My Plea for Kyle Drabek

Photo by sillygwailo licensed under Creative Commons

It has come to my attention through the poll on this site and what seems to be the general opinion of Jays fans that of the four troubling players listed Drabek is the least likely to have a comeback season and I ask why? It may seems so long ago, but it has only been one year since Kyle Drabek was the top prospect in the Blue Jays farm system and a shining star in the Blue Jays future plans. At that time Drabek ranked anywhere from No. 13 by Keith Law to No. 29 by Baseball America on their respective top prospect lists.

Heading in to Spring Training in 2011, Drabek was the next big thing, the possible first fruition of the trade that sent former Blue Jays Ace Roy Halladay to the Phillies, and the first tangible major league talent from Alex Anthopoulos' regime as general manager. He was all but handed a rotation spot after the Jays traded Shaun Marcum to the Brewers and he seemed to be ready to take it.

Obviously we would later learn that Drabek would not turn in the best of seasons in 2011 and I don't think I need to paint the entire picture of just how bad Drabek really was. All I have to say is that in almost a consensus opinion the simple stats, advanced stats, and Pitch F/X information all agree on one thing, Kyle Drabek sucked.

At this point in the blog post I usually point out what Drabek did wrong and how he can improve and all that, but in this case Drabek's problem is pretty simple and the fact is that he just couldn't throw strikes. Drabek was putting pitches galore outside the zone and in fact at the time of his demotion in June Drabek had walked more batters than he had struck out and was the not so proud owner of the league's worst strikeout to walk ratio.

Proceeding his demotion to AAA Las Vegas in June things just got worse. Being sent to the band box that is Cashman Field and the very definition of a hitter's league in the PCL obviously didn't help, but even against a much worse level of competition Drabek did not perform as he was expected to. Because of a lack of AAA Pitch F/X data no one (unless they saw him) can really discern specifically whether he wasn't throwing strikes there either, but what one does know is that in AAA he held a relatively similar strikeout to walk ratio and that is in no way a good thing.

In spite of all that has happened, Drabek's failure in the majors and minors is not completely indicative of what he could do in 2012. In general it is true that numbers and statistics from previous years can be used as a predictor for future performance. The difference with Drabek is for one what he has done thus far is a smallish sample size and there is not enough previous data to rely on, for another as is often cited with another Blue Jay, Travis Snider, Drabek is only 23 and going in to his sophomore season in the MLB.

Courtesy of Shi Davidi on Twitter

Yes he may have strugggled in 2011 and yes that is not a good thing to see out of a rookie, but a quick read of Shi Davidi's story on Drabek at Sportsnet.ca seems to suggest to us that it may have been partially a mechanical issue with Drabek in 2011 and oddly enough I find it plausible to believe.

I may just be drinking the Spring Training story Kool-Aid in which every player is in the best shape of their lives, but looking at some 2011 footage of Drabek he seemed to me to be a little inconsistent in his mechanics and this article seemingly confirms that thought. In no way am I claiming to be a scout here, but if what Shi Davidi tells us is true then it could have been a big reason as to why Drabek looked like Tim Tebow on the mound.

Now with the Jays coaching staff addressing the issue, call me crazy, but maybe instead of being pushed into irrelevance, could Drabek surprise this year? He still seems to have the stuff that in 2010 Keith Law said could make Drabek "a No. 2 or 3 starter", but is lacking the command and third pitch that Law said he needed to improve on in 2011. The good thing is command can be taught and can be learned and it looks like it may come with further instruction, tweaking in pitch mechanics, and just more major league innings. The bad thing is it may not come this season.

With that said I'm not completely sure why I think Drabek will do well, but I do. He may no longer be the flavour of the month as that position seems to have been overtaken by Henderson Alvarez and Dustin McGowan, but that doesn't mean he won't be able to perform.  As well as I'm sure you already know because its been said 1000 times, but the pitcher that got the Blue Jays Kyle Drabek in the first place, Roy Halladay, similarly had command problems early in his career and look what he became. Not to say that Drabek will become Halladay though, because that simply doesn't seem feasible, but don't give up on Drabek just yet.

I know that usually the arguments on this blog are fairly statistically based, but for whatever reason with Drabek I feel different. I feel like he has the potential to be what the scouting reports say rather than the major league statistics, I feel like he can overcome the two pitchers ahead of him on the depth chart. Nonetheless if you don't have the same feelings as I towards the great Drabek, then at least realize that Drabek has barely pitched for a season and we've already lost confidence in him? It isn't like he got significantly injured or lost a lot of fastball velocity, the stuff seems to be there he just needs to harness it.

In the end there isn't nearly enough statistical evidence to back up any opinion suggesting that Drabek's potential is completely gone, so why not wait and see. To my dismay it seems like Drabek won't get the call come Opening Day, but as happens with pitchers they get injured or pitch poorly and Drabek looks like he could be first on the list to replace, in other words the pitching version of Mike McCoy (Hopefully Drabek doesn't acquire quite as many Air Miles). Finally if you refuse to believe in anything I've said at least remember this, last season you didn't see any major prospect sites suggesting Drabek was a worse prospect than current Blue Jays Canadian phenom Brett Lawrie, just saying.

Sources: Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, Sportsnet, Baseball America, ESPN

Follow @HouseOfTheBB

Tweet

The Curious Case of Travis Snider

Photo by SillyGwaillo licensed under Creative Commons

Travis Snider is a peculiar player, one who recently has me pondering how we can project his future. He wasn't necessarily a "super high" draft pick having only been selected at #14, but he also wasn't really a dreamer prospect with all tools and no polish. Nonetheless he was a high school player and a high risk high reward talent who in 2008 looked to be the Blue Jays next big thing. Since then things have changed and we have definitely seen Snider take a turn for the worst. Now he has pushed himself into the category of the top prospect who hasn't panned out, making it particularly interesting to project what he can become.

Back in 2009 in his Blue Jays Top 11 Prospects list Kevin Goldstein said that "[Snider] has to move to first base... but he's certainly going to hit." Since then things have definitely changed. Fortunately for one thing Snider shouldn't have to worry about a move to first base anymore because the Blue Jays were confident enough about his athleticism that they started him in CF for 6 games. But also unfortunately Snider's hitting has also changed, but not in a good way as evidenced by the descending batting average since his initial season with the Jays. Though interestingly enough Snider's contact rate has increased, and his outside the zone swing percentage has decreased. Theoretically he should be hitting better, but just isn't producing. Despite all that going forward things can always shift and Snider has the talent to be better, he just hasn't produced. The question though would be is the talent going to show now or later.

For this bust prospect conundrum Alex Gordon has often been pointed to as a guy where it "worked out", but what you don't see at first glance is that it "worked out" after 1641 major league plate appearances a number that Snider would need two more full seasons to reach. Of course he is still young, but the Jays have all but burned up Snider's options. The time to give Snider playing time was the past three years when the Jays really didn't look like they were contending and could have milked out everything Snider had to offer. Instead Snider has gotten a grand total of 797 PA, which equates to just over one full season of plate appearances.

This has put Travis Snider in a rather unique situation, he doesn't have a whole lot of options because he has yet to spend a full season in the majors, but he also doesn't have that much playing time because he has been injured and is repeatedly sent down when he performs poorly. You might be asking why I'm questioning a demotion after a poor performance, but with any player of Snider's potential you wait and see what he can do rather than stuffing him in the minors.

In fact if you look at the chart to the left it shows that Travis Snider has the third least number of plate appearances in the first three years of the player's career of any top 20 outfield prospects in the past decade. One might point out the fact that Michael Cuddyer and BJ Upton are down there with Snider as a reason for hope and it is, but if you look at the other players around them like Joe Borchard, Lastings Milledge and Austin Kearns, you gain some more perspective.

Not to say that this means too much because all of these guys have been limited in their initial MLB experience because of many different reasons such as injury and Super Two status. Nonetheless I find the chart interesting, but it also makes it difficult to understand why the Blue Jays haven't given Snider more of a chance. When Alex Gordon was first brought into the majors he was given two full seasons before he was sent down, why wasn't Snider afforded the same luxury? Well for one the Jays "thought" they were contending and another they had a bit of a logjam in the outfield, but Snider is the kind of player you make room for, especially when winning is somewhat of an unrealistic expectation.

In spite of that one cannot change the past, but only look forward to the future, but because of the past the future is that much harder to predict. By this I mean now there is another roadblock in Snider's career and its name is Eric Thames. Thames is the other young outfielder on the 25 man roster and since neither is likely to get enough at-bats as a back up one will have to be traded or demoted to AAA. Although Snider is the more highly touted prospect, but Thames did have the better season statistically  in 2011 and therefore likely has the casual fans vote going forward.

This is all evidenced in the various projection systems as most don't think Snider will get a full season in the majors. Bill James has Snider at 239 PA in 2012, RotoChamp thinks it will be 270, FanGraphs fans have it at 394, ZiPS is at 514, and last but not least CAIRO guesses 283. Of course I would like to see Snider get a full season in the majors even if it is at the expense of Eric Thames, but I tend to side with Bill James in thinking that it probably won't happen. Though if it did what could come of Travis Snider?

The chart right is an aggregate projection for Travis Snider taking together all the projections (Well the ones I use at least) and calculating the average. As you can probably tell it seems pretty pessimistic, but unfortunately is a realistic prediction. The reasoning being that the way most of these projections work is that they are on a regression system or one that looks at players in similar positions. The issue though is that because the talent that Snider possesses he could break out at any time. We saw it with Alex Gordon, Justin Upton and others in 2011 and it could (I use that term loosely) be Snider in 2012 if he's given the chance.

Again in the same 2009 Blue Jays Top 11 Prospects list Kevin Goldstein said that Snider's perfect world projection is "... the third hitter in the Blue Jay's lineup, a perennial All-Star, and an occasional MVP candidate." At this point it is unlikely that Snider will reach his offensive ceiling which Goldstein predicted to be "a high average and well above average power."  That ceiling would likely look something like a .280 average with 30+ home runs, but at this point with all the setbacks that might be a tad unrealistic. Instead I would optimistically say that there's no reason Snider can't be a .270 hitter with say 25 home runs, I just don't think it will happen this year, which could be the problem.

If this year Snider again doesn't produce and if the Jays expect to be contenders in 2013 then they may be inclined to go another direction. That could be an ingenious decision or the biggest bonehead move of the decade (On second thought almost nothing can beat the signing of the Vernon Wells contract), but if recent history tells us anything it looks more likely to be the former. Looking at the chart with all the top 20 outfield prospects from the past decade most turned out to be pretty successful eventually. Granted there are some of the names that pop out as busts, but most because of injury and other non-talent related aspects.

Whatever the eventual decision be, I as a Travis Snider fan can only hope that at the very least the Blue Jays give him this season to attempt to be the player he was once projected to become. If he flops in 2012 well then I don't think that the Jays will continue with in 2013, but at the very least they would be able to say that they tried to recover the player that once was the 6th best prospect in major league baseball.

Sources: Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Prospectus

Follow @HouseOfTheBB

Tweet