#35 Adam Duvall, 3B. 6'1", 205 lbs. BD: 9/4/1988. B-R, T-R.
Low A: .285/.385/.527 with 22 HR's.
Adam Duvall was drafted in the 11'th round in 2010 out of Louisville, so he was a college teammate of Chris Dominguez while there. He signed right away and put up a .688 OPS for Salem-Keizer that summer where he played both 2B and 3B. The Giants moved him to 3B exclusively in Augusta for the 2011 season. Duvall may have had the best season of any Giants prospect and they had quite a few good seasons in 2011. He hit for average, with plate discipline and power. He did commit 27 errors there so has some defensive work to do. You might want to look up how many errors Pablo Sandoval made at 3B when he was in Augusta just for comparison.
At age 22, he was not young for low A but not impossibly old. I expect him to move up to San Jose for 2012. If he puts up similar numbers there, he will be ranked a whole lot higher in next year's list.
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With the numbers he put up at Augusta, he should destroy the competition in San Jose. In the South Atlantic League he was in the top five for HR, OBP, SLG, and OPS. He also was in the top 25 in AVG. He also missed a few games towards the end of the year to injury. The only problem is where he would play if he was ready for the majors. There are many factors including where players like Panik will stick and if Crawford hold down the SS job. Duvall probably would do well at 2B if that spot wasn't occupied. He may just end up being a decent trade chip. Either way, the guy can hit, and I think this will be a huge year for him.
ReplyDeleteWe still need corner OF, potentially, maybe he can make the move to RF like Nate.
DeleteI agree with you, from what it looks like, he should do well in San Jose and get ranked higher on DrB's list. As I noted below, his LD% suddenly kicked it into a higher gear in the second half, and assuming he can continue that in 2012, should bode well for moving up to the majors at some point, especially if he can maintain the elevated walk rate.
And if he can move the strikeout rate down a smidge, he could even get himself into top prospect conversations. His numbers were in Belt's neighborhood from May to July, this injury you noted apparently brought his numbers down as well, I guess he tried to play with it. But I should also note that his strikeout rate rose a lot too after he went homer happy in May, so it's probably more than a smidge, he probably needs to bring it down a lot if he wants to have a good BA, though that is a nice tradeoff, giving up hits for more homers.
I don't know, Anders, Cavan, and Liles got marginally worse upon reachin SJ, and they were in the same boat as Duvall age wise. There aren't many top college prospects in the SAL, so they seam to level out at the hitter friendly CAL, and then numbers start to dip in AA.
DeleteDuvall's dominance was unlike any other player from Augusta in a while though.
Rooting for him, just think Giants fans are overrating the statistics against soft pitching. It would be great to have a 2nd Jeff Kent on our hands. SJ should be seriously entertaining this year with Duvall hitting behind (hopefully) Ricky O and Susac. Big test for him, I hope he can get his defense worked out as well.
ReplyDeleteI've been gone for a few days, I just looked on fangraphs, not a mention of the Theriot signing anywheres, they did pay attention to Juan Pierre and the Phils, Qualls to the Phils, minor league deals, etc. Could it be a case of nothing nice to say so don't say anything? They love to tool on Sabey Sabes. I'm just surprised some sort of snark isn't forthcoming. I'll check Cameron's chat, maybe he put some snark in.
And now that its official, congrats to Pat the Bat on a very interesting career, including 2 rings. Hope he does grab a job with Los Gigantes, he was a good Giant. Getting to play for your childhood team is a privilege few get.
And helping that team win its first World Series Championship (in that town)... Priceless
DeleteI don't understand what you mean by soft pitching. I'm aware that the Sally is a pitcher's league, but I've never seen that term used before for the league. Could you elaborate?
DeleteYeah, Fangraphs does like to rag on Sabean, so I don't think it is a case of nothing nice to say, they have said it often enough. Probably because Theriot at such a low price was not worth snarking about, it was a good, no-risk move to do, nothing to get really down on, from a sabermetric viewpoint.
From a Sabean Naysayer viewpoint, a lot to get down on: "I want young" "I want old" "I want trades" "I want to keep" "I want it all now, damn the future" "Hey, what about the future". It's like watching a dog chase its tail, amusing the first time, not by the umpteenth time.
My understanding, solely from Baggs, is Duvall achieved most the power numbers against inferior pitchers in the Sally (BA chat). Don't get me wrong - its great he put the numbers up, its just he will need to prove out again. As do they all I guess. Usually I'm not a big age relative to league guy (important yes, but what are college guys supposed to do?) but with everybody getting on the Duvall bandwagon and generally overranking him way over where DrB has him, its just a caution. He's gone from a good sleeper to some big time expectations, which if he doesn't produce will result in him getting trashed, which I don't think is fair either.
DeleteA while back on your site I said something like "32 is the new 36" - Sabean needs to adjust to the post-steroid era, something along those lines. Well, his acquisitions this year, you sure can't complain much about the age segment. In keeping with the learn from his mistakes theme, it seems like he was much more cautious with his courtship of 2b/SS candidates and ended up backing off instead of overbidding. I really, really like that. He could have offered Furcal Renteria money, he didn't. Sometimes its the moves you don't do as well. Being patient on the back end has at least lowered the acquisition cost.
Well, there is one huge difference: at the time Renteria was signed, there was no SS prospect who looked like he could be "the one", plus I think he was expected to provide some leadership to the Latin players on the team. I think his crying and urging on of his teammates in late 2010 season is a great example of that. I recall some players pointing to that as a pivotal point in the season.
DeleteMeanwhile today, given the projections for all the hitters, the Giants should be able to win a lot of games offensively even with Crawford hitting as poorly as projected, plus then there is his beautiful defense.
So I agree Furcal is the Renteria of today: great hitter, questionable health/performance issues. And perhaps if the Giants payroll was not limited to $130M, Sabean might have tried to sign him, even I would not put that past him to do. So it might not necessarily be a lesson learned for Sabean, but rather a matter of priorities, which clearly was focused on signing our core pitchers to long-term deals.
Still, there is also a viable candidate today, a borderline prospect who clearly got it all defensively, so now the only question is can he provide enough offense so that the pitchers can benefit from that defense. And the Giants pattern of the past few years is to allow their prospects some time to show off what they can do.
So it seems that had there been more payroll budgeted, Sabean would not necessary had signed Theriot, which as you point out, could be a lesson learned. It could also be a matter of no budget for more. Or it could have been a matter of keeping the spot open for Crawford.
And it could have been a combo of both how cheap Crawford is (fitting budget) as well as keeping a spot open.
Interesting thought: if Sandoval and Crawford play the season at their respective positions, we could potentially get 4-6 wins defensively from the two of them, based on what they did last season.
Re inferior pitchers of Sally: I guess that begs the question then about why didn't other hitters also tee off on these inferior pitchers, unless he is just referring to the fact that obviously the pitchers in A-ball is inferior to Advanced A, which is inferior to AA, which is inferior to AAA, which is inferior to the MLB.
DeleteAs Roger noted, he was Top 5 in HR as well as SLG and OPS.
Then again, as I noted below, his leadership position totally benefited from one abnormal month where he got really lucky with his balls landing over the fence, whereas he was pretty regular at roughly 3 HR per month in all the other months. He would have ended up with 4-6 less homers had May been like the other months. Perhaps that is what Baggs meant, he teed off on a number of inferior pitchers in May, who were demoted by June.
Here's Baggs answer from the BA chat on Duvall: "His approach isn't textbook and he fattened up his numbers against the worst pitching in the league. Because of his age and lack of draft pedigree, he'll be a "prove it" guy every season. Kind of like Brett Pill. Duvall has the attention of the organization, though. He went to instrux and played a lot of third base. Looks like they'll keep him there for now. He's on the top-30 list."
DeleteSure, sounds like the early numbers might have helped some, makes sense. Again, I'm just drawing the brakes, I like the guy as much as anybody, just throwing in a word of caution. Its always great when prospects make noise. They might just keep on making noise.
Sabey Sabes on a budget? Maybe that's the best thing. Some of the worst contracts he's handed out have been with money to burn, with nothing coming in the system. Rowand, Roberts and Renteria, the 3 R's. Its hard to tell what was going on with the budget, he did try to sign Alex Gonzo, Clint Barmes and in Sabey speak, the Arizona utility guy. Those all looked like 2 year offers, which was the going rate in the heated MI market at the time. Was it the years as much as the dollars that cooled his jets? One thing that's easy to forget is the market is very fluid, as is the teams self-evaluation as they grab Melky, then Pagan. That changes the outlook a bunch each move.
It seems like most critics are focusing most on the lefty signings as the screw up of the offseason. So the question might be, what was Sabean's budget right at that point? How many talks had they had with Cain/Timmy's agents? As a vocal defender of the lefties I wouldn't really care either way, but he might have not realized just how expensive pitching was going to be, or thought more money was in the pipeline for special "line item" acquisitions that dried up quick.
After the statue of Miggy T, it was a pretty great defense with Crawford, Panda and Freddy. How many games did they get with that alignment? 10?
I am big on age relative to league, just by observing the various projections systems out there. I find that Ron Shandler's is the only one that is public available that I have been able to pinpoint promising prospects using their MLE methodology, which adjusts for age relative to competition, to give a hint at their actual skill level.
DeleteAnd that makes a lot of sense to me. A college player playing against a bunch of high school players should dominate. The question for discerning what is good vs. what is not good then, is a key consideration that most people don't really know (and I don't claim to know it either). And there probably is no way to know down in the lower levels, even Shandler's methodology acknowledges this by not doing MLEs for any performances below AA.
What I try to do is take the players age and go back 2, 3, 4 seasons, and see who were the top prospects by OPS or ERA (or K/BB and K/9) who were the same age. I figure the talent level is usually roughly about the same over a short period of time, as teams would have their own feel for what the talent is in that league, and assign their players in that range to that league. So you get a basic bell curve effect. Once you get the list, you try to see where that player falls relative to these similar aged players, and who is now a known prospect or maybe even a major leaguer. I find that helps me get a feel for where that prospect is performing relative to the past.
And as I noted, not many of the top HR hitters in the Sally amounted to much as a prospect or major leaguer the past few years from the Sally. So that suggests that we should take Duvall's performance with a grain of salt until he faces better competition. It would have been nice to see how he would have fared in the AFL.
The way I see it, generally older is better until you get past the average age in the league, which is roughly 28, 29. So if a college hitter is in a league that is basically his age, and he's hitting 900+ OPS, there is some chance he can do well enough in the majors when he gets to 28, 29 YO, to start, whereas if he can't hit them at the same age, he almost has no hope of ever figuring it out in the majors. I think that is why so many people dismiss prospects who are older than the league, it is just too steep a hill to climb from there.
And if the guy is much younger than the league and still hitting well (like Sandoval, Posey, and Belt were), then when he makes the majors, he can hit well at a younger age as well. It is all relative (in my mind, at least).
These are just pieces of the puzzle I've picked up over the years, I don't feel it is a complete picture (and probably never will), but I think that it has worked more often than not, in helping me judge prospects. And it logically makes sense to me, and so I will, as you note for Sabean, use these tools until I learn better.
And I definitely like Duvall as a prospect, but I think caution is the key word with him. We can get a bit more excited, I think, if he hits like this in AA.
And, really, caution is the key word for almost any prospect, even ones as good as Bumgarner and Posey, and Belt as well. There are too many who wash out even at that high a prospect level, or at best, is average, and it is the good players we prospect hounds crave. So I try not to get too excited about any prospect until I see him really shine at the upper levels.
DeleteI think Noonan is my lesson learned with regards to level, he really had a superlative second half of 2009 in San Jose, an exponential jump in performance that I thought signaled a break out season for him in 2010, and even with his video training before 2011 that he said helped him sting line drives around, did not contribute to a great season for him in 2011.
One would think that Bowker might be a lesson learned for a lot of folks, but I don't get that sense, they just think Sabean blew it again. But even for his "breakout" year in 2009 that put a lot of these people on his bandwagon had a lot of question marks for me. He just struck out way too much at AAA (contact rate below the 85% that signify good batting) let alone the majors, where he was a free swinger. And when you strike out so much, you have to both walk a lot and hit a lot of homers, or be a speedster who can maintain a very high BABIP and thus BA/OBP, else you are not contributing anything offensively. He wasn't really that good at either in the major league level. And the Pirates were desperate for people to step up and hit/play for them, even they quickly got convinced that he wasn't going to figure it out.
I would love to find out what the big difference between 2010 and 2011 was for Adam. Look at his numbers for 2011, particularly LD%: http://firstinning.com/players/Adam-Duvall-a/
ReplyDeleteHe went from a largely GB, not that good LD% in 2010 in Salem-Keizer, to this LD hitting machine in 2011.
He also started walking more (struck out about the same), but I would assume a large part of that came about because he started hitting so many homers. And one can see that in April, then once he busted out in May, pitchers were much more willing to walk him after that.
And look at that progression of LD%, almost unabated growth, from poor teens to great mid-to-high 20's.
I would also note that his homerun "breakout" in 2011 was the product of his great month in May. Otherwise, he didn't really hit for that much of a better HR rate, though better than S-K. Taking out the May data, he averaged 25 AB/HR, which is still an sharp improvement over his 48 AB/HR, almost double. Still, him hitting 22 HR catches more eyes than if he only hit 15-16 HR.
However, looking at his S-K stats, his numbers were affected by his poor HR hitting at home, as on the road, he averaged 33 AB/HR, so he did show some power in 2010, it was just masked by how poorly he did at home (1 HR in 94 AB).
Could he have been the Belt of 2011? Looking at his 2010 stats, that could have been Belt's in 2009 had he signed in time to play, based on what we knew about him, he wasn't suppose to be that good, but the Giants made changes in his batting approach that allowed Belt to start hitting line drives all over. Duvall did likewise, just not to as great an effect as Belt (and not all prospects are the same, obviously).
Looking at Belt's 2010-11, his LD% is roughly what Duvall did in 2011, perhaps after the same training.
I can't remember, was it Belt who was the poster child for the Giants new video training system when that article came out? I think he was, so I wonder if Duvall benefited from the system in 2011, and if so, I wonder/hope that there will be another breakout star in 2012 (Noonan, I would note, said he benefited from the system but he didn't do much in 2011).
I agree with DrB, he wasn't young but he wasn't old either. And if he can repeat, that would show that 2011 wasn't a mirage.