Since I last posted about the Cubs prospects on July 19, a few good things have happened.
Ok, a monsoon of great things have happened. I'll review all of them in a later offseason post. But today I'd like to focus on arguably the best thing that happened in 2013: with the second overall pick in the draft, the Cubs chose University of San Diego third baseman Kris Bryant. And what a beautiful pick it has been thus far.
Bryant spent a pair of days in the Arizona Rookie League where he recorded just a single double in seven plate appearances. Then he spent three weeks in Boise where he clobbered Northwest League pitching to a .354/.416/.692 line in 77 plate appearances. On the heels of that success, he jumped the Midwest League and headed to Daytona to help the Cubs with their playoff push. Over 62 plate appearances, Bryant mashed at a .333/.387/.719 clip. There were some concerns along the way, namely high strikeout rates and an extremely high BABIP. To be fair, the high BABIP is largely a result of Bryant being many times better than the competition. Nonetheless, Bryant made the most of his 146 regular season plate appearances.
He nabbed 24 additional postseason plate appearances helping the Cubs win the Florida State League. Bryant continued his onslaught of professional pitchers with a .350/.417/.450 line. On the year, Bryant combined to post a .338/.400/.655 line over 160 plate appearances prior to participating in the Arizona Fall League.
Ah, the AFL. Bryant has continued his destruction of opposing pitching. Over 56 plate appearances, Bryant has produced a .400/.446/.920 line. It has reached the point that some fans are wondering how much seasoning he actually needs in the minor leagues based on his prodigious output and domination of solid pitching prospects. With a professional line of .354/.412/.722 in 226 plate appearances, those questions aren't nearly as crazy as one might think.
What do I think the team should do? I'd like to see the Cubs milk an extra year of team control out of Bryant, so any promotion before May 1st won't sit well with me. I'd also like to make sure that he has seen enough advanced breaking pitches prior to reaching Chicago. The worst mistake to make with Bryant is rushing him such that Major League breaking pitches destroy his confidence (remember Corey Patterson everyone?). I'd also like to see what Mike Olt can do with some regular playing time at the hot corner.
However, I think the much more interesting question is this: what will Jed Hoyer and Theo Epstein do? Given that they are the ultimate decision makers, their opinions are the only ones that really matter.
With that in mind, I plowed through some data to see what types of insight I could glean into their decision. I looked at two separate sets of information. First, I examined what type of timeline teams have employed with the top collegiate batter taken in each draft over the last few years. Second, I examined what Epstein and Hoyer did in Boston with their top collegiate prospects. The findings offer some help while still leaving room for speculation.
Let's start with the top collegiate position player in each draft.
Year Position/Name Draft Slot MiLB/AFL PAs
2012 C Mike Zunino 2 505
2011 3B Anthony Rendon 6 *420 (319)
2010 SS Christian Colon 4 **1,864
2009 2B Dustin Ackley 2 1,012
2008 3B Pedro Alvarez 2 820
2007 C Matt Wieters 5 693
2006 3B Evan Longoria 3 881
2005 3B Alex Gordon 2 577
2004 1B Billy Butler 14 791
2003 2B Rickie Weeks 2 ***909
*Rendon was first called up to replace the injured Ryan Zimmerman for two weeks. When Zimmerman returned, Rendon went back to the minors for an additional 101 plate appearances before getting the call for good.
**Colon is still in the minors and he's hardly knocking on the door in Kansas City.
***Weeks got 14 September plate appearances in Milwaukee in 2003 after just 92 A-ball plate appearances before spending the next year and a half back working through the minors.
We can learn a few things from this list. First, there isn't a magic number of plate appearances for top picks. Colon was regarded as a safe, fast-track product coming out of Cal-State Fullerton, but he has crawled as he scuffles as a professional. Ackley was also polished coming out of North Carolina to a Mariners team desperate for offense, but he too took over 1,000 trips to the dish before getting the call. For anyone thinking 1,000 plate appearances is some type of magic threshold, let this list prove otherwise. If you can play well as the top collegiate player, you'll get the call. Second, you might just get that call very quickly. Although Rendon is the only player to make it in under 500 plate appearances, plenty of those players moved quickly to their desperate franchises. Third, if we exclude Colon - the one true failure on the list - the average number of plate appearances before a top collegiate pick's debut is 734 with four of players getting fewer than the mean and five getting more.
We now turn to Theo and Jed. They've dealt with their fair share of picks during their run together. Theo presided over the 2003-2011 drafts in Boston with Hoyer accompanying him for 2003-2009. This gets a little trickier because we need to follow the prospects who stayed in the Boston system. As such, we're going to look at the top Boston draftee who made it to MLB in a Red Sox uniform.
Year Position/Name Draft Slot MiLB/AFL PAs
2008 C Ryan Lavarnway 202 1,627
2007 None
2006 1B Aaron Bates 83 1,757
2005 OF Jacoby Ellsbury 23 *1,268 (1,154)
2004 2B Dustin Pedroia 65 1,277
2003 OF David Murphy 17 1,764
*Ellsbury received 26 MLB plate appearances due to a Coco Crisp injury before nabbing 114 more plate appearances at Pawtucket prior to being called up for good in September 2007.
Well now. Those numbers look fantastically different. To be fair, none of those players was the top collegiate pick in his respective draft, although both Murphy and Ellsbury were very highly regarded. But there's one very valuable nugget of information that emerges looking particularly at Murphy, Pedroia, and Ellsbury: none of those three needed anywhere near as much minor league development time as they got. But they got it nonetheless. Those Red Sox teams were winning bunches of games, so none of the players really needed to be rushed up the ladder. Still, with MVP-caliber talent in Pedroia and Ellsbury, the pair received over 2,500 minor league PAs. The regime has regularly babied even their more advanced prospects.
I think that there are three takeaway points from this review.
I think that there are three takeaway points from this review.
1. The top collegiate player tends to reach the major leagues very quickly with the average top collegiate position player over the last decade needing just 734 professional plate appearances before making it.
2. The current Cubs front office led by Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer has traditionally taken an extremely conservative approach with position players giving all of their top picks at least 1,200 plate appearances despite their advanced games. It should be noted that none of those Boston picks came in the top half of the first round, let alone at #2 overall.
3. Kris Bryant has been a positively sensational baseball player in 2013. His professional line of .354/.412/.722 in 216 plate appearances is otherworldly. While his professional line is more impressive, particularly given the strong competition at Daytona and in the Arizona Fall League, Bryant's collegiate line of .329/.493/.820 was actually even better on a strict numbers basis not accounting for the talent gap. For his 528 plate appearances in baseball games this year (426 at bats), Bryant has a combined line of .340/.456/.775 with 35 doubles, 6 triples, 46 homers, and 85 walks. It is safe to say that he is much more advanced than any of the other names examined.
With all of that in mind plus the proximity to competing for the Cubs, I think Bryant will end up receiving almost exactly 500 professional plate appearances before making it to Chicago. He should receive roughly another 50 in the AFL bringing him to 276 in 2013. With 224 plate appearances to go to reach 500 and an average of four plate appearances per game, I predict that Bryant will play 56 games for the Tennessee Smokies in 2014 before getting called up to Chicago. If we assume that Bryant plays in 95% of Tennessee's games, it will take him 59 scheduled games to reach that threshold. Tennessee's 59th game occurs on June 3rd, 2014. This date will come very close to the Super Two cutoff in 2014 (the cutoff was 2 years, 119 days of service time in 2013, down significantly from 2 years, 139 days in 2012), so the Cubs will likely hold off a few days longer to ensure that Bryant does not earn the extra trip through arbitration and the potential millions that come with it.
Plus, Tennessee plays a five-game set in Jacksonville that weekend, so I'm selfishly hopeful that they hold off a few more days so I can see Bryant just before he makes the jump.
Bryant has Epstein and Hoyer on a crash course for uncharted territory, but other similar picks provide solid guidance for what the team may do with Bryant. With an eye toward competing for the postseason in 2016 and even as early as 2015, the Cubs and Bryant would both be well served by giving the player his first crack at the highest level in mid-2014...assuming he continues to justify it with his play. That one is up to Bryant and the coaches.
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