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7/20 Gameday Thread: 1 Small Step for Marcus, 1 Giant Leap
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2019 2:51:47 GMT -5
I don't know what you could possibly see live that I haven't seen on MiLB TV but defense going forward is pretty clearly not an issue. To me, the problem almost has to be mechanical but I don't have much confidence in Lee May Jr's ability to figure it out. Yeah, I wonder too, when recently Marcus Wilson dropped down to Salem after struggling terribly, they “immediately identified an issue with his swing,” he got red-hot, promoted and has continued to hit. That Duran is showing similar struggles on arriving in Portland after absolutely *raking* in Salem (and everywhere else professionally) should maybe raise some eyebrows. I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying they should send Duran back to Salem for a bit? A+ to AA is the biggest jump in the minors, his BABIP wasn't going to be so high forever, and as James mentioned he was at Long Beach State a little over a year ago where his swing (or was it his approach? both?) was entirely different. It is FINE that he is struggling right now. It was going to happen eventually.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jul 21, 2019 4:26:40 GMT -5
Yeah, I wonder too, when recently Marcus Wilson dropped down to Salem after struggling terribly, they “immediately identified an issue with his swing,” he got red-hot, promoted and has continued to hit. That Duran is showing similar struggles on arriving in Portland after absolutely *raking* in Salem (and everywhere else professionally) should maybe raise some eyebrows. I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying they should send Duran back to Salem for a bit? A+ to AA is the biggest jump in the minors, his BABIP wasn't going to be so high forever, and as James mentioned he was at Long Beach State a little over a year ago where his swing (or was it his approach? both?) was entirely different. It is FINE that he is struggling right now. It was going to happen eventually. To me, the difference is not the difference in his bottom line numbers, that's the result not the cause. To me the difference is what happens when the bat hits the ball. There's a pretty clear difference between the sharp grounders and line drives that he used to hit and the weak contact he's making now and that difference is significantly more than the difference between levels. I'm seriously not good enough to remember exact swings from several months ago to compare them to swings now so I don't know if there's differences in swing plane, load, hands etc. Seems like a bit of film work should identify it.
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Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Jul 21, 2019 4:29:40 GMT -5
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Post by sarasoxer on Jul 21, 2019 6:42:05 GMT -5
I have never seen him pitch but recall that he has an upper 80s FB. In my mind he is another Brian Johnson....altho I am willing to be dissuaded. A Kevin Thomas interview with Paul Abbott about him would work for me. That's our best pitching coach and he's not usually shy in interviews. Kevin Thomas, Portland Press Herald, is, IMO, a very good writer. Paul Abbott has had an interesting career and is reputedly a very studious, dedicated coach. The only report I see on McGrath is SP's which rates his stuff as fringy. The FB, 86-88, and curve are deemed below average while the slider and change are fringy. His age is current on the page and there is a 2017 reference within the report, so it may be up to date. He is not listed in our top 60, unless I missed it. Still he has 72ks in 70 innings and a 1.10 whip, while sporting a sub 2.00 ERA. So Abbott must be helping in some measurable capacity.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jul 21, 2019 8:38:59 GMT -5
A Kevin Thomas interview with Paul Abbott about him would work for me. That's our best pitching coach and he's not usually shy in interviews. Kevin Thomas, Portland Press Herald, is, IMO, a very good writer. Paul Abbott has had an interesting career and is reputedly a very studious, dedicated coach. The only report I see on McGrath is SP's which rates his stuff as fringy. The FB, 86-88, and curve are deemed below average while the slider and change are fringy. His age is current on the page and there is a 2017 reference within the report, so it may be up to date. He is not listed in our top 60, unless I missed it. Still he has 72ks in 70 innings and a 1.10 whip, while sporting a sub 2.00 ERA. So Abbott must be helping in some measurable capacity. He's old for the level at 25 and is in his second year in Portland after spending three in Salem. We got a recent report on his stuff that was consistent with what we have, saying that hitters are unlikely to expand the zone in AAA and MLB on his stuff the way AA hitters are. The report squares with the way he got hit around in his one AAA appearance this year. I'm going to remain skeptical until we see it at higher levels than Portland. He might be an up-and-down reliever or something and may crack the top 60 on 8/1 or not.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 21, 2019 9:34:29 GMT -5
I think we gave up 8 yearned runs tonight (not counting Dominican league). We have to work on some defense! Safe to say that they're all working on defense every day.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jul 21, 2019 21:23:29 GMT -5
I think we gave up 8 yearned runs tonight (not counting Dominican league). We have to work on some defense! I mean, this is what happens when you add the short-season clubs to the slate. Not a great night for defense but it was the youngsters mostly: Pawtucket: 0 errors Portland: 2 (one of which was Dalbec's 15th. His defense seems to have taken a slight step back this year.) Salem: 0 Greenville: 5 (three of which were Cottam in his first game at 1B as a pro) Lowell: 3 (two were Cannon, who now has 5 in 8 pro games. Safe to say his days at SS are numbered.) GCL: 3 DSL combined: 3 (one was Frank Astacio, who has 11 in 23 games. Yikes.)
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Post by telson13 on Jul 21, 2019 23:23:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I wonder too, when recently Marcus Wilson dropped down to Salem after struggling terribly, they “immediately identified an issue with his swing,” he got red-hot, promoted and has continued to hit. That Duran is showing similar struggles on arriving in Portland after absolutely *raking* in Salem (and everywhere else professionally) should maybe raise some eyebrows. I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying they should send Duran back to Salem for a bit? A+ to AA is the biggest jump in the minors, his BABIP wasn't going to be so high forever, and as James mentioned he was at Long Beach State a little over a year ago where his swing (or was it his approach? both?) was entirely different. It is FINE that he is struggling right now. It was going to happen eventually. Nah, my point in mentioning Wilson was that I think it’s reasonable to have some concern over the job Lee May Jr is doing in Portland. Wilson had hit reasonably well before the trade, in the AA Southern League. But he had awful struggles on arriving in Portland. He went down to Salem, and I’d read in an article (on MassLive maybe?) that the Salem staff (I’m paraphrasing a direct quote) immediately identified a problem with his swing/approach, and coached him on it. He then proceeded to crush the ball and get promoted back to Portland. Duran had fairly consistent results for what amounts to a full season’s PA at three different levels, and in particular took a significant leap forward in Salem this spring. That’s despite low-A to high-A being a more difficult jump than some would think. He improved nearly every facet of his game over his time in Greenville when he moved to Salem including a 50-point IsoP jump, tripling his HR/FB rate, improving his LD rate (to nearly 30%, from just over 20%), *tripling* his walk rate, and maintaining essentially the same K rate (increased from 16% to 19%, which is a perfectly ok endpoint and a very marginal difference, even if it is worse). His BABIP went up, but a lot of that probably simply has to do with his LD rate (since xBAs on LD are well over .500 in most cases, versus mid-100s on GB and under .10 on FB). So while I don’t think his IsoP in Lowell, for example was a reasonable expectation going forward (because he was clearly too good for the league, and hit an inordinate number of triples), he basically stayed a similar hitter through the 3 levels, with a small adjustment drop Lowell to GV (much better competition), and then a big leap forward at Salem. The high-A to AA leap is probably the toughest beyond AAA-MLB, so I expected some drop-off. And while yes, the BABIP was unsustainable, it was *consistent*, suggesting some (significant part) of it was skill. Things that raise BABIP expectations: hard, line-drive contact, speed, and opposite-field hitting. I wrote a lot about it in the Duran thread, because Chris made the good point that his speed in particular at lower levels would contribute disproportionately due to poor defense (fielders rushing, not running the best routes, etc). So I looked at Brett Gardner and Billy Hamilton as comps (both also put up BABIPs near or over .400 below AA). Basically, I thought Duran was probably more of a true-talent .350 BABIP guy if you took the bad defense out. And that would fit with the very high LD rate, speed, etc. The problem is that he’s hitting only 12% LD in AA. He’s striking out more (that’s expected), but walking a ton less. His IsoP has dropped over .100 points. And his BABIP is .284, which is actually pretty bad (not awful, but certainly bad when average is about .300 and his speed alone should put him around .310-.320). He’s also going oppo more and pulling a bit more, but his shots to CF have disappeared. All bad, but the LD thing is the worst. My sense is that Duran is struggling with the adjustment (could be velo, could be much better breaking stuff, etc.) and has probably tinkered or been tinkered with and lost his swing. He may be getting fooled on breakers and hitting weak grounders, or struggling to get around on heat and thus fisting oppo on FBs. I really can’t say, but he isn’t the same hitter. Given that Wilson went through a similar funk at Portland, had an apparently easily identified (at least by the Salem staff...that might be a big positive on them) issue that was fixed, and has continued with his success...it all says time that maybe the Portland hitting coach isn’t a good fit there. Maybe Lance Zawadzki should be moved up to Portland and Lee May Jr let go. Those are two relatively premium/important hitting prospects who don’t seem to be getting the right instruction for them. I’d start considering it’s a pattern and not a pixel. I think Duran belongs in AA right now, but I also think he should be BABIPing .340-.360 with a .120 or so IsoP, hitting >20% LD. Something is very off with him.
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Post by telson13 on Jul 21, 2019 23:35:46 GMT -5
Just an aside, there’s tons on this in his thread (I got into BABIP quite a bit because he was over .500 in a half-season, which is crazy).
Long Beach emphasizes small-ball, GB, moving runners, etc (think pre- swing change Tzu Wei Lin). Classic western D1 type stuff. When the Sox drafted him they immediately changed his swing to a more traditional one (there are lots of mentions on it out there; Speier I think did a good article on Duran). He immediately started showing pull power. I think they focused on LD hard contact, not necessarily “loft,” ie an uppercut to get HR. More BA/gap power-driven. While LD rate is incredibly volatile and takes many hundreds of PA to stabilize (in other words, predict long-term, multi-year expectations), the precipitous drop is probably not simply a statistical oddity. It’s being driven by the competition imo, and I don’t think the failure to adjust lies solely (or even mostly) in Duran’s current/future talent. I think it’s very possible it’s a coaching/communication breakdown.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jul 22, 2019 10:23:28 GMT -5
For reasons I stated in the Portland hitting thread, I strongly disagree that there's reason to be concerned with Lee May.
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Post by James Dunne on Jul 22, 2019 10:46:17 GMT -5
Just an aside, there’s tons on this in his thread (I got into BABIP quite a bit because he was over .500 in a half-season, which is crazy). Long Beach emphasizes small-ball, GB, moving runners, etc (think pre- swing change Tzu Wei Lin). Classic western D1 type stuff. When the Sox drafted him they immediately changed his swing to a more traditional one (there are lots of mentions on it out there; Speier I think did a good article on Duran). He immediately started showing pull power. I think they focused on LD hard contact, not necessarily “loft,” ie an uppercut to get HR. More BA/gap power-driven. While LD rate is incredibly volatile and takes many hundreds of PA to stabilize (in other words, predict long-term, multi-year expectations), the precipitous drop is probably not simply a statistical oddity. It’s being driven by the competition imo, and I don’t think the failure to adjust lies solely (or even mostly) in Duran’s current/future talent. I think it’s very possible it’s a coaching/communication breakdown. It probably is, in fact, a statistical oddity. The way people convinced themselves that he had some preternatural ability to hit baseballs that found their way to where fielders ain't at a rate 20% better than the best season of Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn's life, rather than "yeah he's hitting great but also he's getting lucky at a level that's almost stupid" was always wishful thinking. And then the luck started drying up a little right before he got promoted and the competition got a lot harder when the luck was gone, making the statistical dropoff appear even more precipitous. He's hitting too many pop-ups, but "that seventh round draft pick who made it to Double-A 11.5 months after debuting is hitting too many pop-ups" doesn't translate into a reason to be concerned about coaching or communication.
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