#4 Thomas Neal. AA .291/.359/.440 with 12 HR.
After Thomas Neal's monster breakout season with San Jose in 2009, it was a good bet that no matter what he did on AA in 2010, it would have been a disappointment. While his season didn't come anywhere close to the numbers he put up in San Jose, they actually weren't bad either, and they got better as the season went along. Anyone who wasn't expecting some regression doesn't understand the difference between A ball and AA ball nor the difference in league effects. The EL is a notorious pitcher's league and the stadium in Richmond, much like the one in Norwich, CT might be the toughest in the league. Neal hit 10 of his 12 HR's in other parks and his away OPS was almost .100 higher, mostly due to better power numbers. True, Brandon Belt's numbers didn't suffer significantly after his move up to AA, but Belt had one of the better seasons any hitting prospect has ever had. It was that freakishly good! Neal's slash line from June 1 on was a very respectable .310/.370/.480. While Belt has clearly leapfrogged over him in the prospect rankings, that has more to do with how great Belt's season was then how bad Neal's was.
Thomas Neal should move up to AAA Fresno this year. Given the difference in environment, he should put up some pretty big numbers. Then again, not everyone stays true to form in terms of their response to league factors, so Neal is going to have to prove it on the field, just like Belt is going to have to prove that last year wasn't a fluke. I still see Thomas Neal as the Giants LF of the future. His bat still reminds me a lot of a pretty good hitter from the past, Jim Ray Hart. It seems Thomas Neal has a new nickname out there, Thomas the Tank Engine. Well, I still call him Thomas Neal, The Real Deal!
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A few stats:
ReplyDeleteNeal finished last season as a 22 year old.
League average line in the Eastern League this year: .259/.332/.397
Neal home: .292/.363/.387
Neal road: .291/.352/.489
Average position prospect age in the Eastern League: 24.3
He was young for the league, put up a significantly better batting line than the league average in a park that seriously suppressed his power (only 2 HR vs. 10 on the road). I'd say that's an extremely successful season.
Couple of questions about the EL and Richmond:
ReplyDeleteFirst, is the relative rise in Neal's numbers post-June 1 typical? From what I've seen, the pitchers seem to dominate in the cold EL months of April and May and, once things warm up a bit, the hitters start to catch up.
Second, is there something about the dimensions at the old Richmond Braves' ballpark that is particularly hard on RH hitters? I'm hoping so, because the dropoff in Neal's power numbers is my biggest concern about him.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteThe answer to the first question is a definite yes. The second, I don't know.
The problem is that .291/.352/.489 is good only if he can reduplicates that in the majors. Most likely he won't because the pitchers in the majors are that much better than the pitchers in AA.
ReplyDeleteThat is not significantly better. 1000+ is significantly better. Though what he did is nice and he is younger than the league. One way I use to judge a prospect's level of performance is to go back a few years, check what players his age did, see which players hit as well, and, well, see what they subsequently did. In EL, 22 YO and younger who made majors quickly hit in 1000+ OPS range. 800 OPS range, not as quickly, not as good.
That's why Neal's potential is that of average regular starter, to me. And there is some value to that, just that he won't be a difference maker. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He can have a good 3-6 year run, maybe extend it if he can make the final adjustments and take that leap, like Belt did.
I'm surprised that there is such a pitcher's tilt at Richmond. Baseball Prospectus had their park as neutral when it was the Braves farm team, but I don't recall which league it was in before. But still, the EL seemed more a pitcher's league than any other, so I thought Richmond at worse would be a neutral park and potentially a hitter's park since there are other pitcher's parks in EL.
One way to see if there is a tilt is to look at L/R splits for the park. minorleaguesplits used to do that, but stopped last season, and heck, stopped access to their data this off-season, so I'm afraid they are about to put it behind a paid wall soon.
Of the Eastern league leaders in OPS, Neal was 26th (of those with more than 300 ABs, according to FirstInning.com). That's pretty good, and even better considering 14 of those ahead of him were 25 or older. I don't think it's as cut and dry as drawing a hard line (say, over 1.000) to define top prospects -- I bet it has more to do with the league leaders -- especially if the league has become more pitcher friendly (by adding the Richmond park, for example).
ReplyDeleteAll that said, I completely agree that Neal looks like an average-hitting LF, which will be incredibly valuable in his first 3 years in the majors and very valuable in years 4-6.