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2022 Minor League Thread

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I'd love to have a team full of 2.5 WAR players to go along with JRam.

8 X 2.5 = 20
20 + 6 =26

If we got 26 oWAR from our starting lineup, and another 3 combined from the back ups, we'd have 29 total.

Only two teams have projected oWAR above that....the Dodgers and Yankees at 30.1 and 30 respectively.

Even if all we got was 2.5 by position to go along with JRam, we'd have an offense equal to Chicago's.

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There are four pests that we have had to face regularly within our division that were somewhat comparable to Freeman at the same age. We'd be happy if Freeman turned into three of them, but somebody will be happier if he waits a while.

Arreaz
Madrigal
Anderson

And the late bloomer, Whit Merrifield.

High contact, low walk rate, high BA, very little power.

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For those that are into risk assessment, Freeman is one of the lowest risk prospects in baseball.

Only six fangraphs top 100 prospects at the end of the season were rated as low risk. Freeman was ranked third among them.

From what I can tell the only question mark with Freeman is that shoulder, which likely says he will have to move off of SS, but it could be way worse since he isn't a slouch at 2B...
 
I went back to the pre 2019 fangraphs top 100 to see how low risk prospects have done over the last three seasons.

On the surface, its a mixed bag. But compared to the average success rate of top 100 prospects, they've far outperformed the expected. Plus, it takes six years to rate a prospect as a success or failure for the team that has him.

Anyway, the low risk prospects then were...

Robles
Hiura
Madrigal
India
Kikuchi
 
From what I can tell the only question mark with Freeman is that shoulder, which likely says he will have to move off of SS, but it could be way worse since he isn't a slouch at 2B...
You do realize it was his left shoulder don't you? It will have no effect on his ability to throw a baseball.
 
You do realize it was his left shoulder don't you? It will have no effect on his ability to throw a baseball.

That part I didn't see, but the question is what cause his non-throwing shoulder to have to get multiple surgeries on it?
 
Swinging a bat. Lot more likely to injure the lead shoulder (left shoulder for a RH batter like Freeman) than the trail shoulder.

I have genetic issues with my shoulders so I am trying to figure what caused it to see if it could be in the other shoulder or not... we shall see in time I guess
 
Question for anyone who may be in the know ( @BimboColesHair maybe?)

Tena has been someone who has exhibited plate discipline problems (26% K/6% BB in A+ in 2021) before putting up some rather impressive numbers in the AFL. Albeit a small sample size he went 13% K/13% BB in the AFL while also overall mashing the ball. Even looking at the way he finished off the A+ season it doesn't seem like there's anything that particularly clicked until the AFL. I do not believe it to be totally a sample size issue either (something that has 26% chance of happening has a 0.6% chance of happening 10 or less times over 75 occurrences, which is exactly what happened with his strikeouts). I'd actually believe someone who strikes out 26% of the time in A+ would strike out more in AFL against likely higher average pitching competition, at least in the sense of K% ability...

Is the feel the same from within that he did in fact click on something with his approach and hopefully be able to capture this for the future? If some specific training did seem to work on him can we please try the same on Noel, Rocchio, etc?
 
Question for anyone who may be in the know ( @BimboColesHair maybe?)

Tena has been someone who has exhibited plate discipline problems (26% K/6% BB in A+ in 2021) before putting up some rather impressive numbers in the AFL. Albeit a small sample size he went 13% K/13% BB in the AFL while also overall mashing the ball. Even looking at the way he finished off the A+ season it doesn't seem like there's anything that particularly clicked until the AFL. I do not believe it to be totally a sample size issue either (something that has 26% chance of happening has a 0.6% chance of happening 10 or less times over 75 occurrences, which is exactly what happened with his strikeouts). I'd actually believe someone who strikes out 26% of the time in A+ would strike out more in AFL against likely higher average pitching competition, at least in the sense of K% ability...

Is the feel the same from within that he did in fact click on something with his approach and hopefully be able to capture this for the future? If some specific training did seem to work on him can we please try the same on Noel, Rocchio, etc?
A lot of it was the robo ump zone. AFL average WHIP was over 1.6 iirc. Hitters didn't have to chase crap that fooled human umps is the easy answer. Once you get a feel for the robo zone, you can look for your pitch. Switching to automated strike zones would change the game dramatically (at first).
 
A lot of it was the robo ump zone. AFL average WHIP was over 1.6 iirc. Hitters didn't have to chase crap that fooled human umps is the easy answer. Once you get a feel for the robo zone, you can look for your pitch. Switching to automated strike zones would change the game dramatically (at first).
Thanks didn't realize they had robo umps there, that may explain a lot!
 

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