Tom Brennan - Winter Ball Hitting Stats
As I plod along in my November article series on the 2008-17 Mets drafts, in which I conclude (spoiler alert) that the Mets need to draft more power pitchers and power hitters in rounds 1 thru 10, I wondered how, cumulatively, Mets hitters (some now free agents) in all active leagues of winter ball are hitting.
Hitting-wise, not shabby. The Mets, cumulatively are hitting .304 in 328 at bats. But how's the power thing coming along? Not so spiffy. The Mets, in rarified Arizona air, have hit 5 homers so far - pretty shabby. Five guys are tied at 1 homer apiece.
In the Arizona Fall League, there are 3 guys with 5 HRs, 3 with 4 HRs, 4 with 3 HRs, and 15 with 2 HRs.
Those 25 guys, just to be clear, do not include a single Met.
The only power bat to date has been David Thompson, with 5 doubles, 2 triples and a HR in 49 ABs. Low-power Kevin Kaczmarski is hitting .349 in 63 at bats, but with 18 singles and just 3 doubles and a HR.
The Mets' Scottsdale team, comprised of Mets and non-Mets hitters, has 11 HRs in 23 games. Peoria has 28 in 23 games. Is it the park? No - Scottsdale hitters in 2015 and 2016 hit a total of 4 more HRs than Peoria squads. Is the disparity coincidental? No. When ball meets bat, the ball (as pictured above) seems to overpower the bat.
In fact, it's just another sign that the Mets need more power in the pipeline. DRAFT POWER BATS.
6 comments:
What I'd seek in the draft are batters with high doubles totals. Power can develop. However, guys with high HR totals usually also have very high K totals. Take Travis Taijeron, for example...Kirk Nieuwenhuis...
Good point, Reese. I'll take a doubles machine anytime.
The problem is most of our non-homer guys aren't knocking many doubles either (e.g., Guillorme, Kaczmarski).
Olerud was not a big homer guy (although he hit 255 in 9000 ABs), but he hit 500 doubles. Or a really fast guy who can steal his way to second and third base with high frequency.
Olerud was a unique story. He was a great hitter with Toronto, including loys of doubles. One year he was hitting over .400 for most of the season. A lot like the Mets version of Daniel Murphy, but better.
Then some genius over there decided that this wasn't good enough. So they changed jis stance, tried to get him to pull as much as possible, and told him they wanted more HRs.
When it didn't work for him, and the BA dropped, they concluded that he was close to "finished", and practically GAVE him to the Mets. After the trade, his Jays mgr, Cito Gaston, told the media that Olerud would be "out of baseball soon".
The rest is history.
The Scottsdale stadium is 430' to CF, 360' down the LF line and 340' down the RF line.
The Peoria stadium is 410' to CF and 340' down the lines.
Scottsdale has the largest field dimensions in the AFL league.
Bill, good point, Olerud was a stretch analogy.
Anonymous, point taken, but put another way, of all our winter league guys, only Thompson has at least moderate MLB level pop.
The encouraging thing about Thompson is since the end of july, inluding post season and AFL, he has hit very well and with MORE than moderate power. He may be in the process of a real breakthrough. Roughly 24 XBH in 190 ABs over that stretch. The Mets could use that coming out of their sparse offensive minor league system.
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