 |
A
quick side note: I was going to start creating a Mets prospect list two months
ago, but when I started getting the stats together for the first prospect on my
list I became frustrated. As I went into here,
I knew there was more out there statistically than could easily be found
anywhere online, and so I got all of the information I could from the MLB Gameday/XML site to create
the Minor/Winter League Stat pages on my blog (see tabs at top of page).
However, since I’ve been spending my blog time on that, and we’re now into
Spring Training, I’d rather just explore the stat worksheets with individual
player posts instead of creating a ranking that will become meaningless in 6
weeks. Remember that with all of these splits, the sample sizes are small and they
should not be considered predictive, especially since most of these prospects
will be playing in a completely new league this year. My goal here is to better
understand what Mets prospects did well (or not) in 2015, with the hopes of identifying
some trends to look out for in 2016.
2015 with St. Lucie: 103 G, 417 PA, .257/.307/.335, 41 R, 20 2B, 5 3B, 25 RBI, 12/16 SB, 17.5 K%: 5.5 BB%, 99 wRC+, 53 GB%/26 FB%/15 LD%/6 PU%
Although he struggled with
consistency at the plate throughout 2015, Rosario finished the season as a
league average hitter for St. Lucie, which is impressive considering he was the
youngest batter to get regular playing time in the Florida State League last
year (aka, minimum 137 AB, since that is the cutoff for the BB-Ref leader
board). While his performance at the plate was solid given the context, it was his
performance in the field that was turning heads all summer – it seemed like
radio announcer Adam MacDonald was making “Diving stop by Rosario!” calls every
week. Describing ‘his finest attributes’ in their 2016 Prospect Guidebook, Baseball America wrote that he is, “…a
plus athlete with plus speed, he brings terrific body controls, soft hands and
plus arm strength to the shortstop position.” While there has long been
speculation that he will fill out (I’ve never seen so much discussion about a
prospects ‘broad-shouldered build’) and provide more pop, he didn’t do it as a
teenager, so… Seriously, he’s advanced this far in the system and yet his first
affiliated game as a 20+-year old will come with the B-Mets in AA on their
opening day. So, there’s plenty of time for some power to develop still, and as
a swift fielding shortstop, he doesn’t need to show much power to keep his
top-notch prospect status. Plus, his .079 ISO is not as bad as it seems when
you consider the league average ISO was .089 for the FSL in 2015, and that the
league was, on average, 3.5 years older than Rosario. Below I take a look at some
splits to see what kind of hitter he was with St. Lucie last year, and then
there are links to the few GIF’s I have of him at the bottom of this page.
Table 1 – Amed Rosario 2015 splits by month
Month
|
PA
|
BB%
|
K%
|
wRC+
|
April
|
80
|
1.2
|
20
|
80
|
May
|
119
|
6.7
|
17.6
|
156
|
June
|
105
|
3.8
|
15.2
|
54
|
July
|
33
|
6.1
|
15.2
|
121
|
August
|
73
|
9.6
|
20.5
|
76
|
Looking at his monthly split break
down, you can see that most of his production came in May and July, and the
July production is almost entirely from two games, during which he went a
combined 7-9 with a double and triple. It’s too bad that he couldn’t keep that
May production going throughout the summer, but if that’s the type of player he
becomes, the Mets have the next Jose Reyes in their system (minus the stolen
bases). Rosario hit 7 doubles and 4 triples for St. Lucie in May for a .137
ISO, and his .370 OBP for the month was his career best for a month by nearly
30 points (he managed a .343 OBP in two months with Brooklyn last summer). In
addition to his BB% and K% showing improvements throughout the season, his pop
up rate decreased from 10% in April to less than 4% over the final 3 months.
Table 2 – Amed Rosario 2015 splits by pitcher handedness
Throws
|
PA
|
BB%
|
K%
|
wRC+
|
L
|
128
|
4.7
|
15.6
|
133
|
R
|
285
|
6
|
18.6
|
84
|
Rosario
faced righties more than twice as often with St. Lucie last year, but he put
the ball in play much more often against lefties, and had much more success
doing so: .374 BABIP vs. L, .295 BABIP vs. R. Obviously there is a huge gap in
production here, but that’s why turning to my stat pages for that extra bit of
info can be useful. His production against RHP’s was 16% below league average,
but if you only look at RHP vs. RHP matchups, his production was much closer to
average: .289 wOBA for Rosario, .303 wOBA for all RHB facing RHP. Looking only
at RHB vs. LHP, Rosario was still well above average for the season - .356 wOBA
for Rosario, .319 wOBA for all RHB facing LHP. There isn’t a huge split gap in
his K%, but when you break down the strikeouts by type (looking or swinging),
you can tell that he was more likely to swing-and-miss against RHP: 45 of 53
(85%) strikeouts against RHP were of the swinging variety, while only 12 of 20
(60%) strikeouts against LHP were of the swinging variety. He was also 3.5
times more likely to hit a pop up against RHP’s, which (when combined with the
higher swinging strike rate) suggests that the gap in production against the
two sides is much more than just BABIP output.
Table 3 – Amed Rosario 2015 splits by batted ball type
Batted Ball Type
|
PA
|
wOBA
|
FSL wOBA
|
FB
|
80
|
.235
|
.339
|
GB
|
170
|
.277
|
.239
|
LD
|
45
|
.887
|
.805
|
PU
|
17
|
.081
|
.017
|
Table 4 – Amed Rosario 2015 splits by direction
Field
|
PA
|
wOBA
|
FSL wOBA*
|
GB%
|
FB%
|
LD%
|
PU%
|
Center
|
89
|
.289
|
.331
|
50
|
28.4
|
19.3
|
2.3
|
Opposite
|
120
|
.371
|
.289
|
41.5
|
37.3
|
11.9
|
9.3
|
Pull
|
105
|
.393
|
.422
|
71.3
|
11.9
|
14.9
|
2
|
*RHB only
We
already knew that Rosario didn’t hit for much power in 2015, but Tables 3 and 4
highlight his power deficiency. He was one of the best hitters in the league
when going the other way (ranked 15th by wRC+ among all hitter,
minimum 50 PA going to the opposite field), but provided below league average
production to the rest of the field. Also, he provided above average production
on line drives and groundballs, which is expected given his plus speed, but way
below average production on fly balls. From what I’ve seen of Rosario, he’s the
type of hitter who’s looking to put the first hittable pitch in play, and he
hits it where it’s pitched, so his all field approach is not surprising.
However, it is a little surprising that he hits the ball on the ground so much
more when pulling it than when going the other way. Considering the huge
difference in GB-rates, it’s possible he was intentionally pulling the ball on
the ground more to try and steal some singles, but it could also suggest that
he was consistently ahead on outside breaking balls, which could lead to
Rosario rolling his wrist and pulling weak grounders. Without having watched
him every night in 2015 I can only speculate now, but fortunately I will be
able to watch him on MiLB.tv every night this season, and this is something I
will be keeping an eye on. While he might be able to steal some singles on
groundballs to the left side, both his pull production and his fly ball
production should improve if he
starts pulling more fly balls.
Table 5 – Amed Rosario 2015 splits by Times Facing a Pitcher
Times Faced
|
PA
|
BB%
|
K%
|
wRC+
|
1
|
262
|
5.3
|
18.3
|
97
|
2
|
112
|
8
|
14.3
|
145
|
3
|
39
|
0
|
23.1
|
-21
|
Batters
generally do better with each successive PA against a pitcher in a given game,
but Rosario was significantly more productive the second time facing a pitcher
than the first time (or third), which suggests that he was good at making
in-game adjustments. And the production improvements were real, as he walked
more, struck out less, and nearly doubled his ISO the second time facing a
pitcher. It’s odd to see the huge drop off in production by all measures the
third time through the order, but we can probably chalk that up to a mix of
small sample size and selection bias – A+ level pitchers are not going to stay
in the game long enough to face the #7/8 batters a third time unless they are
pitching a great game. It will be interesting to see if he’s still about league
average the first time facing a pitcher at the end of 2016, because one of the
biggest changes prospects have mentioned when moving to AA is the quality of
bullpen pitchers.
To
recap, here’s what I identified above to watch out for with Rosario in 2016: if
he can improve his contact rate and quality of contact against RHP’s, if he’s
trying to pull the ball on the ground or just rolling over outside pitches, and
if he struggles facing bullpen specialists every game for the first time. It
would be great if his bat broke out this year, but I’m just looking for him to
show off that great D with consistency, and to not be overmatched at the plate
as a 20-year old in AA.
2015 Rosario GIFs
(I put any hits first, and then any defensive plays)
Here’s how the Milky Way looks at different wavelengths! #astronomy pic.twitter.com/Mz0n76938U— CanadianSpaceAgency (@csa_asc) March 4, 2016
Leave your comment
Post a Comment