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2022 Cleveland Guardians Regular Season Thread

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BimboColesHair said:
Man.

Here is the list of players aged 21 or younger who put up qualified .800+ OPS seasons in AAA in the last 5 seasons:

Luis Urias
Kyle Tucker
Alex Verdugo
Amed Rosario
Adalberto Mondesi
Alek Thomas
Luis Robert
Bo Bichette
Austin Riley
Eloy Jimenez
Ronald Acuna Jr
Carter Kieboom
Gavin Lux
Bobby Witt Jr
Riley Greene
Wander Franco
Luis Garcia
CJ Abrams

And Gabriel Arias.

Some of you are way too quick to pull the hook on prospects.
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Pretty much that tells me, baring injuries, Arias will be a big leaguer without a doubt.

Arias had a very unlucky 22 overall...
 
sportscoach said:
Pretty much that tells me, baring injuries, Arias will be a big leaguer without a doubt.

Arias had a very unlucky 22 overall...
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Yep.

There's a reason he was listed as, potentially, our number one prospect for a while.

An injury this year has rinsed some of the sparkle off of him when it comes to people with zero attention span. He's still probably the number one guy in the minors that we want to get up here so he can face big league pitching.
 
BimboColesHair said:
And as he has gotten past breaking his hand is slashing .292/.333/.523 in the month of August
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Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
Yep.

There's a reason he was listed as, potentially, our number one prospect for a while.

An injury this year has rinsed some of the sparkle off of him when it comes to people with zero attention span. He's still probably the number one guy in the minors that we want to get up here so he can face big league pitching.
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I was waiting until he got healthy for a certain amount of time to judge him one way or another. I'd want more than one month to judge one way or the other, but it seems like, he is back to being healthy and back to the 800 OPS self. He's going to make the bigs, that's not an issue in my mind. Will he become an everyday, that I don't know, but he deserves a chance. His SO rate is a big question mark, but as long as he figures out how to cut that down some and get a few more walks, I don't see why he cannot succeed
 
sportscoach said:
I was waiting until he got healthy for a certain amount of time to judge him one way or another. I'd want more than one month to judge one way or the other, but it seems like, he is back to being healthy and back to the 800 OPS self. He's going to make the bigs, that's not an issue in my mind. Will he become an everyday, that I don't know, but he deserves a chance. His SO rate is a big question mark, but as long as he figures out how to cut that down some and get a few more walks, I don't see why he cannot succeed
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K rate has me skeptical. Bobby Bradley and Bradley Zimmer come to mind and even Nolan Jones as his production stating tailing off upon hitting the upper minors.

Just looked up Zimmer's minor league number and I forgot how accomplished he was at the plate coming up through the system. He got on base and hit for power at every stop but alas the scouting report were right that his mechanical swing would be easily exploited by big league pitching once they figured him out.
 
BimboColesHair said:
And as he has gotten past breaking his hand is slashing .292/.333/.523 in the month of August
Click to expand...
What do you think is reasonable to expect for him in the AVG/OBP land going forward the rest of the year? Just a baseline expectation... Will be interesting to see how it compares to what actually happens.
 
sportscoach said:
I was waiting until he got healthy for a certain amount of time to judge him one way or another. I'd want more than one month to judge one way or the other, but it seems like, he is back to being healthy and back to the 800 OPS self. He's going to make the bigs, that's not an issue in my mind. Will he become an everyday, that I don't know, but he deserves a chance. His SO rate is a big question mark, but as long as he figures out how to cut that down some and get a few more walks, I don't see why he cannot succeed
Click to expand...

Arias put up a 22.8% K rate in his .800+ OPS season in AAA. Here is how the rest of that list fared in their seasons:

Luis Urias: 20.5%
Kyle Tucker: 18.1%
Alex Verdugo: 10.1%
Amed Rosario: 15.8%
Adalberto Mondesi: 24.1%
Alek Thomas: 20.5%
Luis Robert: 24.7%
Bo Bichette: 19.7%
Austin Riley: 29.3%
Eloy Jimenez: 13.2%
Ronald Acuna Jr: 19.8%
Carter Kieboom: 20.2%
Gavin Lux: 18.1%
Bobby Witt Jr: 22.5%
Riley Greene: 27.6%
Wander Franco: 11.7%
Luis Garcia: 16.4%
CJ Abrams: 16.6%

So, what, comparable to guys like Urias, Thomas, Robert, Witt Jr, and Kieboom? Can think of worse company to have for K rate concerns.

And again, taking into account a lockout offseason where he had no access to coaches and then breaking his hand, his K rate the last 2 months in AAA has been 23%, right where it was last year. Not many people were really concerned about his K rate last season because they saw the .800+ OPS from a premier defensive prospect at a ridiculously young age for the level he was playing. But now that the other 77% of his ABs aren't producing gaudy numbers, now it is a concern for many.

Guys with his track record of production at a young age tend to make it at the MLB level more times than not. Shit, look at that list again. A lot of hits on prospects in that list.
 
BimboColesHair said:
Arias put up a 22.8% K rate in his .800+ OPS season in AAA. Here is how the rest of that list fared in their seasons:

Luis Urias: 20.5%
Kyle Tucker: 18.1%
Alex Verdugo: 10.1%
Amed Rosario: 15.8%
Adalberto Mondesi: 24.1%
Alek Thomas: 20.5%
Luis Robert: 24.7%
Bo Bichette: 19.7%
Austin Riley: 29.3%
Eloy Jimenez: 13.2%
Ronald Acuna Jr: 19.8%
Carter Kieboom: 20.2%
Gavin Lux: 18.1%
Bobby Witt Jr: 22.5%
Riley Greene: 27.6%
Wander Franco: 11.7%
Luis Garcia: 16.4%
CJ Abrams: 16.6%

So, what, comparable to guys like Urias, Thomas, Robert, Witt Jr, and Kieboom? Can think of worse company to have for K rate concerns.

And again, taking into account a lockout offseason where he had no access to coaches and then breaking his hand, his K rate the last 2 months in AAA has been 23%, right where it was last year. Not many people were really concerned about his K rate last season because they saw the .800+ OPS from a premier defensive prospect at a ridiculously young age for the level he was playing. But now that the other 77% of his ABs aren't producing gaudy numbers, now it is a concern for many.

Guys with his track record of production at a young age tend to make it at the MLB level more times than not. Shit, look at that list again. A lot of hits on prospects in that list.
Click to expand...
There are some very exciting names on that list. Hopefully Arias joins them.
 
Sorry to disturb the Arias apologetics meeting, but what about BB/K and SwStr%?
 
BimboColesHair said:
Man.

Here is the list of players aged 21 or younger who put up qualified .800+ OPS seasons in AAA in the last 5 seasons:

Luis Urias
Kyle Tucker
Alex Verdugo
Amed Rosario
Adalberto Mondesi
Alek Thomas
Luis Robert
Bo Bichette
Austin Riley
Eloy Jimenez
Ronald Acuna Jr
Carter Kieboom
Gavin Lux
Bobby Witt Jr
Riley Greene
Wander Franco
Luis Garcia
CJ Abrams

And Gabriel Arias.

Some of you are way too quick to pull the hook on prospects.
Click to expand...
The issue is that people get their hopes up way too high for prospects, and are then beside themselves when they have any struggles.

Some were convinced Owen Miller would save the lineup last year, and now we have people asking for him to be DFA. Both are wild takes btw

At most, I’m like 60%-70% sure that the best prospects in baseball are going to be good. That’s the Williams/Espino/Rocchio class. Everyone else, I’m 50/50 at best. I expect guys to struggle, I expect some to fail. Sometimes it’s going to draw out over years before we know one way or the other. It’s just the nature of the game.
 
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Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
If Arias isn't a plus bat, it's pretty easy to say he doesn't have a place here.
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What do you mean by a "plus bat"? As a defensive SS he's outstanding. I'd guess he's well above average as a 3B and 2B as well. His offensive upside lies in his power and the ability to get to it. He strikes me as a .260-.270 hitter than can bang 25-30 HR and 2B over the course of a full MLB season, but that's not a given. I'll be the first to admit that, but the upside is undeniable......as is the risk.
 
Derek said:
The issue is that people get their hopes up way too high for prospects, and are then beside themselves when they have any struggles.

Some were convinced Owen Miller would save the lineup last year, and now we have people asking for him to be DFA. Both are wild takes btw

At most, I’m like 60%-70% sure that the best prospects in baseball are going to be good. That’s the Williams/Espino/Rocchio class. Everyone else, I’m 50/50 at best. I expect guys to struggle, I expect some to fail. Sometimes it’s going to draw out over years before we know one way or the other. It’s just the nature of the game.
Click to expand...

Even the odds that 2 out of 3 of Williams/Espino/Rocchio hit at the MLB level are slim.

We talked about this somewhere a few weeks back, but ~20% of top 100 prospects stick as good MLB players.

But I also think people get too caught up with "their guy" and if you aren't "their guy" then with the abundance of stats available to literally everyone to prove literally anything it's easy to knock a guy down a peg or 2 and justify it. Always a weird thing to do with players who could make your favorite team better.

One of the hardest things to do in sports is predict a player's success in the MLB. Just like the game itself, a 30% success rate makes you good at your job. But the more bullets you have the better your odds to hit on a player.

Why teams like Cleveland and Tampa continue to be successful with few down years even with small payrolls. When you're getting your 30% off of 100 players as opposed to 30% off of 50 players because you have a deep organization and more bullets in the chamber compared to other franchises you can re-stock on the fly and be successful. Which is a reason Cleveland "hoards" prospects and thinks highly of a lot of them (per the rumor mill on how stubborn they can be when it comes to dealing their prospects), it's a big key to their operational success long term.
 
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