When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

10.15.2007
You're the One That I Want, Part 2

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has the following note buried in one of his weekend columns:

The Braves' front-office shakeup is expected to prompt the departure of scouting director Roy Clark, who could become Brian Sabean's No. 2 man with the Giants...

Well, hee haw! No, it’s not that Roy Clark — I think — but if he makes the move, the Giants will suddenly have one of John Schuerholz’s key lieutenants in the fold. Under Clark, the scouting director since mid-1999, the Braves have drafted and signed excellent positional talent. We discussed this a few posts ago, but in case you don’t feel like backtracking: Jeff Francoeur, Kelly Johnson, Brian McCann, Jarrold Saltalamacchia, Yunel Escobar, Calix Crabbe (sorry, I had to throw one All-Name guy in there). Clark’s draftees and signees have also helped Schuerholz trade for big names like Mark Teixiera (Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus) and Edgar Renteria (Andy Marte).

Dig into the drafts and prospects here if you’re a Baseball America subscriber, or here.

One question lingers, though. When the Braves made a couple big promotions in mid-2006, why didn’t Clark move up the ladder? Perhaps he didn’t want to. Perhaps he was too valuable where he was. Perhaps he’s not as good as we think.

***

P.M. UPDATE:

Being part of the biased West Coast non-mainstream media conspiracy, I haven’t seen much of Dustin Pedroia until the playoffs, so I was a bit surprised to see how well he did this year:

.317 / .380 / .442

Nice rookie year, rookie. Here are his lifetime minor league numbers:

.308 / .392 / .453

Barely any difference. It’s worth noting that he hit like the dickens this year after a rough major-league debut last year (.191 / .258 / .303 in 89 at-bats).

Compare Pedroia’s minor-league numbers to Mystery Player X’s minor-league numbers:

.328 / .393 / .459

Uncanny! And in about the same number of at-bats, too. Mr. X has about half the major-league at-bats as Pedroia and a career OPS about 100 points lower (.785 to .683). He’s also more than a year older. Question: Who is Mr. X, and how likely is to be as good as Dustin Pedroia? 
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[October 15, 2007 3:33 PM]  |  link  |  reply
rocketdog said

Seems like good news. I wonder what's been going on in Atlanta lately?

[October 15, 2007 5:21 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

Player X is Kevin Frandsen.

Pedroia's had a very good year but I think he's played over his head some. His BABIP is super high at .334 and I doubt he'll be able to sustain that.

He's probably more of a .280 hitter than a .300+ guy. He's really benefited from hitting in Fenway (.351/.410/.502) and his road stats are more inline with what I'd expect from him in future seasons (.282/.349/.380)

Not sure that Frandsen will ever hit like Pedroia did this year but I think they both could be .280/.350/.400 guys for a few years. Next year for Frandsen will be big and I'm hopeful that he'll do better than he did this year.

[October 15, 2007 5:30 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

After looking at the difference between Pedroia's slugging at home versus away (122 points!), I thought I would check out his hit chart.

Hit Chart - http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7650/hitchartlm5.png

Being a RHH, as you can see, Pedroia is really using the green monster to his benefit. All of his HRs at home went over the monster and look at how many doubles he banged off of it.

Chances are that if he's trying to pull the ball for power in the same manner on the road, he's flying out instead of taking advantage of the short LF.

[October 15, 2007 11:43 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

I like Pedroia, and another similarity with Frandsen is their ability to not strike out much.

Pedroia:
2004: 96% contact rate
2005: 91% contact rate
2006: 94% contact rate

Frandsen:
2004: 91% contact rate
2005: 92% contact rate
2006: 90% contact rate

In majors, Pedroia has a 92% contact rate, Frandsen 89%.

The main difference is Pedroia walks at a higher rate than Frandsen relative to their strikeouts.

Pedroia (BB/K):
minors: 162%
Majors: 110%

Frandsen:
minors: 72%
Majors: 63% (88% in 2007)

Plus Frandsen gets more HBP than Pedroia, relative to their walks. If you count Frandsen's HBP as walks, his stats would be:

minors: 123%
Majors: 92% (108% in 2007)

The best hitters get their contact rate over 85% AND get their BB/K ratio over 100%. Frandsen is in the ballpark on both those key measures of hitting ability.

However, the main point of caution, at least in terms of long term potential, is ELM's point that Frandsen was a couple of years older than Pedroia at similar stops in the minors. Still, hitting is hitting, no matter what age. And he was about the age of players in each level, so he didn't have an age advantage against the league, whereas Pedroia was impressive for doing that even though he was younger than the average player in the league.

[October 16, 2007 1:38 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Dan from NM said

And I thought I was the only one intrigued by the Roy Clark rumor.

[October 16, 2007 10:04 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Evan said

Unfortunately, all the markers go against Frandsen in that comparison. There's the age gap, the fact that the minor leagues in the west tend to generate higher stats than those in the east, the fact that Pedroia had more than 60% of his minor league at-bats at AAA while Frandsen's were more spread out, and of course the their huge difference in their major-league performance thus far.

I'm still a Frandsenite, though. If he can hit .290/.350 with 10 or 12 home runs, which seems well within reach, that would make him a middle-of-the-pack second baseman, about like Freddie Sanchez or Tadahito Iguchi.