Travis Snider and Prince Fielder as bulky impact rookies

[Schad]

Obviously, Snider is only in AA, so Fielder is clearly the better player...and there's a good chance he will remain so. I'm mostly curious whether any here believe that Snider can follow Fielder's meteoric rise, because the parallels in their physiques and minor league numbers are certainly there.

Snider at 19: .313/.377/.525 in 500+ PAs for low-A Lansing.
Fielder at 19: .313/.398/.526 in almost 600 PAs for low-A Beloit.

Snider at 20: .283/.359/.495 in 300 PAs thus far in high-A/AA (four-fifths in AA).
Fielder at 20: .272/.356/.473 in 500+ PAs in AA.

It's worth mentioning that Snider was awful in the first month this year, as a shoulder injury and the transition to AA slowed him down. Do these numbers look like an impact rookie a la Fielder, or do his peripherals (2.8:1 K rate, and over one-third Ks overall...and his age, of course) suggest a kid who'll take a couple years to mash at the major league level?

[bigboy1234]

Prince is a lot more bulky. The thing to worry about with Snider is the K rate, Fielder didn't have those problems. I would say through the same point in their careers Fielder clearly does have the better numbers. But Snider should have more defensive value unless he eventually gets put at DH permanently.

Here are the numbers of both players in their low A ball and AA stints at the same age:

........Player.....PA.....K....BB...K%...BB%...BB/K
Prince Fielder..1135..173..136..15%...12%....0.79
Travis Snider...771...206..77...27%...10%....0.37

Fielder also has a more impressive GPA compared to Snider in this time, although close. The thing that sets them apart the most is the K's.

[Test of Wills]

Well, Travis Snider has been doing good things during his callup. He's not as bulky as Prince Fielder though.

[tsherkin]

Well, it's been over a year since this topic was made (go, go, active forum...) but for point of comparison...

Snider gave us 80 plate appearances across 24 games last year and hit just over .300 with an OPS+ of 112.

10 games into this season (about half as many PAs), he's hitting .290 with an OPS+ of 169 and 1 more HR than he had in 14 more games last year and a slightly lower K/PA rate (0.229 versus 0.288). He's also getting a much higher TB/AB rate; last year, he nabbed 34 total bases in 80 PA. This year, 22 in 35 (so 0.623 TB/PA this year versus 0.425).

10 games, of course, is a nigh-meaningless sample. It's a hitting streak. It's still encouraging that his numbers are up across the board.

You can generally tell that these numbers are outliers because he's projected to post 47 HR and 142 RBI over 158 games and few think that's a truly reasonable expectation of the 21 year-old.

Fielder had a similar 1st season. His rookie season, the year after, was 157 games long and included 28 HR and 81 RBI with 275 TB (35 2B and a 3B).

If Snider can maintain enough of the great swing and contact he's got going right now, those are numbers he could reach, realistically. We'll probably have a better idea somewhere around 60 games in, but he certainly looks like he belongs right where he is and is doing extremely well.

[Schad]

His impact this season is probably dependent on his ability to earn some PAs against lefties...he might put up prettier averages in a platoon, but they wouldn't really be reflective of his overall worth relative to Fielder, who played every day (and was extremely good against LHP).

[tsherkin]

Well, as I said, 14 or 15 games isn't a meaningful sample no matter what the circumstances are, so we'll see how things go moving forward. If he doesn't get PAs against lefties, I'll take him routinely getting 2-baggers and otherwise getting on-base while maintaining his power numbers, and we can look at lefties and worth relative to Fielder later. Prince is a significant player, and that we can even have this discussion is encouraging.