What to make of Drew Stubbs

(Photo: Lisas Lounge/Flickr.com)

Drew Stubbs is one of the more intriguing prospects in all of baseball. The scout crowd love him for his bag of tools, while the ’stats’ crowd is down on him for his strikeouts and performance thus far. Personally, I like to think I have a nice mix of both stats and scouting in my opinions of players. Still, he is a spark for debate among the prospecting community.

Last year he hit just .270/.364/.421 in Low A Dayton. One of the most concerning things about his year was the 142 strikeouts. Last year in Dayton, Stubbs was batting in the leadoff spot for a majority of the time. In the leadoff spot he hit just .255/.358/.385 while striking out 26.1% of the time. He did however get 125 plate appearances outside of the leadoff spot. In those appearances he hit .313/.368/.509 while striking out just 20% of the time, cutting off 6% from his overall strikeout rate.

One of the things I had thought was a bad idea for Stubbs, despite his incredible speed, was batting him leadoff with his strikeout problems. Leadoff hitters generally have it in their mind that they need to take pitches to let their other hitters see what the pitcher is throwing. When a player has contact problems, taking strikes is not always the best idea. While it was just 125 times at the plate, it seems that once outside of the leadoff spot his contact rates really improved.

This year, Stubbs has been hitting 5th in the lineup for Sarasota. Its early, but his strikeout rate is again down a bit at 19% and he is drawing walks at a great rate early on. I have said it all winter and spring, but I really think this is the year Drew Stubbs quiets most of his doubters. He is in a league that is notorious for eating hitters alive, but I don’t expect him to be there all year.