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5/24 Gameday Thread: "I Am Walking Here" – Josh Ockimey
radiohix
Veteran
'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
Posts: 6,321
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Post by radiohix on May 24, 2019 21:05:31 GMT -5
Starting "Scherff to the bullpen" campaign. Too early in his career, he's only 21. It's probably where he'll end up though but it's the probably part. Watching the Sox but Duran is 3/3 with a BB, 2R He's also repeating the level and has absolutely nothing moving in the right direction for him in terms of results.
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Post by carmenfanzone on May 24, 2019 21:12:56 GMT -5
Duran up to .422 with 4 hits and a walk tonight. Now has 170 at bats with Salem. Only had 128 at bats at Greenville. What exactly does he have to do to get promoted to Portland?
I have heard he needs work in centerfield, but I am pretty sure that Portland needs someone to play centerfield too. Why can't Duran work on playing centerfield in Portland while he gets use to the higher level pitching? Is there something harder about playing centerfield in Portland than in Salem that he isn't ready for?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 24, 2019 21:23:20 GMT -5
I understand the arguments against rushing promotions that others, mainly Chris, have laid out, and for the most part I agree with it. But in one of the Fangraphs chats (either Kiley or Eric), one of them mentioned they thought that in regards to Wander Franco's promotion schedule, the Rays should just keep promoting Franco until he hits a level where he struggles so he doesn't have to have that first time come under the MLB spotlight. Obviously, Franco is on another planet as a prospect compared to Duran, but I think Duran's production is nearing the point where this philosophy could apply to him. I don't agree with it in every situation (I certainly don't think Dalbec is anywhere near ready for a promotion), but I do in this case.
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Post by telson13 on May 24, 2019 21:24:54 GMT -5
Duran up to .422 with 4 hits and a walk tonight. Now has 170 at bats with Salem. Only had 128 at bats at Greenville. What exactly does he have to do to get promoted to Portland? I have heard he needs work in centerfield, but I am pretty sure that Portland needs someone to play centerfield too. Why can't Duran work on playing centerfield in Portland while he gets use to the higher level pitching? Is there something harder about playing centerfield in Portland than in Salem that he isn't ready for? But his IsoP is only, like .140. Lol, I’m guessing they promote him in the next week or two. I can’t believe his BABIP is *still* well over .500, and that he’s hitting .422 on the cusp of June. Tbh, I’m AAY more excited to see *Duran* hit the juiced ball this year than I am Dalbec. I mean, we know Dalbec has huge power (and like jimed I’m loving the reduced K rate and the walks), so yeah he might hit a few more HR but my guess is he doesn’t run into many cheapies. But Duran...out of Salem’s HR suppression and hopefully a quick stint in AA...what’s *he* gonna do with a juicy ball? Guy’s got a 30% LD rate (I know, it doesn’t stabilize for many hundreds of AB, so who knows?), and a 50% GB rate. What if he starts elevating a little more? What happens to all those liners if they’re getting 10-20 more feet of carry? He might not get a HR binge, but I bet he hits a silly number of triples, and maybe a few more doubles. A .140 IsoP might become more like .170-.180. And then you’re talking about a guy hitting high-.300s, and slugging mid-.500. His stat line is ridiculous as is...but it might get sillier.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 24, 2019 21:29:27 GMT -5
Duran up to .422 with 4 hits and a walk tonight. Now has 170 at bats with Salem. Only had 128 at bats at Greenville. What exactly does he have to do to get promoted to Portland? I have heard he needs work in centerfield, but I am pretty sure that Portland needs someone to play centerfield too. Why can't Duran work on playing centerfield in Portland while he gets use to the higher level pitching? Is there something harder about playing centerfield in Portland than in Salem that he isn't ready for? But his IsoP is only, like .140. Lol, I’m guessing they promote him in the next week or two. I can’t believe his BABIP is *still* well over .500, and that he’s hitting .422 on the cusp of June. Tbh, I’m AAY more excited to see *Duran* hit the juiced ball this year than I am Dalbec. I mean, we know Dalbec has huge power (and like jimed I’m loving the reduced K rate and the walks), so yeah he might hit a few more HR but my guess is he doesn’t run into many cheapies. But Duran...out of Salem’s HR suppression and hopefully a quick stint in AA...what’s *he* gonna do with a juicy ball? Guy’s got a 30% LD rate (I know, it doesn’t stabilize for many hundreds of AB, so who knows?), and a 50% GB rate. What if he starts elevating a little more? What happens to all those liners if they’re getting 10-20 more feet of carry? He might not get a HR binge, but I bet he hits a silly number of triples, and maybe a few more doubles. A .140 IsoP might become more like .170-.180. And then you’re talking about a guy hitting high-.300s, and slugging mid-.500. His stat line is ridiculous as is...but it might get sillier. I wouldn't anticipate seeing him in Pawtucket this season.
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Post by telson13 on May 24, 2019 21:30:35 GMT -5
I understand the arguments against rushing promotions that others, mainly Chris, have laid out, and for the most part I agree with it. But in one of the Fangraphs chats (either Kiley or Eric), one of them mentioned they thought that in regards to Wander Franco's promotion schedule, the Rays should just keep promoting Franco until he hits a level where he struggles so he doesn't have to have that first time come under the MLB spotlight. Obviously, Franco is on another planet as a prospect compared to Duran, but I think Duran's production is nearing the point where this philosophy could apply to him. I don't agree with it in every situation (I certainly don't think Dalbec is anywhere near ready for a promotion), but I do in this case. I read that chat the other day, too, and thought the same thing. Growth comes from challenge. Duran’s not being challenged in A ball. It’s generally wise to be conservative about promotions, or you can end up with JBJ struggles, or worst-case, Craig Hansen. But some guys you’ve just gotta be aggressive with or you’re stunting their development. From literally *everything* we’ve seen from Duran (who’s got to be carrying a career BABIP around .470 now and has a career BA of nearly .380), he’s underwhelmed by his current competition. Like you say, he can learn CF and baserunning at the next level just as well as this one.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 24, 2019 21:37:37 GMT -5
In the 8th with 2 outs and Duran on first, there's a throwing error recorded by the catcher on a pickoff attempt yet no advance is shown. I thought you couldn't get an error if there's no advance.
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Post by telson13 on May 24, 2019 21:43:51 GMT -5
But his IsoP is only, like .140. Lol, I’m guessing they promote him in the next week or two. I can’t believe his BABIP is *still* well over .500, and that he’s hitting .422 on the cusp of June. Tbh, I’m AAY more excited to see *Duran* hit the juiced ball this year than I am Dalbec. I mean, we know Dalbec has huge power (and like jimed I’m loving the reduced K rate and the walks), so yeah he might hit a few more HR but my guess is he doesn’t run into many cheapies. But Duran...out of Salem’s HR suppression and hopefully a quick stint in AA...what’s *he* gonna do with a juicy ball? Guy’s got a 30% LD rate (I know, it doesn’t stabilize for many hundreds of AB, so who knows?), and a 50% GB rate. What if he starts elevating a little more? What happens to all those liners if they’re getting 10-20 more feet of carry? He might not get a HR binge, but I bet he hits a silly number of triples, and maybe a few more doubles. A .140 IsoP might become more like .170-.180. And then you’re talking about a guy hitting high-.300s, and slugging mid-.500. His stat line is ridiculous as is...but it might get sillier. I wouldn't anticipate seeing him in Pawtucket this season. I would’ve agreed 100% to start the year, but he’s defied logic so far. If he continues to hit like this in AA, I actually think he might get bumped quickly. If they DO decide to be aggressive, I think they’ll promote him as high as they can without affecting the 40-man or his service time. And I still think there’s a very real chance he comes up in Sept and makes the playoff roster. I certainly wouldn’t say more likely than not, but I’d say AAA is maybe a 15-20% chance and MLB in Sept maybe 40%.
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Post by carmenfanzone on May 24, 2019 22:04:39 GMT -5
Duran up to .422 with 4 hits and a walk tonight. Now has 170 at bats with Salem. Only had 128 at bats at Greenville. What exactly does he have to do to get promoted to Portland? I have heard he needs work in centerfield, but I am pretty sure that Portland needs someone to play centerfield too. Why can't Duran work on playing centerfield in Portland while he gets use to the higher level pitching? Is there something harder about playing centerfield in Portland than in Salem that he isn't ready for? But his IsoP is only, like .140. Lol, I’m guessing they promote him in the next week or two. I can’t believe his BABIP is *still* well over .500, and that he’s hitting .422 on the cusp of June. Tbh, I’m AAY more excited to see *Duran* hit the juiced ball this year than I am Dalbec. I mean, we know Dalbec has huge power (and like jimed I’m loving the reduced K rate and the walks), so yeah he might hit a few more HR but my guess is he doesn’t run into many cheapies. But Duran...out of Salem’s HR suppression and hopefully a quick stint in AA...what’s *he* gonna do with a juicy ball? Guy’s got a 30% LD rate (I know, it doesn’t stabilize for many hundreds of AB, so who knows?), and a 50% GB rate. What if he starts elevating a little more? What happens to all those liners if they’re getting 10-20 more feet of carry? He might not get a HR binge, but I bet he hits a silly number of triples, and maybe a few more doubles. A .140 IsoP might become more like .170-.180. And then you’re talking about a guy hitting high-.300s, and slugging mid-.500. His stat line is ridiculous as is...but it might get sillier. Obviously, I think he should have been promoted to AA before now. But if he gets promoted tomorrow, I am not sure he will see AAA this year. He may not hit nearly as well against AA pitching. One step at a time. Let's see how he does against AA pitching before even talking about how he will do in AAA.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on May 24, 2019 22:14:49 GMT -5
I wouldn't anticipate seeing him in Pawtucket this season. I would’ve agreed 100% to start the year, but he’s defied logic so far. If he continues to hit like this in AA, I actually think he might get bumped quickly. If they DO decide to be aggressive, I think they’ll promote him as high as they can without affecting the 40-man or his service time. And I still think there’s a very real chance he comes up in Sept and makes the playoff roster. I certainly wouldn’t say more likely than not, but I’d say AAA is maybe a 15-20% chance and MLB in Sept maybe 40%. There is an interesting aspect if Duran goes to AA (hopefully soon) and continues to rake at a ridiculous rate. If he does that and is actually knocking on Pawtucket's door by season's end, then it's not totally unreasonable to deduce that he could wind up in Boston before the all-star break in 2020. And if that's the case, perhaps - if Pedroia retires and the Sox decided to deal JBJ for a temporary CF who can play semi-regularly and then be bench depth (and perhaps get a reliever or back end AAA starter), then the Sox have opened up more than $20 million in salaries, which opens up more possibilities for the Red Sox. Of course this would depend on Duran really speeding through the system. It's possible, but I don't really think it's probable. I think he might be ready by the end of 2020 or more likely 2021 and the Sox might just ride it out with JBJ thru free agency and it's not a given that Pedroia is retiring and forfeiting his salary although I don't think we'll see much of him on the field.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 24, 2019 23:19:01 GMT -5
Pedroia out of the game after 4 innings? Was that the plan for tonight? Pete Abraham Verified account @peteabe 47m47 minutes ago Pedroia took himself out of his rehab game after four innings. Sox are still gathering into. Cora said he didn't feel right, there was no particular play something happened.
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Post by telson13 on May 25, 2019 0:13:10 GMT -5
I would’ve agreed 100% to start the year, but he’s defied logic so far. If he continues to hit like this in AA, I actually think he might get bumped quickly. If they DO decide to be aggressive, I think they’ll promote him as high as they can without affecting the 40-man or his service time. And I still think there’s a very real chance he comes up in Sept and makes the playoff roster. I certainly wouldn’t say more likely than not, but I’d say AAA is maybe a 15-20% chance and MLB in Sept maybe 40%. There is an interesting aspect if Duran goes to AA (hopefully soon) and continues to rake at a ridiculous rate. If he does that and is actually knocking on Pawtucket's door by season's end, then it's not totally unreasonable to deduce that he could wind up in Boston before the all-star break in 2020. And if that's the case, perhaps - if Pedroia retires and the Sox decided to deal JBJ for a temporary CF who can play semi-regularly and then be bench depth (and perhaps get a reliever or back end AAA starter), then the Sox have opened up more than $20 million in salaries, which opens up more possibilities for the Red Sox. Of course this would depend on Duran really speeding through the system. It's possible, but I don't really think it's probable. I think he might be ready by the end of 2020 or more likely 2021 and the Sox might just ride it out with JBJ thru free agency and it's not a given that Pedroia is retiring and forfeiting his salary although I don't think we'll see much of him on the field. Yeah, philsbosoxfan and I were kinda mentioning that (and I think James too) in one of the gameday threads. I mean, promotion to AA barring injury is basically a foregone conclusion. I have a hard time attributing too much of the crazy BABIP to “luck,” inasmuch as there is BABIP “skill,” and by all accounts Duran checks every box there: speed, LD hitter, low FB rate, opposite field ability (and I suppose you could add in “hard contact” based on what we’ve heard). He’s at roughly .470 career in basically 500 PA. I noted in one of those threads that Jeter (.350 career) and Boggs (.344) are kinda the archetypical high-BABIP guys (Boggs didn’t have the speed, but he had the Wall). Neither had great power; Jeter walked a fair amount but whiffed a fair amount too, while Boggs walked a ton and rarely struck out. But basically, both were high-avg, high-OBP guys who hit a ton of opposite-field singles and ran into plenty of XBH, Jeter with some HR, Boggs perennially 40-50 2b. So high BABIPs do exist in MLB, but nothing close to Duran. Chris made the point re: A-ball defenses and speed, and two sorta-comps I came up with to look at that were Billy Hamilton (speed, hit more FB than Duran, less power) and Brett Gardner (actually probably a fair comp based on hitting style, GB-heavy, spray hitter, tho a little less power, more walks, similar Ks) both had near- or over-400 BABIPs before getting to AA. Hamilton was obviously the less talented hitter, and prob relied almost entirely on speed for the BABIP; Gardner saw his drop to mid-.300s. So I’m sure a substantial part of Duran’s BABIP (and thus production) will drop with the AA jump. BUT, he’s much more like Gardner than Hamilton as a hitter, so he should keep *some*, and probably a good amount. And he’s starting off roughly 70 points higher. So even if Duran loses ~50-100 points of the BABIP from his career mark, he’s still in .350-.400 range. The big questions then are: can he maintain his walk rate to ~10% and can he keep the K rate under 20%? If he does that in Portland, and hits, say, .330/.400/.470 (maintaining his ~.140 IsoP), should he still be in AA? Would he be worth a promotion for playoff purposes? Last year, on promotion from Lowell, he took a big IsoP hit (no more easy triples on shoddy defenses), and his walk rate cut in half, while the K rate was basically the same. But at Salem, he’s improved on everything but the K rate vs Greenville. So I’m not sure he’ll be *that* much worse in AA (the hypothetical has him losing almost 200 points off his OPS). It’s really just going to be about finding out how “real” the BABIP is, how much is his skill set and how much has been luck/bad defense. I don’t see any particularly concerning indication that he’ll, say, walk a bunch less and whiff a lot more. I doubt the video game numbers continue, but he should still be fairly impressive. They promoted Devers out of need, from AA. So it’s not unheard of. I agree that the likely event is he finishes in AA and is up August next year, roughly like Ellsbury. The outlier outcomes are 1) as you mention, JBJ is a question, both this year and next. If Duran shoves in AA, maybe the team looks at moving JBJ this winter, or trading deadline 2020. A *confluence* of bad JBJ and more silliness from Duran (what if he’s .360/.420/.520 in AA with a .400+ BABIP and a few more dingers?) *might* accelerate that timeframe. And 2) Duran struggles with Ks, or defense, or some other issue and finishes this year in AA and repeats it next spring before moving up. In that case, JBJ *probably* leaves as a FA and they placehold an OF spot (Mookie to CF would allow them to use a COF; there are options) in early 2021. I do think Duran is ticketed for CF in Fenway. I don’t think it happens permanently in 2019. But I do think the team’s long-term plan, and the additional talent return benefit of trading JBJ before he hits FA means the Sox will be as aggressive as Duran’s performance dictates. Hell, *they* might even be curious about how he’ll hit with the juicier ball, since that could affect their confidence level in whatever internal timeframe they have. There’s a good chance he’ll show more pop in AAA, so if he’s not *really* challenged in AA, it’s probably better for all parties that they promote to AAA, because it’s more data. Duran and Ellsbury were the same age, within a week, on drafting. Duran got a half-season of pro ball in because he signed early. Both started in high-A at 22. I think a reasonable estimate on Duran’s timeframe is Ellsbury’s. The difference tho is that Duran has that extra half-season (meaning more confidence in where he’s “at” development-wise), and he’s been MUCH better as a hitter. So I’d make the case that he could very well move more quickly.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 25, 2019 0:40:17 GMT -5
Just a hypothetical. If Pedroia doesn't come back, he could also be moved back to second base with someone else moving to the corner outfield in the future.
My tea leaves are getting cloudy but with a number of players gravitating upwards there's pretty much an abundance of roads the Sox could take. I'm guessing they will figure it out.
The next two year's futures mix could include any combo of Duran, Dalbec, Ockimey, Hernandez (Marco version), Lin and Chatham with a few other who wouldn't be totally out of the question.
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radiohix
Veteran
'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
Posts: 6,321
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Post by radiohix on May 25, 2019 1:46:04 GMT -5
With 3 walks today, Josh Ockimey now leads the Minors in walks, has more walks than strikeouts vs RHP and almost .200 points in IsoD! Crazy! The Pennsylvanian God of Walks?
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 25, 2019 4:42:54 GMT -5
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 25, 2019 5:55:40 GMT -5
In the 8th with 2 outs and Duran on first, there's a throwing error recorded by the catcher on a pickoff attempt yet no advance is shown. I thought you couldn't get an error if there's no advance. K, tough one to describe but Duran did advance to second. You can't see the runner on their single camera shots so this will be a bit speculative. Delayed steal attempt, the kind where you hope the catcher doesn't notice and throws back to the pitcher and you arrive at second before the pitcher can throw it there. It didn't work, catcher threw to second and Duran retreated to first but the catcher's throw sailed into center and Duran took second on the throw. ADD: Don't sleep on Schwaab.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 25, 2019 18:18:07 GMT -5
In the 8th with 2 outs and Duran on first, there's a throwing error recorded by the catcher on a pickoff attempt yet no advance is shown. I thought you couldn't get an error if there's no advance. K, tough one to describe but Duran did advance to second. You can't see the runner on their single camera shots so this will be a bit speculative. Delayed steal attempt, the kind where you hope the catcher doesn't notice and throws back to the pitcher and you arrive at second before the pitcher can throw it there. It didn't work, catcher threw to second and Duran retreated to first but the catcher's throw sailed into center and Duran took second on the throw. ADD: Don't sleep on Schwaab. Now they've changed it. Removed the error, Duran given a SB. I guess it was because he was heading towards first base when the throw was made. Realistically a SB cheapie.
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