By Keith Law
This is the third annual installment of what I think of as the "guys I got wrong" piece. I'll look at players who've become much better big leaguers than I ever forecast them to be, and try to explain where I made mistakes in evaluating them.
In the past two editions, I discussed only players I had offered strong opinions about, saying they wouldn't be as successful as they became. This year I've included some players I didn't discuss much as prospects or young major leaguers, errors of omission that are errors nonetheless.
Jonathan Lucroy, C, Milwaukee Brewers
Lucroy made my top 10 Brewers prospects list just once, going into 2010, the first year I did a full top-10 ranking for all 30 teams. That list turned out to be well-stocked with future big leaguers:
1.
Brett Lawrie, 2B
2.
Alcides Escobar, SS
3. Eric Arnett, RHP
4. Kyle Heckathorn, RHP
5. Jonathan Lucroy, C
6.
Wily Peralta, RHP
7.
Lorenzo Cain, CF
8.
Jake Odorizzi, RHP
9. Kentrail Davis, LF
10.
Zach Braddock, LHP
Arnett, Heckathorn and Davis had just been drafted and the shine hadn't come off them yet; the real stars of that draft class turned out to be seventh-rounder
Khris Davis, 16th-rounder
Scooter Gennett and 22nd-rounder
Mike Fiers.
In Lucroy's case, the stats told a more accurate story than the scouting reports did. Lucroy walked more than he struck out as a 23-year-old in Double-A, with a .380 OBP (fifth in the league among players with more than 100 games) and some doubles power. He also had thrown out 40 percent of opposing base stealers. But Lucroy had a very short swing as an amateur and made what appeared to be only slight adjustments to start his hands further back, changes that I incorrectly assumed wouldn't lead to much more pop. Those little tweaks made his swing much more rotational, however, and he has been consistent with isolated power (ISO) figures in the .150-.200 range, this year likely cracking the 70 extra-base hit mark. I assumed that his lack of power would lead to major league pitchers being willing to attack him rather than give him the free passes he'd earned in Double-A, but my premise was false; he developed more power than I foresaw.
I don't think I had even considered pitch-framing as a skill back when Lucroy was an amateur, and Lucroy didn't have a reputation among scouts as a great defender beyond his arm, but he has turned out to be a solid-to-average receiver with great framing ability. Add that to the unexpected power boost, and you see why I missed on a player who already has a 6.3 WAR this season, tied for seventh in the majors.
Todd Frazier, 3B, Cincinnati Reds
I was back and forth on Frazier throughout his time as a prospect, listing him at No. 66 in my top 100 before 2010, then dropping him off the list and to the back of Cincinnati's top 10 after a mediocre season in Triple-A at age 24. I never liked Frazier's swing, which had a large hitch at its start that created a preset uphill path through the ball, but I saw his strong results through Double-A as a sign he'd produce offensively. He has lessened that hitch over time, but more importantly, his hands are so strong and quick that he has been able to hit for contact at a better rate in the majors than he did in his two-plus years in Triple-A.
He does a lot of damage when he does make contact despite below-average swing-and-miss rates on a pitch-by-pitch basis. Frazier also has worked to become a solid-to-average defender at third base, enough to make him a 4-WAR player by both Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs. If Frazier hit better in Triple-A, I might have stayed with him after ranking him in the top 100, and if he didn't have that unorthodox swing, I might have liked him more going back to his college days. But I dinged him on the swing mechanics from the very start, and that led me to be inconsistent in my projections for him when his performance varied.
Kyle Seager, 3B, Seattle Mariners
This one is pretty simple: I never saw the possibility of Seager hitting 20-25 homers a year when he was an amateur and the second-best position player on his own college team behind
Dustin Ackley. Seager has reached 20 homers in three straight seasons, with no real help from his home park or all the road games he plays in Anaheim and Oakland every year. I'm not surprised he's developed into a better-than-average defender at third base, given how strong his baseball acumen is, but I whiffed on his power by about 50 percent. He's now a 4-5 WAR player, and I thought he'd be somewhere below 3, and the power is the primary reason I was off.
Yan Gomes, C, Cleveland Indians
Gomes was just a guy -- as opposed to a #GUY -- when Toronto shipped him and Mike Aviles to Cleveland for Esmil Rogers after the 2012 season. Gomes was a fringy bat without a clear position. He had very little minor league experience overall, with just 172 games behind the plate before the trade. He was only a part-time catcher with some arm strength, but none of the refined skills that would point to him excelling at the position.
Last month I wrote about his emergence and why I believe it's real, but I confess I had no expectation that he'd become a plus defender at the time he was traded.
While I'm looking at the Indians, I would include pitcher Corey Kluber here, too. It's not that I ever dismissed Kluber, but I never discussed him anywhere despite strong minor league strikeout numbers. I mentioned him exactly once in all his time in pro ball before this season -- when he was traded from San Diego to Cleveland -- even though he clearly should have ranked among the top 50 prospects in baseball.
Jose Quintana, SP, Chicago White Sox
Is Quintana the most anonymous 5-WAR pitcher in baseball? He cracked that mark last year if you base his WAR off his ERA, and did so again this year if you base it off his FIP (the two main methods, used by Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs, respectively). Even playing for a team that hasn't been in the playoff hunt the past few years, Quintana seems to have flown especially under the radar. He signed with the Mets as an amateur in 2006, pitched five innings, was released, and then resurfaced with the Yankees in 2008 in the Dominican Summer League (he's actually Colombian). He reached the U.S. in 2010 and threw 102 innings as a starter and reliever in high Class A in 2010. The Yankees chose not to add him to the 40-man roster that winter, making him a free agent because he'd previously been released by another organization, and the White Sox signed him to pitch in Double-A. By May he was in the big leagues, and he has given the White Sox 85 starts and more than 500 innings, all for a tiny initial investment.
Quintana has improved his cutter since joining Chicago, which is about the least shocking thing imaginable given how much success White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper has had teaching that pitch. Both the cutter and changeup grade out as at least above-average, if not plus. But the real key for Quintana has been his outstanding fastball command; he doesn't throw hard, but he locates extremely well, gets ahead in the count early, and doesn't pitch away from contact. I don't think his low home run rate this year will last, especially not with half his games in a home run park, but the rest of his formula for success is sustainable.
J.D. Martinez, LF, Detroit Tigers
I wasn't the only one who missed on Martinez, but the reason we all were light on him is instructive: Players change, in ways that statistical projections can't foresee and scouts can only speculate about. I didn't like Martinez's swing, his lack of plate discipline, or his poor defense in left field when he was a hot-hitting prospect in the Astros' farm system. After nearly 1,000 at-bats in Houston, he appeared to be a washout.
Martinez retooled his swing last offseason -- lowering his hands, getting his body more upright, and increasing his stride for more weight transfer. It's resulted in a huge increase in power, from a .136 career ISO coming into 2014 to a .257 ISO this year. Maybe I should have ranked him in the Astros' top 10 somewhere while he was coming up, but could anyone have foreseen him developing into a 60 extra-base-hit guy given his tools and swing mechanics at the time?
Jacob deGrom, SP, New York Mets
I think I ranked deGrom aggressively before 2013, or I thought I did, putting him No. 10 in the Mets' system on the basis of some very good reports on his fastball and breaking ball during his half-season back from Tommy John surgery. He had a solid 2013 season across three levels, but his strikeout rates didn't match his stuff, and most scouts I talked with seemed to think he'd end up a reliever, behind more advanced Mets prospects such as
Rafael Montero. As a result, I pushed him back slightly to No. 12 in their system.
Of course, deGrom has been one of the NL's best rookies this year, showing a four-pitch mix -- three of the pitches are at least solid-average -- with the best strikeout rate of his career. He misses bats in and out of the zone, his control is already above-average, and he's so athletic that his command may still improve because he can repeat his delivery so easily. He's also a pretty good hitter, enough for it to make a difference in his value to the Mets.
