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Posted Monday, June 25, 2007
Sure, a lot of people around the game will tell you that Fernando Martinez is going to be a stud. We say this because we’ve seen the Andruw Jones of the past, the Alex Escobar of the present, and the Drew Stubbs of the future, and Peter Gammons has seen the eighteen-year-old stringbean take batting practice and concluded that while the power results probably won’t show up early, he was going to be nothing short of a natural. Simply put, we’ve seen too many athletic players to know which ones we were merely gushing over, and the ones that we really will be making movies about.
But this past week, Mets fans seemed to develop that paranoiac feeling again when reading about two scouts debate the future of Fernando Martinez. A paranoiac feeling that has been absent for quite some time. But the real story here’s the same reason why people love and hate to do prospect rankings. Is Fernando Martinez over hyped? Should we trust the “older” players in the minor leagues because they contain more statistical reliability?
I quickly realized that there was no definitive answer or doctrine. Ultimately, I took some of the top outfield prospects in the game--Jay Bruce, Justin Upton, Colby Rasmus, Adam Jones, Felix Pie--and decided to weigh all the variables against each other:
2007 Statistics
1) Jay Bruce, Cincinnati Reds,
A+: .332 /.378 /.587, .965 OPS.
2) Justin Upton, Arizona Diamondbacks,
A+: .341/.433/.540, .973 .OPS
AA: .317/.379/.585, .964 .OPS
3) Colby Rasmus, St. Luis Cardinals,
AA: .246/.338/.44, .815 OPS.
4) Adam Jones, Seattle Mariners,
AAA: .316/.389/.589, .978 OPS.
5) Felix Pie
AAA: .388/.438/.588, 996 OPS.
To say Jay Bruce has the chance to lead a new generation of power hitters would be a bit of an understatement. In a study done by Doug Gray, who covers the Reds farm system for MVN, he concluded that since 2002 there have been 64 players in the FSL under 21 with at least 100 at bats in a season. Just three guys have had a slugging percentage over .500 and only 1 guy has posted an OPS over .900. Bruce is well on his way to doing that. But I don’t think, having looked at Bruce’s power numbers, that it’s time to call 911 on Martinez’s GB% this year. (60%) Martinez has certainly proven his ability to smack the ball. If F-Mart was playing in A-Ball right now, his OPS. would be through the roof, and he’d be right at Bruce’s level.
Now, the age factor comes in when comparing Martinez to Rasmus and Pie. Pie has pretty much been an offensive force in every statistical category in 2007 at AAA. But if you look back at his stats before this, at an older age as well, they were actually worse than F-Mart's. In 2004 in A Ball, Pie had 39 walks vs. 116 strikeouts. He followed that up in AA with 16 walks vs. 53 strikeouts, and finally, in 2006 at AA, he had 42 walks vs. 126 strikeouts.
At this point, Colby Rasmus and Martinez are in the same boat, which in that case, you lean towards the age factor.
Last but not least, I saved Justin Upton and Adam Jones for here because I believe they’re the underlying point. Jones saw his first action in AA at the age of twenty in 2005, while Upton, at the age of twenty, made the jump over a month ago. Knowing first and foremost that plate discipline, you can see that in AA, all three players’ strikeout and walk rates were freakishly similar:
Fernando Martinez: Walk Rate: 8.6% Strikeout Rate: 19.2%
Justin Upton: Walk Rate: 9.6% Strikeout Rate: 19.8%
Adam Jones: Walk Rate: 8.6% Strikeout Rate: 18.7%
Knowing this, wouldn’t our gut feeling tell us that the age differential between the three make Martinez superior? Well, let’s look at it this way. In Adam Jones’s case, had Jones played their the entire year, he would’ve gone onto hit 14 home runs, and his SLG% was .461, in comparison to Martinez’s meager .374. Yes, Martinez is a full two years younger, and by that time he will have likely grown into Adam Jones’s frame, but even then, we hope that will be where F-mart is in terms of power potential. The same goes for Justin Upton. Upton might be two years older than Martinez, but he also is putting up a catastrophic .600 SLG%. There’s a big difference. Potential is nice, success is better.
Without further ado, here’s how I’d rank these five outfielders.
1) Justin Upton
2) Adam Jones
3) Fernando Martinez
4) Jay Bruce
5) Felix Pie
6) Colby Rasmus
From what I saw watching him last year, Martinez might take a few bad routes in the outfield, but that’s like criticizing a prodigious eight-year-old golfer over a few bad putts, as the kid could hit the snot out of the ball, and frankly, I’m no scout, but I didn’t see much wrong with his arm. But just as easily as we can point to Ken Griffey Jr. being 18 in AA, I can point to Ian Stewart’s gaudy numbers in Low-A at 19, (.319/.398/.594) I’m not looking to write him off, but the drop-off in AA isn’t completely due to the age factor. It’s also due to the fact that AA pitchers are far more advanced and can execute their breaking stuff. I’m going to do what most Mets fans should. Let this kid play a full season, and don’t over hype him.
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