2009 In Review: Indianapolis Indians

by Charlie on Sep 11, 2009 11:41 PM EDT Comment 13 comments

More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP

This will undoubtedly be the most controversial of the minor league reviews I've written, because it involves perhaps the two most controversial Pirates right now, Garrett Jones and Neil Walker.

A note before we begin: I believe minor league stats matter, and I believe minor league stats, and particularly AAA stats, are very valuable tools. See here for a good primer on Minor League Equivalencies, which Bill James showed closely approximate major league statistics. I also believe that what you did over the last month generally matters a lot less than what you did over the past two or three years.

Let's begin by comparing the Indianapolis statistics of two players:

Andrew McCutchen: .303/.361/.493

Garrett Jones: .307/.348/.502

These are very similar numbers, and yet my attitudes toward these three players throughout the season were very different. I loved McCutchen, but was actively hostile to Jones.

Neither of these lines look particularly good in translation. For example, if you adjust Jones' AAA numbers to Pittsburgh, you get .259/.295/.410, which is pathetic. (Remember, that's not a prediction of what he'd do in Pittsburgh, it's a translation of what he actually did.)

Of course, translating minor league numbers to the majors often makes players look pathetic. The reason they're in the minor leagues in the first place, at least in theory, is that they aren't good enough to play in the majors yet, so it's only natural that translating their numbers would make them look bad.

The reasons why I clamored for McCutchen and not for Jones, then, are twofold. First, McCutchen is 22 and Jones is 28. Players generally improve until they are about 27 or so, and then they start to go downhill. So there was good reason to think that McCutchen might actually outplay his equivalency as he improved throughout the year (which is, in fact, what happened); there was no reason to think Jones would do so, at least not judging from his numbers. Also, McCutchen is an outstanding defensive player, whereas Jones has no real defensive value. McCutchen can post a .750 OPS and still be valuable, whereas Jones can't.

Obviously, Jones, who has hit .301/.366/.607 for the Pirates so far, has exceeded any reasonable expectation. But why did it happen? It's not like the equivalency was "wrong"; remember, the equivalency is a translation, not a prediction, and the existence of outliers like Jones doesn't disprove it. He's hit for a higher OPS in the majors than he ever did at any minor league level, which is really strange given how old Jones is. Possible explanations:

1) Genuine improvement. At this point, this explanation deserves some attention, since 19 homers in 239 at bats are very hard to explain away.

2) "He learned it on the plane." I'm copping the title from a message board poster many years ago who was trying to understand why Tike Redman hit so well after being promoted in 2003. There was nothing in Redman's minor league history to suggest that he really was the sparkplug he briefly seemed to be in the majors, so the opinion of this poster was that if Redman had learned anything that caused his great half season in 2003, he must have learned it on the plane from Class AAA Nashville. Of course, Redman hadn't learned anything on the plane, which was exactly the point--his 2003 performance was a huge fluke. A complete fluke isn't as likely for Jones as it was for Redman, whose excellent half-season was driven mostly by batting average. But it's certainly worthy of consideration. For example, Jones' major league equivalency suggests he would have been a .259 hitter if his stint in Indianapolis had actually been in Pittsburgh. If he'd hit .259 in Pittsburgh but generally retained his power, that would make a lot more sense to me given his minor league profile.

At this point, the smart money has to be on a blend of "genuine improvement" and "he learned it on the plane." This isn't so bad for Jones, but I do think the Pirates should probably pencil him into the lineup next year rather than writing that name in ink. Besides, even if his hitting for the Pirates this year has mostly been legitimate, players who develop late often have very short peaks.

We should also be wary of Neil Walker, who has parlayed one great month at AAA in two years there into a big league callup. Walker's profile, going back years and including his terrible .311 OBP at Indianapolis this year, suggests he has no idea how to control the strike zone, and big league pitchers will have little trouble exploiting him. He does have legitimate power, with 47 extra base hits at Indy, but not so much that he's worth the effort. He currently compares unfavorably to players like Tony Batista or Pedro Feliz, who both play good third base defense and have excellent power but frustrate their teams with .250 batting averages and .290 OBPs. Walker currently has less power than either of them, so he should stay in the minors for now. The fact that Andy LaRoche isn't exactly tearing the cover off the ball is neither here nor there; he's very probably a better player than Walker right now, and Walker needs to prove, at the very least, that his terrific August represented real improvement rather than simply one great month.

In the second half of the year, Indianapolis' lineup also featured Jose Tabata (who did what he does, hitting for average and little else) and Jeff Clement, who tailed off badly after a strong start after coming to the Bucs in the Jack Wilson deal.

Indianapolis' best pitcher was... well, actually, it was Tom Gorzelanny, who had already exhausted the Pirates' patience and is gone now. After that, it was Daniel McCutchen. No Relation pitched well enough to overcome some rather glaring issues with flyballs, and earned a spot in the Pirates' rotation, where his flyball issues quickly reared their ugly head--he's allowed three homers in his first two starts, although he's pitched pretty well otherwise. Elsewhere, Brad Lincoln took some time to adjust to AAA after a great start at Altoona, and he finished his season with two great AAA starts. Virgil Vasquez, meanwhile, pitched like the decent AAA pitcher he is. The best pitcher out of the bullpen was Chris Bootcheck, who mowed down International League hitters before running into a wall in the majors.

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FWIW...

…Bootcheck’s carrying a .344 BABIP in the majors this year, so he’s pitched better than his numbers. I probably wouldn’t carry him on the roster over the offseason, though.

by Vlad on Sep 11, 2009 8:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Heh...

His xFIP is “only” 5.46.

by matskralc on Sep 11, 2009 8:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Still beats a 12-spot, though, doesn’t it?

by Vlad on Sep 11, 2009 8:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You hope they don’t write Jones with ink for the lineup? I hope they don’t write anybody in ink, for this putrid lineup.

On a similar note, it seems to me like we’re seeing more of the real Young lately. Someone on this site not too long ago argued that Delwyn could hit about as well as the better second basemen, like Cano and Hill. I didn’t buy it then, and now, from where I’m sitting, his numbers are evening out pretty much.

- Gorkys'nBeans

by Adam Reynolds on Sep 12, 2009 8:05 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't think that word means what you think it does

I understand your point, but it’s not a “translation” in any meaningful sense – all it can be is an approximation, or maybe a transformation; if you want to use a language word, “paraphrase” would be a better one. A “translation” means a one-to-one conversion, but there can’t be any such thing – a player’s MiL first half happened one time, under one set of circumstances, and there is no sense in which it can be “translated” into an ML performance.

Let me use an analogy that I know you’re on board with: One could, theoretically, devise the exact same tool to “translate” between A+ ball and AA ball – all you’d need to do would be to adjust the various ratios and assumptions. But, as we saw this year with Pedro Alvarez, the differences between the leagues aren’t just of degree, but of kind. No “translation” of Pedro’s A+ numbers would get you his AA performance, yet it’s not a matter of PA becoming a different player in Altoona. Everyone agrees that a major part of his success was playing against AA players rather than A+ players, even though the AA players are better.

Now, the tool you’re using is grounded in staggering amounts of data and analysis – none of this is to suggest that it’s worthless, or that outliers like Jones “disprove” anything. But treating inherently speculative tools as reliably mechanistic “translators” is an error of kind, one that will lead to errors of analysis. Mischaracterizing their certainty won’t prevent errors; it will only make you more committed to them.

by JRoth95 on Sep 12, 2009 8:58 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Further

So there was good reason to think that McCutchen might actually outplay his equivalency as he improved throughout the year (which is, in fact, what happened)

This mischaracterizes what Cutch did in the majors. From Day 1 he was a much, much better hitter than his “translated” stats said he would be – “improvement throughout the year” had not one damn thing to do with it (he did improve – although his June and July are pretty similar – but he never hit in the majors the way his “translated” stats said he should).

by JRoth95 on Sep 12, 2009 9:04 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

from the linked MLE primer:

One thing to remember is that MLEs are not a prediction of what the player will do, just a translation of what the major league equivalence of what the player actually did is. This is useful for predictions however, because like, major league statistics, MLEs have strong predictive value.

or, in other words, translations aren’t predictive, except to the extent that they are… this kinda makes sense, I suppose, if you look at it this way: translations are based on a raw statline for one year… most people would agree that one year’s raw numbers have some predictive value… sure, it leaves out context like performance in other years and age, but it’s a guideline…

to some extent, that also lets you have your cake and eat it too when using MLEs as a guideline for projecting performance… you can basically pick and choose the projections that you like while leaving aside the ones you don’t… in this case, charlie seems to be suggesting that it’s OK to use MLEs to forecast jones’ performance but not mccutchen’s … given the limitations mentioned earlier (career context and age), this is a reasonable argument… but all that does is bring us back to the point that translations aren’t predictive… except when they are…

garrett jones isn’t an outlier because his performance exceeds his MLE numbers, he’s an outlier because his performance exceeds the whole of his minor league track record… but there will always be outliers, both on the high and low ends… drop jones’ BABIP to a more sustainable level and he might fit into a more expected range of performance…

and while the pedro alvarez comparison might seem silly at first, it is interesting to note that jones’ AA performance similarly exceeded his A-ball performance by a large margin… an armchair psychologist could probably come up with a few more explanations for jones’ major league success… for the time being, however, I’m thinking of him as the pirates response to kevin maas and instead of wondering what it all means, I’m just enjoying the ride…

by Captain Easychord on Sep 12, 2009 10:10 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think....

that most would say that professional athletes generally are in their prime between 27-32,not that they begin to decline after age 27. The decline usually seems to start @32 or so,and the more talented the player,the slower the rate of decline.

by havildar on Sep 12, 2009 11:53 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Indy

I think the postings on what AAA numbers mean are interesting.

But I also think that the Indy roster review makes another point. Specifically, it is going to take two to three more years of good drafts and trades for the minor leagues to be anywhere near where they need to be for the franchise to succeed long term.

At Altoona, you had a few stud prospects (Alvarez and Tabata and Lincoln) and mostly career minor leaguers at the beginning of the year.

At Indy, you really had little outside of Cutch at the beginning of the year.

You see the difference NH has made in the lower minors. But AA and AAA are still weak.

I don’t think we’ll be done seeing the day-to-day effects of DL’s incompetence for quit a while. In fact, a friend of mine says it won’t be until Wieters retires.

But the minor league teams are looking much better.

by Bernie6666 on Sep 12, 2009 12:26 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

That's the Creech Desert.

There are relatively few prospects at that level becuase the guys who should’ve been prospects at that level, according to draft position, didn’t have the skills to successfully move past A-ball. High picks like James Boone and Brad Corley and Mike Felix and Eddie Prasch and Joe Bauserman (and, in all likelihood, Jared Hughes) not only busted as prospects, they didn’t even get to the point where they could be good organizational players.

As the 2008 and 2009 drafts move upward through the system, the problem should address itself, though as you note that’ll take several years.

by Vlad on Sep 14, 2009 10:58 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Vlad

That’s a good way to describe it, the Creech Desert. When Jamie Romak is a top 10 prospect, you have a pretty sad minor league system.

But NH has made an enormous difference. I think three more years of solid drafts will make Altoona and Indy competitive.

There is tremendous progress. But you can’t take over a hideous minor league system with a below average MLB team and change things in a year. It just can’t happen.

by Bernie6666 on Sep 14, 2009 1:47 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs