Tim Beckham is the Man on the Moon
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 6:00 PM EDT
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People have the tendency to place an overemphasis on n-1 data. Whether "n" stands for last year, last week, last series, yesterday, et cetera. Naturally, people remember yesterday more than two days ago, or last year more than two years ago. Unfortunately, when we only have one data point there's even more reliance placed upon it.
Thus is the case with Tim Beckham. Call him the man on the moon, Beckham's going to be under constant observation from everyone over the next few years. Selected over players like Buster Posey, Pedro Alvarez, Brian Matusz, and Justin Smoak, Beckham is amongst the rawest of any player in the Rays system. Rather than focusing on his statistics, let's look at his spray chart - note the disclaimer, these are estimations rather than exacts.
Given Beckham's swing and lack of weight transfer, he hit a ton of balls on the ground to the left side. Even with a swing in progress Beckham's outstanding bat speed turned a few balls into liners and shots. Those two homeruns stick out, supposedly going further than 350 feet. Also note the green dots around third base, as you should know, Beckham is incredibly fast (6.33 in the 60 yard dash, that about 4.22 over 40 yards -- and no that doesn't mean he would actually run a 4.22 40.), so a few of the hits are simply him acting like a bird on wheels and outrunning the play.
As we head forward into this season, we're looking at a player that...
- Posses unreal bat speed and foot speed.
- Plays shortstop, the second most valuable offensive position besides catcher.
- Is 19-years-old.
- Has a fixable swing.
- Is entering his first season with pro instruction.
Yeah, the numbers from last year look bad, but for now should be no reason of concern. Tim Beckham's shine might not be as polished as Posey's or Alvarez' quite yet, but it has the potential to shine brighter.
Also if you hadn't seen these videos from Josh Kalk yet, they might be of interest to you.
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Converting 60 times into 40 times does not work.
He does not run anywhere near a 4.2 40. I would be surprised if he ran any faster than 4.5.
Tools Whore
I said roughly for a reason.
I’ll add another disclaimer.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 6:11 PM EDT up reply actions
A 4.5?
A 6.3 is about as fast as you’ll find in baseball. I find it hard to believe one of the fastest guys in baseball couldnt run a 4.4.
I'm not sure that 6.3 is legit.
It happens all the time with football times. It’s hand timed and that 4.3 turns into a 4.6 when it’s electronically time. I read that scouting report that RJ is citing, but every other scouting report says he’s above-average speed. You’re right, 6.3 is elite and I haven’t seen one scouting report saying he has 80 speed, which is what he’d have if he ran a 6.3.
Tools Whore
I usually get my 60 times from Perfect Game, of course I don't usually USE 60 times, so there's that.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 11:13 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not saying he didn't run that time. I'm just saying that it was probably a hand timed 60
and those can vary up to .2 seconds among people who are doing the timing.
Tools Whore
love him.
really glad he was our pick. I was skeptical at first… I think because Posey just seemed like the most logical choice for us. but now I love this pick
I liked the idea of a high potential catcher.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 6:16 PM EDT up reply actions
and I don't think it would hurt Briggy to move over in a few years...
…and become Utley-lite at 2B with his power
I'm not willing to go that far, but yes, it would be nice to have a good and cheap middle infield.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 6:38 PM EDT up reply actions
More like Milwaukee's best to utley's Grey Goose and Angelina Jolie's juices mix.
Brad Ziegler had a scoreless inning streak. Brad Ziegler had not met BJ Upton.
he could improve.
he has not shown it. but the ability to be much better is there. at this point his floor is milwaukee’s best.
if we traded for Justin I would literally jump for joy.
is there any way of this happening at all?
maybe Price/Kaz/Joyce does it?
I would give 5 years of my life to have 3 or 4 years of Upton brothers in the Rays outfield
I still like Beckham
Unlike the Giants and Pirates, we don’t need help in the majors right away. We can take our time here.
RAYS BASEBALL: ALL YOUR BASES ARE BELONG TO US
I'm not convinced that peak Beckham is better than peak Posey or Alvarez
Time will tell. I like those two better both short term and long term though.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
Then you must see Alvarez as either a third baseman or some kind of hitter.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 8:45 PM EDT up reply actions
He's got the tools to be one of the best hitters in the league.
I love the Beckham pick because I see him having 20+ home run power. Plus Barry Larkin is my hero and having Barry as his best comp brings me great joy.
Tools Whore
I realize Alvarez has the skills.
But if we’re comparing him to a SS/CA as a first baseman, he’s going to have to live up to that potential to be equally valuable.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 18, 2009 8:56 PM EDT up reply actions
i really don't like Alvarez too much.
i never like guys with weight/conditiong question marks… when they haven’t even seen an MLB pitch.
guys are supposed to get fat/lazy when they hit 30 and have a big fat MLB veteran contract. not the 2 months after being drafted. We don’t need a 3B, 1B, or DH… knowing this, and the Rays’ drafting philosophy of taking the best player available, I feel real good about TB
Carlos Pena has only 1 more year after this one on his deal
I don’t see us keeping him after that. Alvarez could have been our 1B in 2011.
Again, unless Alvarez hits like Pujols, using the first pick on a first baseman is wasteful.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 11:05 AM EDT up reply actions
I think you missed the point.
First baseman are like DHs, any good hitter/poor fielder can be stuck there.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions
Meaning: there's a larger talent pool for first base than shortstop/catcher.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions
Not that much larger of a talent pool
a) There are legitimate physical limitations for playing 1B. Anyone shorter than about 6’2" has a pretty severe disadvantage there – they need to be tall enough to reach a ball and still stay on the bag. That any poor fielder can be stuck there is a myth (and when they are, their defense hurts more than the numbers show, due to the IF interaction effects I’ve discussed before that UZR and those numbers don’t account for).
b) I haven’t seen numbers for the past couple years, but as of a few years ago the mean offensive level for a 1B had dropped dramatically, and considering who the better hitters in the minors are at the moment, it seems fairly likely to stay that way; other than this year’s drafteed, there are only a few prospects who project to be 1Bs with the potential to be elite hitters.
c) Alvarez or Smoak are significantly more likely to reach their potential than Beckham, and are significantly less likely to be complete flameouts than Beckham, simply because of their ages and progress levels.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
A) Scoops, or what else?
B) The league as a whole has deflated offensive numbers, this isn’t surprising, but anyways, last three years:
2008
League Average OPS .756
1B Average OPS .793
2007
League Average OPS .761
1B Average OPS .790
2006
League Average OPS .776
1B Average OPS .819
“OPS+” figures:
2008: 104
2007: 104
2006: 105
So the average first baseman is still about 4% better offensively than league average.
C) Can’t argue that.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 12:47 PM EDT up reply actions
A – errant throws in general – high throws, scoops, throws to the side, etc. I’d guess there’s a difference of an out every 5 games and an error (charged to another player) every 10 games between someone who’s tall and flexible versus someone who’s not. Not sure what that works out to in terms of wins, but for purposes of UZR and the like, all of that reflects on the thrower and not the 1B.
B – As you can see, it’s not that big of a difference. 20 years ago there was a huge difference.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
He doesn't need to hit THAT well for it to be a good pick
And he could still theoretically stick at 3B, although if we had picked him it would have been for 1B anyway; 3B is kind of taken for the next 8 years.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
3 win first basemen are easier to find than 3 win shortstops/catchers.
If he sticks at third then there’s a different argument here.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 11:46 AM EDT up reply actions
Are you sure of this?
Once you take defense into account, I’d imagine the respective pools have about the same depth.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
Not for catchers
I meant for shortstops. Of course there are fewer 3 win catchers because catchers only play 3/4 of the games.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
I'm referencing the talent pool again.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 12:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Crap
I actually went through all the work to find it out, but there were 8 1Bs and 7 SSs with 3+ wins last year.
I can see where there’s an argument that the SS talent can move to other good positions if they don’t pan out there defensively, whereas a 1B is kind of stuck where they are, but there isn’t more depth in the 1B talent pool than in the SS talent pool. That would be true for corner outfield, but not for 1B.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
They need to fix it
so you can have two different responses going simultaneously. When I posted the “reply on the way”, my page-long thesis disappeared. I’m not going to bother going through all the work again, but will say that the information is all there on fangraphs, and you’re wrong about the talent pools. You should write an article about it.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
Found the D-Cam comment I was looking for:
Dave on October 1st, 2007 10:49 am
Okay, for those still struggling despite the good explanations provided by tango, skyking, etc…, here you go.
Imagine we’re picking teams at a sandlot. 100 guys show up to tryout. We’ve got 10 positions to fill, and want to put the best team we can out there. We want to start separating the 100 guys into groups to give us chances to view the best options, so we start setting up qualifiers.
We know that our 3B/SS/2B all have to throw right-handed, as you can’t have a lefty trying to wing the ball across the diamond. So, sorting step #1: Take all lefty throwers and put them in their own group.
Now, you have 80 guys in one group and 20 in another. The 20 guys are now DH/1B/LF/RF/CF only, but the other 80 can still potentially play anywhere. Now, you sort again, this time based on footspeed. For CF/SS, you want a minimum 5.0 40-yard dash, so you have everyone run a sprint and time them.
Of the 20 left-handed throwers, 5 qualify. Of the 80 right-handed throwers, 20 qualify. So now you have four groups – 60 right-handed throwing “slow” guys, 15 left-handed throwing “slow” guys, 20 right-handed throwing “fast” guys, and 5 left-handed throwing “fast” guys.
Your shortstop and center fielder have to come from the fast group, so you’re going to pick the two best guys you can from that pool of 25 players, with the caveat that the shortstop has to throw right-handed. This means that if the two best guys both throw left-handed, you can only take one of them. So, let’s say you end up with the best and third best fast guys, and wham, you have your center fielder and shortstop.
Now, you’d naturally expect these guys to hit less than the other positions simply because you had filtered out 75% of the original pool of hitters. All the big lumbering oafs weren’t included in the SS/CF pool, so you know that you’re not as likely to get a great hitter there as you are at the other positions.
You continue on with this exercise, filtering out guys with weak arms from the third base pool, guys with bad footwork from the second base pool, and guys who just can’t run from the LF/RF pool. In the end, maybe your pool of available players looked something like this:
C: 10 guys
SS/CF: 25 guys
3B/2B: 45 guys
LF/RF: 80 guys
1B; 95 guys
DH: 100 guys
You knew you could pick absolutely anyone to DH, and almost anyone to play first base, but then, the filters started weeding people out pretty quickly after that.
Looking at these pools of players, your minimum expectations for offensive production would be way, way higher for DH than any other position because you could literally pick the best hitter and not have to worry about his defense. But, when it came to the other positions, you’d already ruled out most of the good hitters, so you might find yourself not even being able to take the fourth best hitter (out of 100, remember) because he doesn’t fit anywhere on your team.
This is what the position adjustment accounts for – expectation of offense from that particular pool of players. The larger the pool, the higher the expectation.
Tomorrow, when we tackle defense, we’ll begin to separate players based on their defensive abilities within the predefined player pools
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions
So what you're saying
is that the fact that you’re measuring in “wins” already accounts for the difference in the pools, rendering your argument irrelevant.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
I did
The thesis of the comment is “This is what the position adjustment accounts for – expectation of offense from that particular pool of players. The larger the pool, the higher the expectation.”
“Wins”, as calculated on your own website, already accounts for this positional adjustment. Thus, if we’re measuring efficacy in terms of ‘wins’, the talent pool argument is already controlled for.
Instead of being condescending and snide, please pay attention to what I’m saying and think about it for a minute. I realize you need to be on autopilot sometimes, but under your argument you’re double-counting the variable.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
Point is
If Alvarez ends up being a 4 win player and Beckham ends up being a 3 win player, Alvarez would have been the better pick, regardless of position. And Alvarez doesn’t need to hit like Albert Pujols to be a 4 win player.
I think Beckham is more likely to be a super-elite player than Alvarez, but the chances are very small for both. Beckham also has a much greater chance of either being a complete bust (though the chances of that are small for both as well) or a 0 – 2 win type player. For whatever reason, probably because people tend to get paid for hitting more than for defense, the better 1Bs seem to get paid more than the better SSs, so drafting an elite 1B ends up being a better value proposition than drafting an elite SS. However, if something happens that limits defensive ability, then Beckham is much more likely to be able to adapt to another position because Alvarez doesn’t have much further to move down the defensive spectrum.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
Also
I haven’t looked at this specifically, but I’d be willing to bet that the 3+ win 1Bs get paid more than the 3+ win SSs, and thus a team is actually saving more money by drafting a good 1B than they would be by drafting a good SS.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
I never said there was more elite shortstops than first basemen.
I said the talent pool for first base is wider, giving you a better shot at getting a 3+ win player. You can nitpick about the specifics of the talent pool, but let’s compare the skillsets needed at short and first and tell me who has the larger pool:
A good 1B
- Can hit.
- Can catch the ball when thrown to him, has some scooping skills and a little bit of agility.
- Not being a midget is useful but doesn’t have to be a giant either.
- Arm/speed is irrelevant, although being left handed might help on pickoffs/turning DPs.
A good SS
- Is speedy, or at least rangey.
- Has a good arm
- Is right-handed.
- Can’t be too tall.
- Hits well enough for his position.
Add on as you see fit, but the classification for first base is basically hit well and play catch. There are far more of those types available than shortstops. Doesn’t that automatically give you a better chance of finding a 3 win player who can play first than short?
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 12:26 PM EDT up reply actions
No
Because the statistic WINS already accounts for the positional adjustment. If we were basing the argument on something like OPS+, I’d agree, but we’re looking at a statistic that already adjusts for this, as your quote from Cameron explicitly states. Thus, the fact that there’s a larger pool is largely irrelevant, because the positional adjustment in the wins formula already accounts for the difference in pool size.
What can have a difference is that someone who’s drafted as a SS generally has the tools to move to any other position on the field, if they can hit enough for it. That’s not the case for a 1B, who usually can only move to LF or DH. There is some added value in that, but not enough added value to make up for a significant difference in wins.
I agree that there are generally going to be better hitters at 1B and COF because there’s a much wider range of hitters who can at least fake defense at those positions, but that difference is already adjusted for in the wins formula.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
And if you look at the Wins statistic
on Fangraphs, you’ll see that there’s a fairly regular distribution of players between the positions, other than catcher (because they play less). I actually had a list of all the 3+ win 1Bs, SSs and Cs put together, and the 1B list and the SS list looked strikingly similar, except that Pujols, Berkman and Ramirez were all outliers at the top. Eliminate those three, and the lists were pretty close to identical.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
We're on two different wave lengths here.
You’re looking at the guys in the MLB and seeing how they valued last year, I’m not. I’m looking at the potential pool of players who could be worth 3 wins at those positions.
by R.J. Anderson on Mar 19, 2009 1:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Doesn't matter
The statistic Wins still accounts for the positional adjustment. Your argument is like saying players who are in hitter’s parks should have a higher OPS+. The answer is that they don’t, and that’s because OPS+ already adjusts for park factors. It’s purely a statistical issue.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
The way Beckhams wrists are talked about.
When he encorporates his lower body into the swing he should have some serious pop.
The latter
I think both Alvarez and Smoak will be top-tier hitters. Smoak along the lines of Todd Helton without Coors effect, Alvarez along the lines of Aramis Ramirez.
Vogt early, Vogt often.
say peak Beckham is better than peak Posey or Alvarez
but isn’t peak Posey or peak Alvarez a more likely outcome then peak Beckham?
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