The future looks bright in the desert

1.3 MPH since entering the majors. Not a whole lot.

I’m excited about Skaggs, but Corbin is a pretty meh prospect. Wasn’t he compared to Joe Saunders? Unless his ceiling has risen since then, I’m not too thrilled about him.

Really bears no relevance, particularly since Allen was taken out of high school. Players in high school are so physically different than what they become by the team they reach the majors. Do you know where Adam Dunn played in high school? Shortstop.

Re-read that, because it’s not a typo.

Adam Dunn played shortstop in high school.

we reading the same site?

Strongly beg to differ.

But the farm system point is kind of silly. Everybody’s farm system has high-strikeout players. A year ago, one of our “best prospects” was Ryan Wheeler, who was anointed as such because he walked more often than he struck out (and also because of a high BABIP, but we’ll move past this) at Short-Season A-ball. This year, that has completely turned on its head, and he’s a strikeout machine. A system full of prospects who refuse to strike out can become a system full of strikeout victims in a heartbeat, and vice-versa.

If you draft the type of big power bat that goes in the upper rounds and is heralded as a top prospect, you’re likely to have some contact issues unless you’re selecting with a top-3 overall pick and there’s a Bryce Harper or Dustin Ackley in the draft.

Further, looking at our system, we have a ton of high-strikeout power-bat types. Matt Davidson, Bobby Borchering, Wagner Mateo, Ty Linton, Paul Goldschmidt, Marc Krauss, and even Keon Broxton. But those guys are considered high-level prospects because they have high ceilings due to their power potential. Contact hitters have less of a ceiling: they have to perfect the art of contact hitting and on-base ability to have value. Of the multitudes of slap-happy contact-hitters/walk-takers to grace the minor leagues, how many of them have turned into Chone Figgins? Last I checked, it was just one (or two if you dare to count someone like Juan Pierre, but his ability to take a walk is somewhere between zero and negative 28.1938472 on the 20-80 scale).

If you do look closer, though, there are contact hitters/on-base specialists in our system. Collin Cowgill, A.J. Pollock (when healthy), Rossmel Perez, David Nick, Raul Navarro, Mark Hallberg, and Raywilly Gomez are probably the best seven of the bunch. Never heard of half of these guys? Precisely.

None of these guys, except perhaps Perez and in the distant future Navarro, is projected by all of the scouting bigwigs as having a major-league future in a starting role. Why? Because they have limited power, and the best they can seemingly hope for is a future as a .300 hitter. Those that do possibly have futures play premium defensive positions, because those are the only places where a player without pop in his bat can survive on an everyday basis and still be valuable.

So what’s the moral of all of this? I have no idea. Perhaps we undervalue players who are contact hitters or, at least, less strikeout-prone in the minor-leagues, like Pollock or Cowgill. Perhaps it’s believed, whether right or wrong, that it’s easier to find a player who can OBP .350 while slugging .375-.400 than it is to find a player who can SLG .500 while OBP’ing .310-.330. Or, perhaps, there’s a greater attrition rate in the minors amongst contact hitters than there is amongst power hitters, so power hitters are sought more often due to their increased likelihood of reaching the majors.

Regardless, you can’t totally fault the D-backs’ system for its lack of contact hitters. There are some there, they’re just not as highly-regarded.

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