Mark Sheldon has up a piece on Daniel Corcino and his relationship with Johnny Cueto. Corcino has long been compared to Cueto, and while they look similar and their stuff remsembles the other guy, Corcino still has a lot of things to pick up from Cueto.
“My changeup is much better now from working with Mario Soto,” Corcino said. “Everything, my mechanics and changeup, will be better this season.”
It is also real nice to see that Corcino worked with Mario Soto on his change up. While the pitch was solid, if he can improve it some it would really make a difference.
Tom Nichols has up a season preview outlook at the Dayton Dragons catcher situation for 2013. He looks at Joe Hudson, Brandon Dailey, Wagner Gomez and Julio Morillo as possible catchers.
While I always say that stats in spring training really don’t mean much, I did find myself pondering something Wednesday night while looking at the Reds stats. Yorman Rodriguez has 3 walks in 17 plate appearances. I have long said that if he can hone in his “swing zone” and a little more patient, he could take that next step to really become the hitter that his tools say he could be. Obviously, nothing can really be taken from such a small sample size, but Rodriguez only walked 3 times in a week last season three times. And it came against lesser competition as well. At the very least, color me intrigued by it.
While this isn’t exactly minor league related, there is some interesting news on BABIP and how there is some correlation to how people can control their BABIP to small extents. Dan Rosencheck has some theories on what can lead to pitchers having slight control over their BABIP. You can read about that at Fangraphs some.
Think the Corcino/Cueto story could have been written three years ago. I remember Spring Training 2011 Cueto was hanging out in the minor league camp and Daniel threw his arm around Johnny and told me this is my brother. Johnny just shook his head and rolled his eyes but it was apparent they really had a nice connection.
I think the Corcino story has been mentioned at least once for the last few years.
Any idea when the first cuts are coming?
I imagine they will be here before the weekend is over. Last I had heard (last weekend), Dusty didn’t want to publicly state when they were coming exactly, but said within a week.
Phillips cranked out a good night yesterday.
I’m intrigued by Hudson. 6 HR last year for Notre Dame isn’t all that bad with the new bats they use, and he lead his team in batting average while being a semi-finalist for the best defensive catcher in college baseball. His OBP was also a hundred points higher than his batting average. It’d be nice to get s little depth back in the system at catcher. We have Barnhart, whose bat is very suspect, and that’s it.
I like Hudson on paper as well. I like Yovan Gonzalez as well, probably more than most. Tucker Barnhart’s ceiling looks like everyday catcher (pushed more by his defense but with just enough offense to write his name on the line-up card). Compared to catcher depth we had a decade ago (when no one was predicting Hannigan would make it to the majors) we’re in pretty solid position.
I’m glad we parted with Grandal. If we extend Latos then that trade was a win all the way around for the Reds (even if Alonzo and Boxberger continue to develop).
Catcher has to be the toughest position to handicap in the minors. I remember when we drafted Fleury, on this site we wondered if he had enough defense to stick at catcher and might get moved to first. Three years later he looks like one of the weakest offensive players at any position we have. It just shows to go ya….
TO B AD THE REDS DONT FACE SINGLE A PITCHERS ALL OF THE TIME
As I am sure Doug and others know I think Doug provided a great posting today. The article on Corcino is interesting. Corcino has often been compared to Cueto and I have always felt this comparison is not fair to Cueto. At age 21 Cueto walked half the batters Corcino did and struck out 20% more. Corcino is just not in the same class at this point. However, if Soto’s tutoring (and Cueto’s also) can improve Corcino to the point where he can increase his K’s and reduce his BB this summer then Corcino could enter 2014 as a top 25 prospect.
Even more interesting to me is Rosenheck’s BABIP analysis. Rosenheck determined that by incorporating IFFB and z-contact rate into your expected BABIP you derive a much better predictor of the luck factor associated with BABIP. Incorporating IFFB rate into your calculation is a no brainer. IFFB occur on poor swings. The more IFFB you hit the more poor swings you take and the lower your BABIP should be. Since not all poor swings result in IFFB there should be an additional penalty applied to IFFB. With my personal expected BABIP calculation I incorporate this fact into the calculation. I also feel that the more line drives you hit the more quality swings you are taking so I have incorporated a second adjustment to account for this.
Rosenheck also suggests z-contact rate has an impact on BABIP. He has determined that a low z-contact rate should lower BABIP. This makes a lot of sense. If barely making contact (IFFB) can be a poor swing indicator then making no contact at all should also be an indicator. I went to fangraphs and decided to see how much potential the z-contact rate had on BABIP and came up with the top 10 z-contact rate pitchers and the bottom 10.
Lance Lynn, Ian Kennedy, Jeff Samardzija, Gio Gonzalez, Yu Darvish, Matt Moore, Max Scherzer, Cole Hamels, Justin Verlander and RA Dickey.
Clayton Richard, Jeremy Guthrie, Kevin Corria, Luis Mendoza, Scott Diamond, Paul Maholm, Joe Saunders, Henderson Alvarez, Tim Hudson and AJ Burnett.
I don’t have to tell you which list is the top 10 and which is the bottom 10. As one would expect the top 10 are all premier strikeout pitchers. With one exception the bottom 10 includes some of the weakest strikeout pitchers. AJ Burnett is the exception and surprised me. Upon looking at the stats his o-contact rate of 51.8% was easily the best in the majors. By comparison the top 10 in z-contact rate had an average o-contact rate of 64.9%. This 51.8% does not appear to be lucky either Burnett’s career o-contact rate is 49.5% and from 2002 – 2004 his o-contact rate ranged from 33.3% – 39.8%. By comparison Justin Verlander has a career o-contact rate of 66.3% with a career best 58.8%.
Things worth further analysis in my opinion would be:
1. o-contact rates
2. z-contact rates
3. o-zone swing%
4. z-swing%
5. The product of 1 and 3
6. The product of 2 and 4
7. Strikeouts
What do you guys think? Any additional factors that should be incorporated into my analysis? I think there should be some combination of all 7 above but then again maybe not. To include only z-contact rates in your analysis as Rosenheck does unjustly dings a person like AJ Burnett because it ignores what he does best (make a batter swing and miss on a pitch outside the strikezone. Which of the 7 do you guys feel will have the most impact? Should any of the 7 be ignored? I could see ignoring K’s because it is already incorporated into the equation because of items 1-6 and because a strikeout has no direct impact on BABIP.
That’s why Cueto was a top 40 prospect and Corcinco a fringe top 100 prospect. Cueto also exceeded expectations. He really took off when he added that Tiant twist to his delivery and has continuously refined his pitches. The actual scouts have it right, it’s moreso the beat writers that like the story of “little Cueto”.
First of all, I want to compliment Doug on posting that link as well. It’s not something I would have stumbled across on my own and it was very informative.
On the opposite side of the analysis, using BAPIP to determine hitter value, I’ve argued that BAPIP is more controllable then many want to think, and unless the number is ridiculous (like Denis Phipps in 2011) it doesn’t really tell you much by itself.
My feeling is that when you consider swing and miss stuff on the pitcher’s side of it, at the very least you’re changing the way that the average hitter approaches the at bat, and that is going to impact everything. The reason so many swing and miss guys struggle (aside from the elites you mention above) is that it often comes with a price in your control. But once you can throw that kind of nasty stuff for strikes, you’re a top tier pitcher and I would think all of your stats should reflect that.
The only thing I would add Stock is home run data, or at least park adjusted Home run data. If a pitcher keeps the ball in the stadium it will more likely fall for an out, and therefore dilute the sample. If a pitcher gives up too many home-runs it will likewise affect the sample by decreasing the number of outs by flyball he throws.
Great work, both of you.
I see Tim Crabbe is playing for Team Italy along with ex-Dragon Luca Panerati.
Is either an actual Italian citizen or are they just of Italian heritage?
Panerati actually was born in Italy. Crabbe ate at Olive Garden recently, which qualifies him to play for Italy. I think Denorfia is on that team too.
Constanzo from the ’12 Reds also.
I have met and talked to Crabbe and his mom and I didn’t immediately think Italy.
Love when players like Cueto take a young player under his wing