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Post by widewordofsport on Aug 25, 2014 14:37:56 GMT -5
Still some mixed reviews on scouting, last I hear his FB was 88-90, far below what he'd heard pre-draft.
Just scouting his last 10 games numbers... High walks I can live with, low hit numbers 34/50IP, but About the same for strikeouts, so I wonder if he regains some velo he can start to bump the k/9 a little.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 25, 2014 15:17:19 GMT -5
Hi K/9 rate has been similar, but that is misleading since he is going through innings much more efficiently. He is striking out 16.1% of batters in his last 10 starts after having a 13.4% rate in the 11 previous outings. That's a pretty substantial improvement, though 16.1% still isn't great shakes.
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Post by jhenrywaugh, prop. on Aug 25, 2014 16:16:01 GMT -5
Still some mixed reviews on scouting, last I hear his FB was 88-90, far below what he'd heard pre-draft. Where did you hear this?
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Post by widewordofsport on Aug 25, 2014 17:29:28 GMT -5
I found someone who went to the game a few weeks ago (when he pitched pretty well). Said he was 88-90 per stadium gun.
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Post by boston24 on Aug 25, 2014 18:49:38 GMT -5
I was at the Lexington game and sat behind a guy with radar gun. Trey was sitting 90-93 up to 95. I was told the radar used on board is slow that's why each team has a guy with a radar gun for each game sitting behind home plate . Last night he also sat 90-94 and hit 95 several times.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Aug 26, 2014 8:59:33 GMT -5
Never, ever pay attention to a minor league stadium gun without independent confirmation of its accuracy. I haven't been to that many stadiums (maybe 8-9), but I don't know that I've checked on a stadium gun that wasn't at least a couple of MPH off.
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Post by sammo420 on Aug 26, 2014 11:25:06 GMT -5
Never, ever pay attention to a minor league stadium gun without independent confirmation of its accuracy. I haven't been to that many stadiums (maybe 8-9), but I don't know that I've checked on a stadium gun that wasn't at least a couple of MPH off. This, the one thing I find odd, though, is that it was SLOW and usually they're fast to pump up crowd and make them think people are throwing harder than they actually are.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 28, 2014 9:48:20 GMT -5
Never, ever pay attention to a minor league stadium gun without independent confirmation of its accuracy. I haven't been to that many stadiums (maybe 8-9), but I don't know that I've checked on a stadium gun that wasn't at least a couple of MPH off. This, the one thing I find odd, though, is that it was SLOW and usually they're fast to pump up crowd and make them think people are throwing harder than they actually are. It's not that they try to juice the gun in either direction. Could just be that it's at a bad angle, hasn't been calibrated in years, is not of good quality, etc. As I was tweeting the other night, the gun in Frederick was off by 4-5 mph the whole night as well, and randomly would be off by as much as 9 mph on rare pitches. Even stopped working for an inning.
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Post by njsox on Aug 30, 2014 22:24:11 GMT -5
From what I could see in the MILB video Ball showed solid secondary stuff today, especially his change. Fastball looked maybe 89-92, but free and easy. Really starting to like this kid. May come on fast when he starts to mature physically
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Post by larrycook on Aug 31, 2014 20:20:46 GMT -5
I think it all comes down to experience. As he gains experience, he is getting better.
The fastball may not be 95 plus, but I will say that as the year has progressed, it has gotten a little life to it. If that trend continues, we could have a special pitcher on our hands.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Sept 1, 2014 0:03:43 GMT -5
For reference, Ball's August stats:
5G 26.2 IP 6 ER (2.02 ERA) (12 R total so that might be a bit misleading) 20 H 11 BB (1.16 WHIP) 18 K (6K/9)
Stellar stats in the context of late season for a northern high school pitcher/outfielder who's pitched far more innings than at any point in his life.
It should be noted that there was a change to his mechanics this past off season. It would not be at all unusual for the arm strength of the new muscle groups used to return to previous levels to take a year or more to happen. He's looking like he might zoom up the charts this coming year. I'm hopeful that he (and Stankiewicz) at least start the year under the eye of Paul Abbott.
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Post by burythehammer on Sept 1, 2014 6:21:32 GMT -5
If we're gonna qualify things to that level, we should just ignore his stats this year altogether. And I'd be fine with that, btw.
I'm certainly not someone who thinks statistical performance is all that matters for prospects, especially at lower levels, but I'm also not a fan of dressing them up just because he pitches for my favorite team's organization. Ball's numbers this year are not impressive, at all. And he may end up being a very good major league pitcher. I don't think those are mutually exclusive statements.
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Trey Ball
Sept 1, 2014 6:28:33 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by jmei on Sept 1, 2014 6:28:33 GMT -5
Yeah, I think "stellar" is overstating it, even taking into account all those factors. He's rebounded nicely from a brutal first half, but even just lately, he's been more solid than stellar.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 1, 2014 12:12:21 GMT -5
Yeah, I think "stellar" is overstating it, even taking into account all those factors. He's rebounded nicely from a brutal first half, but even just lately, he's been more solid than stellar. This is what's more important to me than his absolute level of performance. He was about as raw as you can get coming into the system, and going from borderline unplayable to a solid starter this season actually represents a substantial amount of progress. If he can show that same amount of progress next year, we'll be looking at a pretty damn good prospect.
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Post by soxfan06 on Sept 1, 2014 12:21:16 GMT -5
Less qualifying. 22 starts on the year.
First 11: 41 IP, 71 H, 39 R, 35 ER, 5 HR, 2 HB, 17 BB, 29 K
Second 11: 56.2, 40 H, 30 R, 17 ER, 4 HR, 1 HB, 22 BB, 39 K
Interestingly enough those splits coincide well with the months First 11 (April, May, June), Second 11 (July, August).
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Trey Ball
Sept 1, 2014 19:56:50 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by larrycook on Sept 1, 2014 19:56:50 GMT -5
Less qualifying. 22 starts on the year. First 11: 41 IP, 71 H, 39 R, 35 ER, 5 HR, 2 HB, 17 BB, 29 K Second 11: 56.2, 40 H, 30 R, 17 ER, 4 HR, 1 HB, 22 BB, 39 K Interestingly enough those splits coincide well with the months First 11 (April, May, June), Second 11 (July, August). Wow! Looks to me like he really improved a tremendous amount between April and August! .
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Sept 1, 2014 21:53:23 GMT -5
Those qualifiers define his situation and his second half performance far exceeded what I was expecting. The innings alone exceeded my expectations. Your mileage may vary.
For reference, other notable high school lefties the year after they were drafted and 19:
Ball (A) 100IP 4.68ERA 1.50 WHIP 68K 39BB 1.12 G/F .775OPSA Lester (A) 106IP 3.65ERA 1.38WHIP 71K 44BB (at Augusta, park factors unknown) Owens (A) 101.2IP 4.87ERA 1.45WHIP 130K 47BB .98 G/F .755OPSA Drake Britton was having TJ
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,922
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 2, 2014 23:14:09 GMT -5
Ball is the living proof that BABIP allowed is a hugely important skill in the low minors, before the guys who can't limit it have been weeded out at all.
His season does split beautifully between the 11 starts before July 1 and the 11 starts afterwards.
A 7.27 ERA, a .370 / .423 / .563 (.337 TAv) allowed.
And then ...
A 2.70 ERA, a .195 / .273 / .307 (.210 TAv) allowed.
And, of course, first a 4.68 FIP and then a 3.96! If you didn't know this was low-A ball, that would be a real WTF?
Here's his component breakdown, with percent change of each component, and the odds of the split being random in a simple simulation based on his overall rates. (Note that the batted ball data has been corrected from what b-ref shows; they have a bug in their script for parsing milb logs.)
Date PA K% BB+% HOC HRC BABIP XB% GB% LD% PU% Apr 27 to Jun 26, 2014 213 .136 .089 .355 .030 .413 .303 .337 .249 .083 Jul 1 to Aug 30, 2014 231 .169 .100 .209 .024 .218 .278 .429 .171 .124 Percent change 24% 12% -41% -22% -47% - 8% 27% -31% 49% Odds random .339 .709 .708 .0002 .789 .081 .078 .218 His K rate improved a bit, but perhaps not significantly. His BB + HBP rate actually was worse, but definitely insignificantly. He had a huge improvement in Hardness of Contact allowed, but the improvements in HR/Contact and XBH / Hits in Play were insignificant.
What he did have was an immense improvement in BABIP, one that has a 1 in 6225 chance of having been random. His GB% and LD% were much improved, each nearly to the point of significance, and he got way more popups (merely trending towards significance because they're too rare an event).
What makes this fascinating is that he didn't go from being hammered on balls in play to being solid or average -- he went from hammered to dominant. I think it's true that if you can get a .218 BABIP in low-A, you may not need to strike out a lot of guys; you may not even get to enough 2-strike counts to rack up a high number. It will be very interesting to see what happens to the pieces of his performance next year.
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Post by joshv02 on Sept 3, 2014 4:59:42 GMT -5
(Not to get into these endless debates, but when you say random, you mean "odds that the babip observed in the second sample is a die with a .413 chance of being a hit but observed at .218" right? )
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,922
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 3, 2014 10:45:58 GMT -5
(Not to get into these endless debates, but when you say random, you mean "odds that the babip observed in the second sample is a die with a .413 chance of being a hit but observed at .218" right? ) Not quite: it's the odds that you had a die that gave you a hit at his overall season BABIP of .314, and then threw it 325 times, and got .413 over the first 160 throws and .218 over the remaining 165. Or ... if you put =IF(RAND() >= .3138, 0, 1) in 325 rows of an Excel spreadsheet, and counted the number of 1's in rows 1 through 160 versus 161 through 325 ... and kept hitting F9 to cause a new set of random numbers to be generated, and the split totals to recalculate ... On average, you would see 66 or more 1's in the first 160 rows, and 36 or fewer 1's in the remaining 165 rows, once every 6225 times you hit F9. If you pressed the F9 key once per second, the average interval between times observing a split that big would be about an hour and 44 minutes. You'd probably give up long before you saw it the first time.
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Post by joshv02 on Sept 3, 2014 11:35:19 GMT -5
Not quite: it's the odds that you had a die that gave you a hit at his overall season BABIP of .314, and then threw it 325 times, and got .413 over the first 160 throws and .218 over the remaining 165. (Thanks - that's what I was wondering.)
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Post by okin15 on Sept 3, 2014 14:17:41 GMT -5
Not only that, but while 1 in 6225 sounds like bad odds, there really are a lot of pro ball-players once we stop limiting it to MLB.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Sept 3, 2014 14:39:02 GMT -5
LOL, in the early 70's I worked on Chase Manhattan's World Economics model for M.I.T. I programmed in assembly and machine language. What eric can do in 5 minutes with a spreadsheet would have taken me months and months and months.
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Post by jmei on Sept 3, 2014 14:57:17 GMT -5
I don't disagree with the main conclusion of Eric's above analysis: that Ball likely improved true-talent-wise sometime between June and July, and that his BABIP difference before and after that point is very unlikely to be completely random. But I'll note that I still think using the above sort of odds analysis on cherry-picked stretches like this is inappropriate and misleading for many of the reasons ramireja touched on here. I also think that it is very unlikely that Ball is a true-talent .218 BABIP pitcher (or even a true-talent .218 BABIP in low-A pitcher). While I'm very happy about how he improved in the latter half of the season, and I am generally pretty optimistic about Ball on the whole (i.e., I still think he's a pretty promising prospect who has a ceiling as high as anyone in the system), I'd still like to see improvement in his strikeout and walk numbers going forward.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Sept 3, 2014 15:16:38 GMT -5
I thought he addressed the strikeout/walks issue rather well and certainly didn't rule out those going up in the future.
Personally, I find this type of analysis to be far more informative than trying to use analysis systems designed for major league players on evolving baseball players at any level. Let's be honest here, this hasn't been a banner year for 'advanced metric systems' in terms of SoxProspects, they've pretty much missed the boat on all of our top prospects.
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