Garrett Jones vs. Nate McLouth

I think this take is about right, btw – I certainly don’t think he’ll be ready to come north in April, and I’m not sure he’ll be ready by July either, but I think he well could be, a possibility Vlad seems to be dismissing out of hand as “betting on 18.”

2009’s Tale of Two Cutchens gives me some faith that NH and his crew are reasonably good at evaluating when to bring up AAA guys (I’m not sure there’s a lot of data there yet after you throw out guys brought up to fill holes, but those 2 make me feel better).

…there’s a Wieters (2009 ZiPS: .291/.361/.467) or a Schafer (2009 ZiPS: .244/.300/.415) who takes a step backward.

I don’t think Tabata will get the bat knocked out of his hands or anything like that, but players with walks and no power typically lose some of those walks (at least temporarily) upon promotion to MLB, once pitchers realize that they can be challenged inside the strike zone with limited repercussions. That’s why I think the key for Tabata making a successful transition is going to be a bounce in the power indicators (even if it’s only some extra doubles), and 2010 just seems a little aggressive for a timetable there to me.

…in his first major league look is not a bad projection. Roberto Clemente had a .637 OPS in his age-22 season, just to pull one example from team history. A projection like that doesn’t mean that a player won’t grow up to be an All-Star – just that he’s not ready to be an All-Star right out of the starting gate (as very few players are).

The small bounce in raw OPS from 2007-2008 isn’t particularly significant from a predictive standpoint. The majority of it came from an fluctuation in BA, where McCutchen’s below-normal .258 in 2007 returned to a more typical .283. There was an increase in his walk rate, but also a drop in his ISO (and increased power is what was most responsible for his 2009 breakout). There’s probably also some park stuff affecting the line, as Altoona has traditionally been mildly pitcher-friendly.

Our community forecasts typically lead ZiPS projections for individual Pirates by a significant amount, because we are all at heart Pirate fans who can’t be entirely objective about our own guys. Which is fine, but doesn’t mean that the ZiPS line for McCutchen was any more unreasonable than any other projection for a Pirate last year, since we were higher on all those guys, too.

Incorporating subjective factors is fine, but I don’t see a lot of reason to use those to move Tabata’s projected line in this case. He hasn’t hit for much power so far in the AFL (though his overall line is good), and he doesn’t have a history of unusually quick adjustments after promotion.

while .700 is perfectly acceptable in his rookie season, it is really to the Pirates benefit to bring him up when he can do more than be singles hitter with doubles power. Tabata will be playing a corner outfield spot in Pittsburgh, and you would want more production than that.

Also, on the topic of bringing someone up, there should be factors taken into account such as that by the time he develops power, like Cutch this year, will it be his 3rd season? Will he start getting a helluva lot more expensive? Why not let him mature at AAA for a year, and sort out the OFs we have right now? Will bringing him up be a big step forward for him in acclimatizing to the bigs, so he can contribute next year?

I would leave Tabata in AAA for the year, at this point- that said, if he shows power, and if the positions in Pittsburgh are clearer (read, the roles of GFJ, Clement, Moss, Pearce), I wouldn’t be averse to bringing him up.

I am also tempted to believe he might stay down for the year, because the Pirates would like to see more before deciding what to do with the players already in Pittsburgh. If there’s nothing to be gained in bringing Tabata up in June, why do it?

Like I said, the chances of getting an outfield assist are spaced very far apart – similar to RISP for example. Just because Jones had a low RISP this year doesn’t mean he won’t do well next year. ARod tanks in the playoffs one year, then does well the next. There aren’t too many conclusions you can make about his ability there.

However, Range factor is based on many more chances, and if you look at the spray charts of balls hit to the outfield, you’ll see it doesn’t really take too many chances to get an accurate reading – enough to say this guy is good or average or bad.

Range factor and hitting stats tell you what someone did, not what what they are going to do. Making a conclusion as to whether someone is a good hitter or fielder you do based on those stats and what you see with your eyes in certain situations.

If you based it on Holliday dropping the ball in the playoffs, you might think Holliday is a bad fielder. But when you see he generally has a fairly positive range factor, about average on errors, and a slightly negative arm rating, you get an idea of his strengths and weakness as it relates to defense.

When it comes to quantifying that, you can definitely say “Bay has allowed more balls to drop in his area than the average left fielder”. You can also say “If Bay had caught the average amount of balls that came his way, the Red Sox opponents would probably have scored 11 less runs on the year and the Red Sox probably would have won 1 more game”.

But you can’t say “This means Bay will cost his team 11 runs next year” anymore than you can say “Bay will hit 35 HRs next year”.

All you can do is try to make a prediction based on what he did in the past.