part it's still too early to say for sure, especially with CES and Marte. And like we talked about in a thread a couple months ago quite often rookies have a tiny bit of an advantage at the plate early on. Opposing pitchers and teams just don't have a great hold on their weakness at the plate yet, however:

McClain - age 24 seems to be pretty steady at the plate. Confident, not easily shaken and so on. He's batting .293 with 351 at bats so he's well past flash in the pan range. I feel pretty confident he's gonna be a solid piece going forward.

Steer - age 25 batting .271 with 458 at bats posting 18 HR's and 70 RBI's. Has decent speed and has been an unsung hero for the most part this season. Again I feel confident he's a solid everyday player.

Friedl - age 28 Not quite as young as the rest but still in game time fairly early in his career. One thing that I've always disliked about our MGR. Bell is the jumping around lineup he loves. I mean I jsut wonder what his production would be if Bell would leave him at leadoff all the time? Anyways I feel pretty good that he can be a regular CF. You don't have to have killer numbers at plate from CF anyways, and he's been pretty dang good.

Now here to me is where the questions start coming in

Elly DLC - age 21 With his speed, arm, and athleticism I have no doubt he's a bona-fide MLer. His only big question mark is can he learn to not swing out of his shoes at every pitch thrown to him? Will he stop swinging at balls that bounce a foot in front of the plate? I still don't think it's any big leap to pencil him in as a long term ML starter.

CE Strand - age 23 He will look like a true slugger for a couple of at bats then swing at stuff not even in same zip code of strike zone the next two AB's. Which is fairly common for rookies. The rest of the season will give us a little better feel of course. He has 118 at bats so far and 40 K's. I'm on the fence about him.

Marte - age 21 way to early to tell. It's hard to balance trying the rooks out and making a playoff run, I get it. But I still wish Bell would quit bouncing these guys around the lineup and field like superballs. I think it would help with their games on the field and at the plate.

I know overall I like where we're at waayyyy more than I ever dreamed I would back in April.

I'm definitely willing to give more time on the younger guys like CES, EDLC, and Marte.
However, you just hate to see low BA/OPS for anyone regardless of how young they are.

EDLC I think came in with so much excitement that realistically wasn't sustainable for an entire year. He's going to have lull periods, but he's going to have really exciting times too.
I just looked at Billy Hamilton's first full year to compare...about the same BA, but EDLC has a much higher OPS.

Marte has way too few ABs to get any real sense on.

CES is probably the most concerning to me, out of the three.
Dude has 141 plate appearances and touted as a power bat, but he only has 4 HRs and a .657 OPS?
EDLC has 310 plate appearances but 11 HRs.
I thought for sure CES would be closer to 7-8 at this point.
And his OPS is lower than Stephenson, Senzel, and Fairchild.
If he can't figure out how to connect more with this major league pitching, he won't stay around long. First basemen need to be some of the better hitters on the team.

[*bengalfan74*]

(08-28-2023, 02:43 PM)ochocincos Wrote: I'm definitely willing to give more time on the younger guys like CES, EDLC, and Marte.
However, you just hate to see low BA/OPS for anyone regardless of how young they are.

EDLC I think came in with so much excitement that realistically wasn't sustainable for an entire year. He's going to have lull periods, but he's going to have really exciting times too.
I just looked at Billy Hamilton's first full year to compare...about the same BA, but EDLC has a much higher OPS.

Marte has way too few ABs to get any real sense on.

CES is probably the most concerning to me, out of the three.
Dude has 141 plate appearances and touted as a power bat, but he only has 4 HRs and a .657 OPS?
EDLC has 310 plate appearances but 11 HRs.
I thought for sure CES would be closer to 7-8 at this point.
And his OPS is lower than Stephenson, Senzel, and Fairchild.
If he can't figure out how to connect more with this major league pitching, he won't stay around long. First basemen need to be some of the better hitters on the team.

Oh yes of all the new young players CES is starting to concern me the most!! It's still way early for sure, but. He's got 128 at bats now and should be getting over the yips of the big stage a bit. At the plate at times he just looks kinda lost, I don't know how else to put it? 

Hoping he's gonna come out of it before this season is over.

[The D.O.Z.]

If CES doesn't pick up the pace soon, Reds ownership is gonna F around and resign Votto to an extension @ 10+ million per. And then consider THAT as their Free Agency spending for 2024.

And no, that's not sarcasm.

[*ochocincos*]

(08-28-2023, 04:20 PM)The D.O.Z. Wrote: If CES doesn't pick up the pace soon, Reds ownership is gonna F around and resign Votto to an extension  @ 10+ million per. And then consider THAT as their Free Agency spending for 2024.

And no, that's not sarcasm.

Lol, I dunno if I'd go THAT far, but right now they have 5 young guys competing for 4 infield spots. 6 if you include India.
If CES can't be relied on for 1B, Steer can cover 1B while EDLC/Marte covers 3B.

There's also the DH spot.
As it stands, Reds should have:
OF - Friedl, Fraley, Benson
IF - Steer, McLain, EDLC, Marte, CES, *India
C - Stephenson

Rece Hinds and Blake Dunn are expected to get called up next year to add depth to the OF.

If CES can't hit well enough, he may get bumped out for India or some of the other young outfielders for the DH.

[The D.O.Z.]

Thankfully we have the prospects to cover it if things go south for CES but tell me you totally couldn't see Ole Phil pull off something like that.

"The uncertainty this year at first base led us to weigh or options and we really feel like Votto can have a bounce-back season in 2024."

The beat writers spend the off-season touting JV's off-season work and shoulder rehab / strengthening.

Votto goes on to hit .200 with the occasional HR until the ASB, batting in the 5-6 hole cuz..well...Bell.

[Goalpost]

Collier is really young, but playing against people 3 years older than him. He'll be in the plans at some point.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

Interesting read very much related to this thread....

https://www.royalsreview.com/2011/2/14/1992424/success-and-failure-rates-of-top-mlb-prospects

TLDR: 69.2% of all Top 100 Prospects from 1990-2003 failed to average at least 1.5 WAR per year (roughly the threshold of a bad starter or great bench player) over their cost controlled years.