Because the Yankees did not sign Sam Stafford last year, they held two second-round picks in this year’s draft. With their second pick (89th overall), the Yankees selected University of Miami senior Peter O’Brien.
O’Brien has quite a few quirks in his biography and scouting report. At 6’5″ 225 lbs, he’s very big for a catcher. While MLB catchers can be very successful at that size – see Matt Wieters – he certainly scrapes the upper bound. He is by no means a gold glove candidate behind the plate, but all signs indicate that he is good enough defensively to stick behind the plate. His biggest strength on defense is a very strong arm, and his glove has improved over time.
And man, he hits. Playing for a big program on a light-hitting team, O’Brien hit .338 with a .633 slugging percentage in his senior year. I can’t find his on base percentage anywhere, but for what its worth he did take his share of walks in his first three years of college ball.
The story gets interesting here. His first three years of college ball took place at Bethune-Cookman University, a lower-quality Division I school. He hit well enough (.386/.445/.748 his sophomore year) to get himself drafted in the 3rd round of the 2011 draft, but opted instead to return to school. He requested and was granted a transfer to the University of Miami for personal (family) reasons, and was allowed to end his college career playing for a top-shelf team.
There is some bad news. O’Brien missed the last 17 games of the season (and possibly the reminder of the NCAA tournament) with a broken wrist. The good news is that O’Brien will be able to play as soon as the pain dies down, so the injury can’t be too serious.
Now, if you add up all the component parts of O’Brien’s scouting report, you start to wonder why he was available at 89th overall. He had a monster senior year – after the NCAA continued to tone their aluminum bats down, reducing offense – after switching to a much harder conference. He plays good enough defense at catcher. He has no reported makeup concerns, and appears to be a pretty popular player in Miami. How the hell did the Yankees pick him?
I think its part luck, part injury, and part bias against picking college seniors. All of these factors should also reduce O’Brien’s signing bonus. Only fellow second round pick Austin Aune, who may already be on his way to Tampa at this point, we shouldn’t expect him to sign right away. He’ll probably ride out the NCAA playoffs with Miami.
I like the pick, a lot. Everything that I read points to a fast-moving player with significant upside. He has his downsides – size – but plenty of upside as well. He’s a relatively safe bet compared to a similarly-skilled high school player. I don’t know what the schedule would be for his development, but I can’t believe he’s going to languish in the low minor leagues for a season and a half.
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16 Responses to Early Reaction to C Peter O’Brien, 89th Overall
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TIQ IQ
Being advanced like he is, where would they put him in the minors? Also I know Weiters is awesome but I think him and Mauer are more the exceptions to the rule and not the mean.
Just found O’briens obp its .465 on the season
O’brien 2012 slash line: .354/.465/.677 with 10 homers in 36 games
#3 overall pick Mike Zunino by comparison hit .322/.384/.654 with 15 homers in 57 games
O’brien might seriously be one of the best offensive players in the entire draft will probably start in either SS, or be assigned to High A (I hope he gets sent here, I don’t think he’ll face much competition in SS) and move quickly
Be very careful with college numbers. Remember that the same swing with an aluminum bat and a wood bat can produce very different results.
College bats have moved away from aluminum 2 years ago, they have since moved to a special composite bat that mimics the impact of wood. His stats are more inline with him beating up GCL or even low A level competition than metal bats influencing things
We don’t have any evidence to suggest that. I have trouble seeing O’Brien parachuting into the Gulf Coast League (and definitely not the South Atlantic League) and OPSing 1.100.
Batted ball speeds now mimic wooden bat speeds in college baseball, but the bats still don’t explode (like a wooden bat) on inside pitches. They change the dynamic at the plate considerably.
because they don’t break? The ball mimics the trajectory velocity, pretty much everything a wood bat does. In order to hit it with authority for those extra bases, it requires actual strength.
Also, if anything, the fact he is a college player his numbers compare favorably with any other college bat in the draft and better than any HS bat (since they still use aluminum)
This isn’t anything new. The advantage of aluminum bats in hitting inside pitches has long been accepted in baseball. A lot of people credit aluminum bats as a reason why MLB pitchers stopped pitched inside.
I would think part of the reason guys stopped pitching inside as much is because most guys don’t have very good control, thus pitching inside can lead to hitting guys, which in this era of quick warnings and ejections make guys uncomfortable going in.
Chris -
The warnings and ejections factor is commonly cited here, and I don’t entirely disagree that it helped cause the same problem. However, I think it is gets blown out a proportion a little bit. How often do we actually see ejections? Usually only after someone gets obviously pegged in retaliation for something. If its just the case of someone missing inside and hitting a guy, we don’t see it so often.
EJ is right, I did a large bat study for my master’s level thesis project and while the batted ball velocity off of the peak impact zone ( sweet spot ) was a big factor in the additional offense ( amounted to about 40 points on the batting average of elite prospects going from ncaa division 1 to low level minors ) the dissipation of resultant force on the ball hit off the end of the bat or the handle due to breaking added another 60 points ( about 30 each, end of the bat and handle ) … so the fact that metal bats don’t break adds a lot of offense to the elite prospect
Sisko, I would love to see that thesis. Could you email it to fagan.ej [at] gmail.com ?
Whoa, that’s pretty awesome sisko.
The U have already been eliminated
JUST SO ALL OF YOU KNOW. O’BRIEN BEAT OUT ALL THE OTHER STUD CATCHERS THAT WENT IN THE FIRST ROUND A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO AND WON THE STARTING POSITION ON TEAM USA. HE CAN HIT WITH WOOD OR BBCOR THIS KID CAN HIT AND HIS WORK ETHIC IS INCREDIBLE. THE YANKEES DID REAL GOOD HERE AND SHOULD BE HAPPY WITH THE END RESULT.
I’m sold, sign me up.
He hit a monster HR tonight in Staten Island for the Yanks.