Pat Young, RHP. 6'5", 200 lbs. DOB: 3/24/1992.
College(Villanova): 2-8, 4.81, 82.1 IP, 34 BB, 76 K.
Rookie AZL: 1-0, 3.60, 5 IP, 1 BB, 5 K.
Short Season: 3-1, 0.92, 39.1 IP, 9 BB, 27 K.
San Jose(Playoffs): 0-0, 2.70, 6.2 IP, 1 BB, 11 K.
I have to confess I hadn't spent much time on Pat Young before I started researching this post. Wow! I might have ranked him higher if I had! I'm using the height and weight numbers from his profile in milb.com, but I've also seen him listed at 6'7", 208 lbs. From videos, he looks closer to 6'7". He is tall and thin, I know that! All arms and legs! He reportedly features a FB that sits 92-94 MPH and touches 95 with sink. He has a breaking ball and change up which need development.
On video, he kind of drops down and hunches his shoulders almost like a sidearmer or submariner, then pitches his entire body forward like he is heaving the ball. He then whips the arm forward in a 3/4 release point. He has a pretty severe cross over step. That part is a bit like Madison Bumgarner, but he has almost no backswing in the early part of his delivery. Anyway, it all looks very nasty, especially to RH batters. I guess my idea would be to forget the breaking ball, develop a cutter to get in on the hands of LH batters and movement away from RH batters. Then go full bore on developing the change up as the off speed pitch, again, to give him another weapon against the LH batters.
So far, he's walked fewer batters in the pros than in college. If he can maintain the lower walk rates, he is going to move surprisingly fast. He could end up in the bullpen. Historically, a callup for the SJ playoffs means an assignment the following spring, so I expect him to join the Augusta boys from last year in the SJ rotation. My goodness! What an embarrassment of riches the Giants have in their pitching prospects, and did they ever pick some sneaky good dudes in a 2013 draft that was heavy on offense?
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My projected San Jose rotation is Stratton, Flores, Agosta, Gregorio, Vander Tuig and Young. I could see Chase Johnson in the mix with this group as well, if he impresses this spring. Either way, looks like it'll be the two star 2012 college picks, two of the 2013 college picks, and two of the Giants prize IFA signings. All righties, all with a chance to have monster seasons. When NVT and 6-7 Pat Young are bringing up the rear, that's a darn good rotation. The rest of the baseball world will have their eyes on Richmond, but San Jose's staff could be lights out. Can't wait to see who rises to the top!
ReplyDeleteInteresting observation regarding the all right handedness of the projected SJ rotation. I don't know how important it is to have a left right balance at this level, but would this suggest that one of Leenhouts or Kurrasch end up in SJ because he is left handed? Whose spot does he take?
DeleteBTW, covechatter - love your blog, but the Chris Johnson link in your projected Augusta roster page links to the wrong player.
Anon #1
Thanks for the catch. Just fixed it. There will definitely be plenty of lefties vying for the Augusta rotation spots, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a guy like Leenhouts in San Jose. My guess is though, that at that level the organization will go with the most talented player, and right now it seems that all those righties would have the inside track to High-A.
DeleteYeah, unfortunately the B-R Linker does not match up all the right players, so that's not CC's fault. I think that they leave a comment at the top of your HTML when you run their app, but when you have so many names, hard to go through every single one of them.
DeleteYeah, good point about the awesomeness of the San Jose staff. If they can develop as much as some of us hope/see, we could be having deja vu all over again in San Jose in terms of having a lights out rotation again.
I may be wrong, but I could also see where the front office wants to slow the lefties down a bit. Right now we two long term starters, in MadBum and Cain. We already have a lefty in the wings at AA/AAA depending on assignment, so if he makes the squad, you've got two Ls and one R longer term. We need the right handed guys to replace (at a minimum) Vogey in 2015 and likely Timmy. Crick etc., fill that need so you've effectively got guys who are in the wings, who are young, Having a two year gap (lower A) as opposed to one year (high A) could help as they keep the rotation in place and stable
ReplyDeletePiLamBear
I don't think the Giants has a ratio that they are going to hold to for rotation composition. I think that they would go with a rotation of five lefties if they determine those are the best five in their group. So I don't think that they would slow down anyone, if they are ready, the Giants will push them up, like they did with Dirty and other pitchers who rose quickly up the system. TINSTAAPP and all, you know.
DeleteI think you draft what you can get, develop as you can, and sort it out at the highest level once it gets that way. I don't think they'd mind trotting out 3 lefties if they were... malo.
DeleteOne can't complain too much, when we have Slania @ 42 and Pat Young @ 43, after reading and learning more about them hese last 2 days.
ReplyDeleteWow, OK, I see Young's value now. And I can see why you have him going into San Jose's rotation, given the promotion to their playoffs and his success there, I did not know that they did that with him, I had forgotten that. I had only seen his overall numbers and they were not that impressive, particularly K/BB, only the walk rate impressed, so I had not put him on my radar. But you are right, he's pretty impressive.
ReplyDeleteThat brings up two questions for me. Where would you have placed him (say, 5 or 10 spot range), now that you know what he can do? And second, and this is probably a full post for you, where do you place all of the starters? I was already having problems placing guys in SJ and Augusta, but Young clearly belongs, and now I'm overloaded when I try to roster the rotations. Here's what I got so far:
* Mike Kickham, Chris Heston, Edwin Escobar plus two (probably someone signed to minor league deal) in AAA; Huff? Berken? Willis? Lively?
* Kyle Crick, Clayton Blackburn, Ty Blach, Adalberto Mejia, Kendry Flores in AA; But Jose De Paula looks like he would be assigned here, based on his career so far.
* Chris Stratton, Martin Agosta, Joan Gregorio, Chris Johnson, Joe Kurrasch in Advanced A; That's five so Kendry Flores (apparently has 6-man rotation) could go here, freeing up a spot for De Paula in AA, but now where to put Pat Young? I guess I would bump Kurrasch down to Augusta for Young, right now. And some might want to place Vander Tuig here as well.
* Nick Vander Tuig, Chase Johnson, Luis Ysla, Carlos Diaz, Andrew Leenhouts, Keury Mella in A-ball in Augusta. (also has 6-man rotation). But probably someone among Young, Kurrasch, or Johnson might end up down here instead.
I forgot which team, but someone in the NL West is going with an 8 man rotation, with them broken up into four pairs, and between the pair, one would start while the other relieves, then swap in the next start, and there are lower IP and pitches thresholds for each, I think it was like 4 IP or 60 pitches for the starter and 3 IP or 45 pitches for the reliever, or something like that, probably shouldn't put out numbers but I think I'm close. So it's possible the Giants could do something like that with their Augusta rotation.
Wasn't it Houston who did something like that last season? I'm not really a big fan of bouncing guys around like that, but I guess if you had too many starters to go around... I think Vander Tuig and Pat Young both make it to San Jose. I don't see the organization pushing Flores to Richmond without at least seeing what he does in San Jose first. That would push Chris Johnson back down to Augusta. I know he (Chris J.) had a very good season in S-K, but it was a repeat performance. I don't know if there's enough room to justify Diaz jumping from the AZL to Augusta, I think he ends up in the NWL. I just finished my minors roster projections, and the rotations were very fun to put together. Just helps reinforce how many pitching talent there is in the system right now!
DeleteHere are my guesses:
DeleteAAA: Escobar, Heston, Kickham, Berken, Huff
AA: Crick, Blach, Blackburn, De Paula, Mejia
A+: Stratton, Flores, Agosta, Gregorio, NVT, Young
A: Chase Johnson, Joe Kurrasch, Chris Johnson, Ysla, Mella, Leenhouts
If you can't fill out a pitching staff and trade for the rest of your needs with group, damn! Yeah, not everyone makes it. But, this sure beats hoping for the Big Three. More like hoping for the Big 20.
DeleteThem's good odds for the continued Giants Golden Age.
Covechatter has a complete rundown of his projected minor league rosters for 2014 on his blog. I don't think I can do better than that. Giants are sometimes a bit squirrelly with their assignments so getting it exactly right is a fool's errand. Sometimes decisions are made at the last minute. Check out Covechatter's lists!
DeleteI probably would not have put him too much higher had I seen the videos prior to making up the original list. I mean, there are some darn good prospects at higher levels you still have to give respect to. I think he might have cracked the top 30, though.
DeleteThanks for the mention DrB. I'm sure those lists will look foolish on Opening Day, but it's still a great exercise in learning more about the organization. It really is amazing how much competition there is for pitching spots at each level, and not just rotation spots, but relief as well. The last man out in Augusta is DJ Snelten, pumping 93-95 from the left side. Not too shabby. Last season, there really weren't many starters outside of Crick who could hit mid-90's on the gun... that's why I was so excited about those readings on the Mella video. But now, we have reports of Escobar at 94, Mejia averaging 94.5 in the AFL, Gregorio and Flores hitting 95 multiple times last season, Chase Johnson sitting 93-95 in his instructs video... Of all the starters, Crick still has the only elite fastball, but most of the rest of these guys have the velocity to hold their own... Even Blackburn and Blach can go 92-93. That will play at the big league level. Holy smokes!
DeleteCool, thanks DrB, top 30 sounds good. And yes, CC does have a great rundown of it all, and yes, getting it right is impossible, but I think the people here, including me, greatly respect your opinion.
DeleteOK, let's make it this way: instead of guessing where the Giants would put them, where would YOU put them, without worry about rotation size, which level do you think each belongs to?
Young stood out in the draft, a big arm that just wasn't refined and stuck with the reliever label. This is the place I think the Giants should continue as always their good work. Sweet spot of value. I'd rather have a college arm like this you've seen for a couple of years against better competition than a 2nd tier bonus baby via draft manipulations. So the Giants are being SMART unlike what you hear from certain parts of the interwebz. This guy and NVT are the two guys I expect to be steals.
ReplyDeleteFor this coming draft I would like to see the Giants place a bit more emphasis on obtaining hitting prospects. Having this abundance of pitching prospects is an encouraging thing to have, but at some point does it become an overabundance and detrimental to the development of the prospects as a whole? Just finding enough opportunity for all of them to get enough innings to develop properly seems like it could start to be a challenge. I understand one could argue that there is a greater attrition rate for pitching prospects, that the Giants are "good at developing pitching but not hitting" and that excess pitching could be traded for hitting, but when a team has a promising stable of pitching prospects already it might be a good idea to work on those prospects and develop them to their fullest rather than flood the system with more pitching prospects to have to concentrate on. Sure this coming draft looks to be a strong pitching draft... that might mean most other teams will be focussed on picking pitchers, leaving more hitters to the Giants. Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteVery good thoughts and nice post.
DeletePart of me says stick with drafting what you know and that is pitching. But you make a great point about bottlenecking in the system. I'd say trade prospect pitchers for prospect hitters but GM's don't seem to like engaging in those discussions.
I'm with you though. They went after hitters early last year. Maybe they are already addressing the matter. Look for them to go big on outfielders and IF prospects with third base potential.
Giants took hitters in the first, second and fourth rounds in 2013. How much more do you want them to emphasize hitting?
DeleteHere's the problem as I see it with putting more emphasis on hitters (and I second DrB's note, plus would add the many hitters concentrated drafts in rounds 1-5 of the Barr era): when you plan to be playoff competitive, as the Giants do, you end up with picks in the back third of the draft, of the first round. At that point, my study found the odds to be around 10% of finding a good player who would be good enough to reach free agency and get a nice contract. So the odds are bad and just get worse with each round after that, dropping roughly half each round. When the odds are that low, it is probably better for the Giants to go with something they know well, which is pitching. I'm still amazed that seconds after drafting Bumgarner, Sabean and Tidrow put the bulls-eye on them and him by stating that they expect him to move fast and reach the majors in two years - which he DID! And remember how badly Bumgarner was doing, and Tidrow comes in and fixes everything just like that. Of course, you need the underlying talent to do that, but still, the ability to spot that talent is there. Plus, people forget that Lincecum, given how good he was the moment he turned pro, was actually a wild thrower in college, his walk rate was outrageous,
DeleteI would also note the discrepancy in ages on the 25-man roster between our core players, position vs. pitching. On the pitching side, only Bumgarner is the only established pitcher who is under 30, the rest are now 30-ish or much older. Meanwhile, Posey, Sandoval, Belt, and Crawford are all still mid-20's roughly, and Pence is just into his 30's. Plus, Susac, Brown, Panik appear likely to take starting roles in the next 2-3 years (right now I expect Brown to be a cheap starter with not much offense, probably replacement level at best, but because of his strong defense and speed on the bases, he can add significant value at pre-arb salaries until he either figures it out or the Giants find someone else). Plus maybe Duvall or Williamson.
I would note also your apt point that there is a higher attrition rate for pitchers as another reason, due to the injury factor. Plus, all these pitchers are still relatively low in the minors, only Escobar has reached AA and briefly at that, and we all know how big that leap from one level to another is, many fail to make the leap. And even when they are near the majors, failure seems to come in bunches. DrB notes frequently the AWFul failure of Ainsworth, Williams, Foppert. Us older folks will remember the Mets and A's BOTH had their Four Aces percolating in the minors in the early 1990's, and not one of them became even a so-so starter, some never made the jump, most became a reliever for a while, only Isringhausen made a name for himself. As impossible as it may sound, we could see the improbable as all of them fail on the path to the majors.
And to re-emphasis DrB's point, the Giants picked a lot of hitters in the last draft, and while I would not hazard a guess as to which type their first pick is, and would bet that they end up with more pitchers than hitters again overall, so far in the Barr era, a lot of the early picks have been hitters, they have spent a lot of their best draft bullets on hitters.
And I would not worry about bottlenecking the system. The Giants under Sabean have had a great record of identifying which pitchers and hitters to keep and which to let go. The best to get away has been Liriano (and his checkered healthy history is why he was let go), Foulke, Howry, Villanueva, Correia, Hensley, Aardsma, Williams, (I feel like I'm missing someone) plus Wheeler has had a good start so far, but I still don't think he's going to be the top line pitcher that some have envisioned him as. Compare them against the valuable players we have picked up - Schmidt, Snow, Nenn, Livan, Winn, Pence, Scutaro, Franchez, Lopez - and I'm not including Kent as Williams as that headliner, and I would say that the ledger is pretty firmly on our side of the equation in terms of value.
DeleteAnd I can't imagine that all of these guys are on the "do not trade" list, so I would think that Sabean will make judicious trades as they come up, and if not, well, that means the other team didn't think the pitcher was going to make it either, it takes two to trade, some people forget. So I expect the Giants to make the right decision about who to give the spot to and who do they hold back or let go of. They aren't perfect, but I think all the people betting against him are still railing against him at MCC. (and they are still wrong :^)
I think you have to go BPA with the top 3-4 picks. If you have an organizational need, then load up in that area on rounds 5-10 or so. You can never have too much talent, regardless of position.
DeleteI reject any notion that the Giants should draft pitching in preference to hitting because they are perceived to be better at developing pitchers than hitters. I just don't think that is true! I think they HAVE emphasized pitching and possibly do a better job of scouting pitching talent and that is why they APPEAR to be better at developing pitchers.
I would add that I agree you need to draft lots of good pitchers to keep the pipeline strong and pitching seems to be a more valuable currency on the trade market than position players.
DeleteDocB and other xperts, So let's say the Giants do have an abundance of pitchers, in fact, an overabundance. The Big 20(tm).
ReplyDeleteWhat is track record of the Giants, specifically, and other teams in general in trading away Minors pitching talent for position players? For either other MiLB or MLB position players?
Any upside? Equal value for equal value?
Has this ever been successfully lulled off?
Thanks
In the last few years, we have made the following trades involving our pitching prospects...
DeleteTurpin for Ramirez - Key deal in the 2010 Championship run
Sosa for Keppinger - Kep was a decent offensive 2B. No biggie.
Wheeler for Beltran - Talked to death. Next...
Pucetas for Guillen - Gave up nothing. Got nothing.
Barnes for Garko - Good try, but fail. Barnes is just now beginning to scratch the majors.
Sanchez and Verdugo for Cabrera - Sure, we only got 2/3 of a season out of Cabrera, but that time was MVP quality (as tainted as it may have been) and lead to another ring. Sanchez blew up and is ESSENTIALLY out of the majors now. Win!
Alderson for Sanchez - HR trade!
Martinez (and Bowker) for Lopez - HR trade!
Rosin (and Schierholtz and Joseph) for Pence - HR trade!
Indirect trade - Ramirez (and Torres) for Pagan - HR trade!
I would say that is a decent track record of dealing home-grown pitchers for MLB needs...
When you win some more often than you lose some, in real life, even if not perfect, it's good.
DeleteI can't think of many times when teams traded prospects for prospects, straight across. I believe there were some rumors last year about a possible Carlos Martinez for Jurickson Profar swap, but those types of trades just don't really happen anymore. Off the top of my head, the biggest prospect trade last season was KC and TB, with the Rays acquiring Wil Myers. KC also gave up Odorizzi, a pretty solid pitching prospect, for James Shields and Wade Davis. That trade was a mistake on the part of KC, in my opinion, but it serves as a good example of what we're talking about. Prospects are much more often used to acquire proven MLB talent, rather than other prospects.
DeletePitchers, Pitchers, Pitchers 4 Sale
DeleteThanks guys! Looks like territory that has not been mined that often. And yes, more MiLB prospects for MLB players seems to be the norm. Guessing the Giants are going to find out by trial by fire over the next three years.
Interesting to watch this opportunity unfold.
There has been two different studies (though made by the same guy, once using BP database, second time with Fangraph for THT) studying how teams do in trading away or keeping top prospects. He took BA Top 100 lists and broke up into kept/traded categories, plus then he studied who got long-term extensions and who were let go into free agency, and generally, this is what he found: teams know the talent they got and usually keep them, either by not trading them or not letting them get into free agency.
DeleteYou have to remember, even with The Big 20, many of them will fail to reach the majors, the attrition rate for even top prospects is very high, let alone a team's top prospects, then those who do, even fewer are starters or key relievers. And the Giants regularly keep 12 pitchers on their 25-man roster. And most of them are pretty old or getting to the danger zone downside of being 30+ YO. There might not be enough to fill the 12 spots, but hopefully enough to keep the good times flowing like champagne.
And as I noted above, the Giants have a pretty good record of trading away guys unlikely to amount to much and getting useful baseball players in return. I would contrast that with Golden Boy Billy Beane's checkered record of trading and free agents (Giambi and Tejada let go, Chavez kept, signed Sheets for $10M). To me, it seems like he trades just to fling the jello to the wall and see what sticks.
Great entry for Pat Young, Doc. I appreciate how you got after it and created an image of Young attacking batters with an arsenal of nastiness.
ReplyDeleteWhenever you read a profile of a pitcher and there is the word 'nasty' or 'nastiness,' usually that's a good sign. It makes you sit up and pay attention.
DeleteThank you. He certainly looks nasty to me. I can imagine being a hitter facing him and it doesn't look at all fun, especially from the right-handed batter's box.
Delete