5/15 Gameday Thread: My Shawaryn & The Incredible Houck

Shawaryn was supposed to pitch today, but got moved to tomorrow. Bliech is starting instead.

Haworth scheduled to pitch instead of Santana.

Cole Brannen with two doubles tonight! Omg!

Duran 1/3 a single
Ockimey 0/1 with three walks
Granberg 2/3 with a double and a triple

I'm not so sure I'd agree with that. Hit/speed yes but Duran is significantly faster. Duran also has a lot more power and there's over a 30 pound difference. Maybe Duran-very lite ?

I'm guessing there's about a 15 scouting scale difference in both speed and power.

I admit that I haven't watched him much but pretty much universally including SP, Brannen is rated as plus speed and Duran as plus-plus speed.

The biggest issue with Brannen is that neither the hit nor the power projections materialized (yet).

ADD: I was mostly disagreeing with the premise that we dreamed of him becoming what Duran IS. I don't believe, in general, we dreamed that high, at least I didn't.

I didn't mean it as people expected Brannen to hit .400 for a month and a half of a minor league, just that Brannen's ceiling as a prospect is what Duran's is being perceived as now, albeit maybe with a bit less power potential. That is, good hit tool combined with truly top tier speed to create a guy that is going to get on base a lot and create extra opportunities with his legs.  Obviously no one expects that anymore but given that he was a second round pick, at the time of the draft, this was probably the best case imagined scenario for him. 

Also, the anecdote James mentioned was definitely something I had in mind thinking this. That number is for sure bogus, but it gave people the idea that Brannen could be the fastest guy in baseball or something.

That being said, I wonder who the pure fastest guys in all of baseball (majors and minors) are. First has to be Hamilton, but is Jordyn Adams second?

EDIT: Interestingly enough on Fangraphs' prospect board they do have a Red Sox prospect having 80 speed but it isn't Duran. It's Gilberto Jimenez, which is interesting. My new dream is a Mookie-Duran-Jimenez outfield. DRS for days.

We discussed it extensively at the time, but that 6.18 was at Perfect game, electronically timed (probably step-start plane brake, not from standstill). It was in the top 10 times for them, ever. They run a LOT of events, so he’s in the top 10 of probably many hundreds, if not several thousand, measurements.

www.perfectgame.org/records/

People question the validity, but as a former sprinter with plenty of electronic timing experience, I think the *time* is legit, although it’s value in measuring game speed (including acceleration) isn’t perfect. If it’s plane break, it misses acceleration, and is more top speed; running to first after swinging, or getting a good break for second to accelerate 30 yards is very different from running a 60-yard “fly.”

Fwiw, Dustin Fowler has the best time to 1b this year in MLB baseballsavant.mlb.com/running_splits?type=raw&bats=&year=2018&position=&team=&min=10
But fg put a “60” on his speed. Clustered just below him, imperceptibly slower, are Magneuris Sierra (“70”) and Billy Hamilton (“80”). So scouting grades are much less reliable than actual standardized measurement as far as “real” speed (but probably better at teasing out functional speed). Fangraphs also put a 60 on Jo Addel of the Angels, who was at near the top of the perfect game list, just behind Brannen. Guys like Byron Buxton and Adalberto Mondesi top the peak sprint speed at 30.1 ft/s. That’s 10 yards/sec. or 60 yards in 6 seconds (keep in mind, the human body can only maintain peak velocity about 20-25 yards, so in real life it would be more like 6.1 seconds). So Brannen is very, very fast. He might not have functional 80 speed, but it’s elite or near-elite: that 6.18 works out to 29.1 ft/s. That would put him 22nd in MLB, keeping in mind that if his time IS electronic, his peak velocity is slightly higher than that 29.1 since he can’t maintain peak the whole 60 yards.

FWIW, the scouting grade for speed on Michael Chavis was a “40,” but statcast has him at 27.7 (average is 27), so he’s more like a 55 based on statcast. Scouting grades (appearance of/ability to use speed) and empirical measures (statcast/electronic timing in idealized situations) should probably be viewed in light of eachother.

The fastest PG 60 yard, a 6.11, was run by Mitchell Shifflet who ran around 10.50 in the 100m in high school, which is extremely fast (although not quite elite for HS, which would be more like 10.30; the best sprinters run sub-9.90). Usain Bolt’s 9.58 in the 100m had him reach a peak velocity **40.8 f/s** (27.8 mph; he reached that between 60 and 80 meters of the race...so it takes a while to reach peak velocity).

I don't think I've ever seen a .228 average with a .414 obp before.

Yeah, I’m probably being stingy with my “elite” labels on HS runners the way scouting folks are with 80 speed. I say “not quite elite” but we’re basically describing the same thing. I mean, 10.50 is stupid fast for HS, really in general. And what you say re: coaching is VERY true. I volunteer coached at my old HS (the track coach was incredible, as a coach, a teacher, and as a person. Tough as nails but fair and a great strategist) after college. I worked with one kid who was running low-mid 11s but was too tight up top and tried to accelerate through the whole race. We did a lot of form work and especially on not “pushing” through the race, but rather getting near-upright by 30m and focusing on “clawing” with the balls of feet at the moment of contact. He was running high 10s by season’s end. Just like with swings, there can be a lot of wasted motion. Improving efficiency can really lengthen stride and increase turnover. I’m actually kind of surprised teams don’t do more in terms of speed work. You can really clean up some people’s motion and see big gains, with not *that* much effort.

Re: Brannen, I said it back at draft time, but if one considers “80” 3 STDev above the mean, he probably qualifies as a 75-80, since it’s 99.87th% ile, or 1 in 1000. I really thought at draft time he’d potentially be a .270-.280/12-15/40sb guy. Idk if it’s a strength issue, not seeing the ball well, or what, but he’s sure struggled. Still, it’s too early to give up. He could unlock something and become a useful 4th OF/PR.