Sickels on Snider

[Schad]

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2011/4/2 ... #storyjump

I don't generally like posting blurbs as standalone threads, but Sickels is one of the better independent talent evaluators out there, and there's been some concern about Snider's development curve. His take:

A first round pick in 2006, he reached the majors in just two years with great expectations. I had him as a Grade B+ and Number 20 on my hitting list in 2007, another B+ and a 23 ranking in 2008, and a Grade A- and a Number 2 ranking in 2009. In the '09 book, I wrote that "a few growing pains are likely inevitable" and that he would probably need "consolidation time," but that he was still one of the best offensive prospects in the game.

Injuries and erratic performance have highlighted his '09 and '10 seasons in the majors, but keep in mind that Snider is only 23 years old. He hit .241/.328/.419 in 276 plate appearances in '09 (OPS+95, WAR 0.0), but improved that last year to .255/.304/.463 (OPS+106, WAR 1.5) in 319 PA. All told, in 184 career games, 679 PA, he has a .254/.319/.445 mark, 103 OPS+, WAR 1.8. His 162-game average shows 35 doubles and 22 homers...very impressive for a player his age. It also shows 180 strikeouts, although he did cut whiff rate last year, from 32.4% to 26.5%, which I take as a good sign.

Improving his platoon splits will be critical: his career OPS against lefties is just .675, while it's .784 against right-handers. He did make some progress with that last year: the vs-southpaw-OPS increased from .608 to .702 last year. Basically I think the trend lines are good here.

[...]

My personal take is that Snider will make the needed adjustments and rake. He might fade out fairly early in his early 30s, but I expect him to be one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball for at least a few years.

Nice thing to warm the heart on a chilly April afternoon.

[Hoopstarr]

I remember reading his writeup on one Alexis Rios. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=1638235. He called the huge difference in his power projection. Too bad it turned out to be the low number.

[The Flying Gent]

Sickles is great. Before the game today he predicted that Kyle would have a no-hitter this year. Heh, he was almost right already.

[Weems]

I want Snider to succeed so badly. Big season for him, hopefully he stays healthy.

[satyr9]

I don't have any concerns Snider will hit. When he's at the plate he just looks like built to rake.

I'm less convinced he's gonna be all-star calibre, which isn't to say he won't just that at one point I was sure he would. He will 100% be an above average OF hitter in MLB soon enough.

[J.Kim]

There were concerns about his development curve? That's news to me.

[Schad]

There were concerns about his development curve? That's news to me.

Some around here had soured on him a fair bit, forgetting that he was extremely young, has had some injury issues, and has still managed a career 103 OPS+ (which is below-average for a corner outfielder, but isn't bad production for his age 20-22 seasons). I'm not sure that I'd go as far as Sickels, but I'd still peg Snider for a .270/.350/.520 prime or thereabouts.

[Avenger]

I see him as a Jayson Werth/SHin Soo Choo type player, 850-900 OPS player and play good corner outfield defence.

[Homer Jay]

He has surprised me with his athleticism so far this year. He's kind of deceptive like Vernon Wells is, being kind of short and wide but he can motor and that throw at the plate was lights out today.

[J.Kim]

There were concerns about his development curve? That's news to me.

Some around here had soured on him a fair bit, forgetting that he was extremely young, has had some injury issues, and has still managed a career 103 OPS+ (which is below-average for a corner outfielder, but isn't bad production for his age 20-22 seasons). I'm not sure that I'd go as far as Sickels, but I'd still peg Snider for a .270/.350/.520 prime or thereabouts.

Didn't even know people on here soured on him. I guess they all forgot just how quickly he progressed through minors as a HS draftee. Everyone seems to forget that he moved up all the way to AAA in his 2nd season in the minors.

About his numbers, I think that's being slightly pessimistic, but I guess the semantics are pretty much the same. I picture him like Avenger said, .850-.900 OPS player topping at around .280-ish batting average. A Shin Soo Choo type with more power to compensate for inability to steal bases and a slightly worse batting average. So I guess a tad bit more optimistic in my estimates.

To put it another way, I guess Vernon Wells in his even numbered years?

[Schad]

About his numbers, I think that's being slightly pessimistic, but I guess the semantics are pretty much the same. I picture him like Avenger said, .850-.900 OPS player topping at around .280-ish batting average. A Shin Soo Choo type with more power to compensate for inability to steal bases and a slightly worse batting average. So I guess a tad bit more optimistic in my estimates.

Our predictions are pretty similar...those slash lines would have him as an .870 guy with serious pop (you don't hit a .250 ISO unless you're sending a lot of balls out). Perhaps not a perennial All-Star, but that's a damned good hitter.

[satyr9]

.850+ OPS is freaking good if you do it consistently. Yes, superstar single-season numbers are over .900 to 1.000, but there are only 34 players with more than .850 OPS over the last 3 years combined taking into account whatever frangraphs uses for minimum PA (for the record not one of those guys had less than 1500 PA over the period). Also, when you look you'll realize at least 4-5 guys make that list off of a single monster season (for instance Bautista takes the last spot).

Similarly, just being a perennial .500+ slugger is a big accomplishment. Only 26 guys have 3-year splits over that number and as you can imagine it's pretty much the who's who of baseball with a few lead-off superstar types missing who obviously don't make the .500 SLG cut.

All I'm saying is if expectations are now marginally decreased to 350/520 realms then we either forgot or are forgetting that those numbers equal a legit 3 or 4 slot, occasional all-star at minimum calibre player, so maybe our initial expectations were slightly exaggerated for Snider.

[J.Kim]

.850+ OPS is freaking good if you do it consistently. Yes, superstar single-season numbers are over .900 to 1.000, but there are only 34 players with more than .850 OPS over the last 3 years combined taking into account whatever frangraphs uses for minimum PA (for the record not one of those guys had less than 1500 PA over the period). Also, when you look you'll realize at least 4-5 guys make that list off of a single monster season (for instance Bautista takes the last spot).

Similarly, just being a perennial .500+ slugger is a big accomplishment. Only 26 guys have 3-year splits over that number and as you can imagine it's pretty much the who's who of baseball with a few lead-off superstar types missing who obviously don't make the .500 SLG cut.

All I'm saying is if expectations are now marginally decreased to 350/520 realms then we either forgot or are forgetting that those numbers equal a legit 3 or 4 slot, occasional all-star at minimum calibre player, so maybe our initial expectations were slightly exaggerated for Snider.

I don't really see how it's exaggerated expectations? I think the number of total players that have achieved that came out so low because you're looking at just over the past 3 years. If you're looking at 3-year intervals from, let's say, the 2000-2010, then I think you'll come out with a total number of players a lot larger than 34. There's players on the decline who have achieved those numbers before and players on the upswing who will reach those numbers but are hampered by early-career struggles. Considering what Snider has shown us in the minors and in the majors, I think a 3-year peak of around .280 BA with .870 OPS is plenty reasonable (of course, his overall career numbers will be lower than that). I think this is what Schad was getting at as well.

[satyr9]

I'm not saying they aren't realistic expectations for Snider, but I really like Snider and of course my point about OPS and SLG was only a snapshot in time; there are plenty of guys who have put up those numbers for those lengths of time but I would imagine that if you took a similar snapshot for any 3-year period the numbers would be consistent with those above, obviously with a fairly decent +/- margin. I just couldn't think of a reason why the years 2008-2010 would've led to a drastically smaller number of players to reach those heights than might be likely through 2012-2014 or 2013-2015. Meaning if he hit that much, he'd be a top 20-30 bat in the league for that period.

870 OPS is not a unique offensive skill set for a year or even a 3-year or 5-year period, but if all he reaches is a peak period with a line close to Schad's, he'd be considered to have had an excellent career as long as his progression into and out of that period is not widely divergent from those numbers.

I wasn't criticizing the expectations Schad outlined but the ones that may have come before him to suggest his line was a regressed outlook for Snider's career path. I'd say that's roughly what I think of him too although I might allow a little more wiggle room for the caprice of the baseball gods than most. I was only pointing out those are still significant expectations. He could turn out to be a top 10 hitter in the game too and it wouldn't surprise me overmuch, but having to settle for a Snider that becomes a top 30-50 hitter in the league for a reasonable period is not such a poor consolation prize. He'd be more Ryan Klesko than Miguel Cabrera, but that's not really as bad as it might sound at first.

[J.Kim]

I'm not saying they aren't realistic expectations for Snider, but I really like Snider and of course my point about OPS and SLG was only a snapshot in time; there are plenty of guys who have put up those numbers for those lengths of time but I would imagine that if you took a similar snapshot for any 3-year period the numbers would be consistent with those above, obviously with a fairly decent +/- margin. I just couldn't think of a reason why the years 2008-2010 would've led to a drastically smaller number of players to reach those heights than might be likely through 2012-2014 or 2013-2015. Meaning if he hit that much, he'd be a top 20-30 bat in the league for that period.

870 OPS is not a unique offensive skill set for a year or even a 3-year or 5-year period, but if all he reaches is a peak period with a line close to Schad's, he'd be considered to have had an excellent career as long as his progression into and out of that period is not widely divergent from those numbers.

I wasn't criticizing the expectations Schad outlined but the ones that may have come before him to suggest his line was a regressed outlook for Snider's career path. I'd say that's roughly what I think of him too although I might allow a little more wiggle room for the caprice of the baseball gods than most. I was only pointing out those are still significant expectations. He could turn out to be a top 10 hitter in the game too and it wouldn't surprise me overmuch, but having to settle for a Snider that becomes a top 30-50 hitter in the league for a reasonable period is not such a poor consolation prize. He'd be more Ryan Klesko than Miguel Cabrera, but that's not really as bad as it might sound at first.

Ah, gotcha. So we're all pretty much on the same page.

[There There]

A Shin Soo Choo type with more power to compensate for inability to steal bases and a slightly worse batting average. So I guess a tad bit more optimistic in my estimates.

I'm actually a bit higher on his ability to steal some bases here and there. During the course of the next couple of years at least, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the 15-20 range, especially if this aggressive mind set Farrell wants to employ sticks.

[J.Kim]

15-20 would put him close to Shin Soo Choo range. He hasn't shown much to warrant this, to be honest. I guess if he works diligently at it, he would have a shot at it. However, I think better efforts should be made elsewhere to improve his batting and fielding above all. I'm expecting him to be a middle-of-the-order type of guy (not a four but maybe a three or more likely a five) too so batting should come first above base-running abilities.

[tsherkin]

I loved watching him walk not once but TWICE in a game. Yeah, he may be ripping at some bad pitches still, but if he can get his walk rate up, even with big K numbers that could be Adam Dunn-ish and that wouldn't suck at ALL.

[There There]

15-20 would put him close to Shin Soo Choo range. He hasn't shown much to warrant this, to be honest. I guess if he works diligently at it, he would have a shot at it. However, I think better efforts should be made elsewhere to improve his batting and fielding above all. I'm expecting him to be a middle-of-the-order type of guy (not a four but maybe a three or more likely a five) too so batting should come first above base-running abilities.

I'm not saying it should be a priority of his, just that I wouldn't be surprised if he's in the range.

He did have six last year in half a season, and this team looks like it's going to be more aggressive in that regard under Farrell. That doesn't mean guys like Lind would be swiping bases, but I think Snider is quicker than many give him credit for.

Whether that translates into base running instincts is another matter, and while 6 out of 9 is less than ideal, it's hard to judge his instincts on such a small sample.

[DonYon]

Snider is a average quickness/speed guy in my view but he manages to pull a few SBs off on good instincts. By the time he's in his late 20s i see him scrapping that part of his game altogether. We should be more worried about him getting on base more frequently before even talking about him stealing bases.