Beyond the Boxscore is running an interesting series on fielding by minor leaguers, and two Yankees have come up in their discussion. The results for Austin Jackson were not pretty, as he posted a -20 Runs/150 in 2008. Here is what they had to say about A-Jax:
Austin Jackson is probably the Yankees’ future right fielder rather than center fielder. He also was a -14 season in 2006. His bat doesn’t profile nearly as well in a corner position. Brett Gardner is not in Jackson’s class as far as prospect status, but has posted +13, +1 and +9 at different points in his career.
The Yankees are not likely to move Jackson to right, being that his value is much higher in CF. He is an exceptional athlete, so hopefully he can improve at the position as he matures. If he does not, his status as a top prospect will be diminished, as his bat would be fringy in right field.
The other Yankee addressed was Ramiro Pena, who posted a 2 Runs/150 in 2008:
For some weird reason Ramiro Pena has become the darling boy of the New York media, who seem ready to anoint him as the next Yankee shortstop. He is a good defender, with Runs/150 of 21, 15 and 2 the past three seasons, but he hit for a career high .312 wOBA repeating AA last season. Jeter most assuredly should be moved to another postition, but for this guy?
It seems that the numbers do confirm Pena’s wizardry with the glove. However, as EJ noted yesterday, Pena is awful with the stick, and is unlikely to be anything more than a utility man and defensive replacement in the major leagues.
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7 Responses to BtB Looks At Defense Of A-Jax And Pena
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TIQ IQ
I refuse to trust minor league defensive statistics over scouts eybeballs. BA ranked Ajax as the Yankees best defensive OF prospect in its entire organization.
Fair enough. I have said in the past that I do not put a ton of stock in defensive stats. That being said, his numbers are awful, not just bad, so that suggests that he may not be great out there.
I was told once that the player write-ups in the Baseball America handbook are exaggerated to make the player look as good as possible, so perhaps BA just got carried away on A-Jax?
Also a lot of the scouting reports they get on players come from the scouts of that players specific team, so obviously they will try and build that player up as much as possible. Still I’ll wait til I actually see Ajax before I judge.
Defensive ‘metrics’ can be just as subjective as scouts eyeball reports.
I don’t know whether either assessment is right or wrong. Until they develop equipment that can accurately measure how hard a baseball is hit and exactly where it goes, I think all of this stuff needs to include a large grain of salt with it.
A couple of things:
1) How are minor league defensive metrics calculated? I don’t know exactly, but I do know the information available to Btb. The information available on each batter is as follows:
a) Infield popup
b) Ground ball hit
c) Soft line drive, caught
d) Soft line drive, hit
e) Hard line drive, caught
f) Hard line drive, hit
g) Fly ball, caught
h) Fly ball, hit
That’s it. STATS Inc isn’t in the stands categorizing each batted ball. That number is likely just a percentage of plays made of each type made by each fielder, with some sort of weighting mechanism. It is by no means representative of anything.
That said, Austin Jackson has rarely been given much credit for being a strong center fielder. He has Bernie Williams syndrome – lots of speed but poor routes to the balls. Scouts said he made a lot of progress in 2007, but were mostly silent on his speed in 2008. Many have tossed around the idea that Jackson would eventually settle in as a left fielder.
Yeah, that is basically how they deal with the data- not very scientific, but similar stuff done with MLB data comes up with decent results.
I noticed that this is not the first time you mention the topic. Why have you chosen it again?