I made up a new stat for prospect evaluation

[Dominikk85]

I did a little research on batting data with fangraphs leaderboard to research the relationship between power, strikeouts and plate discipline. Generally Ks are bad but some very good hitters strike out a lot because they can compensate with walks and bombs. And likewise some good contact hitters are bad because all they hit is singles and outs.

 

Here is my post at the fangraphs community section.

http://www.fangraphs.com/community/introducing-k-bb-iso/

 

BTW the table file with the original data does not work due to the conversion from european to US excel so added a corrected version in the comments

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bfQ...h_Z78LDeo4/edit

 

what I did was exporting the leaderboard from 2014 to april 2017 in wRC+ from fangraphs and then I did a calculation. with pitchers K% minus BB% is a very strong indicator for success, so I did something similar for hitters: I first scaled K and BB to decimal (0.2 instead of 20%) to bring it to the same scale as ISO (isolated power) and then subtracted BB% and ISO from K%. I found that good hitters get a value of negative 0.1 or lower while bad hitters are closer to zero or in some cases even positive (terrible hitters). I did a correlation analysis and there was a strong correlation between wRC+ and K minus BB minus ISO (0.75 Pearson correlation). overall the K minus BB minus ISO leaderboard looks pretty similar to the wRC+ leaderboard.

 

the value of that stat is that it removes some of the noise of BABIP that is present in wRC+/OPS/BA/OBP which makes it a useful predictor for small sample sizes (early season) and minor league players.

 

here is ta rule of thumb general scale:

 

great

good - 0.08 to -0.14

OK -0.07 to -0.03

bad > -0.03

 

You have to be careful with young prospects though. Some have a bad K minus BB minus ISO but their body type projects power growth so I would not write them off. And likewise high BB without power are hard to maintain in the majors where pitchers have control.

Edited May 8, 2017 by GermanSock

[Dominikk85]

Some interesting young sox hitters:

 

Moncada:

last year AA 0.309- 0.13-0.254 = -0.075 pretty solid

AAA 2017 - 0.024 could need some improvement. It is not terrible but to make 30/11 K/BB work he needs more power and I think he has that in him. Key for him is staying disciplined and getting good pitches and hit them in the air at a good angle. If he does that he has the power and can become a very good hitter even at 30% Ks. I think he needs the homers though. He is solid as a doubles and line drive hitter too but whiffs too much to be really effective as that kind of hitter. To be really a plus hitter he needs to elevate the ball and hit 30 plus bombs and he can do that.

 

A guy I'm concerned about is tim anderson. He can hit some but low power, little patience and and lots of Ks are not a good thing. I said that already last year, he had a kind of late start and has the athleticism to make changes but he does need to change some in his hitting profile, just hoping for a .380 babip can't work long term. Last year he had a 95 wRC+ but with an almost .380 BABIP and his K minus BB minus ISO was a positive 0.09 which is terrible.

 

This year his Ks minus BB minus ISO is even worse but he also had some bad babip luck (.260). He isn't as bad as this year but he still is a below average hitter by quite a bit. I think he needs to either tap into some power or improve his Ks. He actually did increase his LA and FB rate (I actually send him an article on his LA on Twitter because I though he could benefit from the LA change but while he did change his LA - not sure if conscious effort or not his exit velocity is down and the fly balls are not leaving the park at just 6% HR/FB).

 

The positive thing is that as a SS he doesn't have to hit that much. If he can improve to a 90 wRC+ he can be a good MLB player if he plays well at shortstop.

 

Zack collins

Excellent K minus BB minus ISO at negative .169. I think he should tap into some more power though because I expect his Ks to go up a little in the majors and 20% BB is not quite sustainable either. But overall I think he has a pretty safe profile to be at least a better than average hitter. There is a small chance that he has the Dan vogelbach/tyler white profile of walks galore with just OK contact and power which does not quite hold up against plus Velo pitching but I think collins has better batspeed then they have.

 

Luis alexander basabe

Last year he had a K minus BB minus ISO of negative 0.021. That is below average but for a considered raw player 26/9/.189 is pretty balanced. To make it work at the majors he needs to either improve his contact or power a little but there is not a huge improvement needed (like with anderson). Overall I like him, he has some ways to go but it is not impossible.

Edited May 8, 2017 by GermanSock

[caulfield12]

You also have to take into consideration the havoc Moncada causes when he gets on base...there's no simplistic way to quantify the effect speed has on the psyche of the opposition.

[Dominikk85]

You also have to take into consideration the havoc Moncada causes when he gets on base...there's no simplistic way to quantify the effect speed has on the psyche of the opposition.

 

His speed is a plus but the most important thing is that he hits. His Ks are some risk but if he can keep up the walks and hits for decent power ( 250+ ISO) he will be a good hitter.

[chitownsportsfan]

His speed is a plus but the most important thing is that he hits. His Ks are some risk but if he can keep up the walks and hits for decent power ( 250+ ISO) he will be a good hitter.

 

Uh, if he hits for a 250 or greater ISO he'll be one of the best players in MLB almost immediately That's more than decent power, that's elite, at 2B it's almost unheard of. I'd happily settle for a 260/330/460 line this year and improvement on that as he ages.

[steveno89]

Uh, if he hits for a 250 or greater ISO he'll be one of the best players in MLB almost immediately That's more than decent power, that's elite, at 2B it's almost unheard of. I'd happily settle for a 260/330/460 line this year and improvement on that as he ages.

 

If Moncada puts up a +.250 ISO at the mlb level you are talking about an elite player. That would put hi9m in the top 15 in the mlb in 2016 of ISO

[Dominikk85]

Uh, if he hits for a 250 or greater ISO he'll be one of the best players in MLB almost immediately That's more than decent power, that's elite, at 2B it's almost unheard of. I'd happily settle for a 260/330/460 line this year and improvement on that as he ages.

 

You have to consider the power jump of the league, the average ISO is now .170. Of course a .250 iso is great but at 30/11 it isnt great. Chris carter last year was at 32/12/.277 and he had a 112 wRC+ and barely found a job.

 

Of course at 2b a 112 wRC+ does play very well but don't forget that 30% ks used to be historically high and used to be a death sentence, most guys that made it work had elite power (closer to .300 iso).

 

Now of course at 2b he would play well below that but to get to a 120+ wRC+ consistently he either needs Ks below 30 or an iso above 250.

[Dominikk85]

Some math assuming an above average BABIP of .310

 

.250 ISO, 11% BB, 30%K , 6 hbp, 30 HR = 147 hits, .238/.328/.488 which is about a 120 wRC+ in Chicago

 

On the other hand the same with 20 HR and a .220 ISO

140 hits, .226/.318/.448 which is about a 105 wRC+

 

And 25%k, 11bb and .220 with 20 HR. 151 hits, .244/.334/464 which should be around a 115 wRC+ with the chicago park factors.

 

25 % k and 250 ISO would be a monster, 158 hits, .255/.344/.505 which would be almost a 140 wRC+.

 

[Dam8610]

Maybe it's just me, but from the perspective of evaluating a player and how it is typically done, this statistic makes much more sense as BB% + ISO - K%. Then it would read more like every other statistic, where the larger the positive number is, the better the player is in that category.