You should probably start paying attention to Cole Roederer

beckdawg

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I know following prospects isn't for everyone. That's especially true when you're not dreaming of tomorrow. That being said, what Roederer is doing in Mesa is pretty fascinating. He's currently hitting .371/.488/.657. That's a 1.145 OPS. Those numbers aren't a "good year" numbers. Those are numbers you see out of top 10 prospects in all of baseball. Royce Lewis who mlb.com has at #11 for example hit .271/.390/.414 in rookie league last year as the former #1 overall pick.

I could go more in detail on this but suffice to say that's really uncommon. And while we're only talking about 43 PAs, most of his underlying numbers look reasonably stable to me. I mean obviously over say 600 PAs he's not going to hit .371. I can go into how i came about these numbers but I think you're looking at a .280-.310 type hitter with an 11-15% walk rate. For reference, a .280 hitter with an 11% walk rate typically is something like .280/.370. And more importantly he's only striking out 14% of the time. On top of that this is a kid who stole 40 bases in 79 career HS games and thus far has 4 in in 9 games in Mesa. That's roughly a 60 SB pace which even if you cut that in half is top 5 in SB among qualified players in 2017. That in turn is a very good sign for his OF range. Don't know much on his throwing strength but average arms in CF tend not to be a huge deal.

Knowing nothing more than that I'd argue that prospect is already better than prospect Almora and I'm a big Almora fan. Almora doesn't have that kind of speed nor the walk rate. So, if Roederer's defense is even close his avg/obp + speed is a better version of Almora. Prior to the draft the scouting on Roederer was potential 20/20 type. If that's what he is with the aforementioned .280/.370 avg/obp you're essentially talking about him being Andrew Benintendi. Having said that, he has a .286 ISO and 2 doubles, a triple and 2 HRs in 9 games. That's a really strong sign. Just as a reference point here, Mike Trout didn't have an ISO over .200 until his third season at AA. So, even if Roederer's power falls off 30% from where it currently is you're talking about a really intriguing player.

I didn't really make this topic because I thought he was Almora. And while the more likely case IMO is he's something close to Benintendi, the reason I made this topic is I think there's a chance he's better than that. Whether people realize it or not what you become as a player tends to come down to 3 stats. Those are you're walk rate, your k rate and your power. The first 2 control the outcomes where a ball isn't in play and the third controls HRs and a higher BABIP is typically indicative of power(or speed). Since BABIP isn't really skill based the only influence a player tends to have on that is how hard he hits the ball. Roederer thus far has strong showings in all 3 of those. And even if his power falls off, his current 14% k rate is so good that you'll often see guys who have that sort of contact trade contact for power. For example, Mike Trout essentially was a 15% k rate guy until he got to AA where he traded 5% k rate to get his ISO over .200. Conversely you also see some guys like Russell go the opposite way when they have K rate problems. They trade power for contact.

A valid question if you think I'm exaggerating here would be "Why if he's so great did he last until the 77th pick?" Well to start with he's more like a top 60 pick given he was well over the slot value for his pick. Might be top 50 I'm not sure. And I'd also point out that Trout didn't get picked until the 25th pick. In Trout's case it was mostly because he played in the north east as a HS and it's harder to scout cold weather players. Interestingly, Roederer separated his non-throwing shoulder late in the season. I don't have any kind of confirmation for this but it's plausible that the cubs who have a large scouting department were one of the few teams that saw him early enough when he was healthy to put him on their board. Other teams may have identified him late and by the time they got around to scouting him he was hurt. And given he had a strong UCLA commitment, you aren't going to draft a guy like that unless you're sure he's legit given the money he commanded from the cubs.

I want to be clear here. I've mentioned Trout's name a couple of times and I don't want to infer that Roederer is going to be the next Trout. Trout is a generational talent which by definition only happens once in a generation. The reason I'm mentioning Trout is because he's basically what you expect the best case scenario to be for a HS player and especially for a CF. If you're good enough to make the majors at 19 then your benchmark numbers for 18/19 are going to be useful for comparing how good someone is playing relatively age/league. A more reasonable comparison might be Addison Russell. Roederer is currently at 207 wRC+ where as Russell at the same age posted a 206 wRC+ albeit more "lucky" influenced by BABIP. And I think we sort of forget what Russell the prospect was given he sort of disappointed by being so young and not quite hitting comparable to older teammates.

Regardless, Roederer is someone to watch and if his power is real he has all the tools you could want. Don't be surprised if he skips A-. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if he's in South Bend soon with an eye towards starting him in A+ next year. He's playing that much above rookie league IMO. That would also give South bend a bat it desperately needs. Their OF consists of Chris Carrier(hitting .171/.326/.371), Zach Davis(.293/.382/.347 good but he's 24) and Roberto Caro(.375/.460/.555 also 24).
 

Bigfoot

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Great write up beck. I was just talking to my 9yr son the other day about 20/20, 30/30, and 40/40 players. Told him as he progress he should strive to be a player of that caliber. It seems the Cubs went that way with some of the bats we drafted. This kid be interesting to watch coming up.
 

JP Hochbaum

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Let's trade him and a package of prospects for Degromm, lol
 

CSF77

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[video=youtube_share;Acam-hFcDyc]https://youtu.be/Acam-hFcDyc[/video]
 

anotheridiot

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Let's trade him and a package of prospects for Degromm, lol

I know its joking, but I would very much rather let him go before the rest of us fall in love with him. Plus, like I said before, the holes from the professional game have not been noticed yet.
 

CSF77

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It is Mesa guys. Numbers mean little. That is why I posted that video. He drives the ball. Swing might be a little long and exploitable at the higher levels.

So I really don't give much value to hitting in a hitter environment vs unproven pitching. Nice story but come on don't make Trout comps out of him.

He starts wrecking AA like that then we can start the gush fest.
 

beckdawg

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It is Mesa guys. Numbers mean little. That is why I posted that video. He drives the ball. Swing might be a little long and exploitable at the higher levels.

So I really don't give much value to hitting in a hitter environment vs unproven pitching. Nice story but come on don't make Trout comps out of him.

He starts wrecking AA like that then we can start the gush fest.

I literally went out of my way to clarify I wasn't comparing him to trout.... As for it being mesa, why do you have to wait until someone is in AA? By the time he's in AA, if he's doing this still he's a top 5 or top 10 prospect. In other words, if all you care is about waiting until AA then there's no point for a topic like this because by then you know what a prospect is.

The point in a topic like this was letting fans who aren't paying attention know that this belief that the cubs have a shitty farm system just isn't accurate. Players like Roederer having years like like he is having is where you go from few if any knowing who the fuck Gleyber Torres was to him suddenly being a top 40 type prospect at midseason before being traded for Chapman and then becoming a top 5 prospect after the season. That all happened in the span of a year. And more to the point, even amazing prospects like Torres don't uniformly dominate mesa despite it being "unproven pitching." I mean Torres was good in mesa but he only hit .279/.372/.377(119 wRC+).

Look there's going to be a wide variance in a 18 year old. That's the reason I gave a 30 point range for what I thought his average could be(.280-.310) and likewise his walk rate(11-15%). The reason I felt he was worth pointing out is the low end of what I realistically think he can be is an all-star type hitter which is uncommon. It's atypical to have someone with a well above average k rate who has a well above average walk rate. Last year the MLB average for bb/k was 8.7%/21.2%. If you look at the qualified players who had a greater than 10% walk rate and a less than 18% k rate there were 17 players. They were Trout, Anthony rendon, Votto, Mookie Betts, Justin Turner, Zack Cosart, George Springer, Buster Posey, Rizzo, Brett Gardner, McCutchen, Jed Lowrie, Carlos Santana, Puig, Joe Mauer, Benintendi and Nick Markakis. The average fWAR of those 17 players was 4.18. That is already part of Roederer's game. Even in a short sample his 18.6%/14.0% bb/k rate indicates he's got a strong command of the strike zone. Most players don't have that. Hell Baez is nearly 26 and is still trying to master it.

That is why his mesa stats matter. It's not because he's hitting .371. It's because the stats show he knows how to control the strike zone. That skill plays just as well at mesa as it does at south bend or Tenn and frankly that skill is often harder to master than for young hitters to find power. In this baseball environment you have guys like Altuve hitting 25+ HRs but as we've seen you can't just turn on and off being a low K rate hitter(or high walk rate). When you add in the fact he has good speed and he plays CF that just takes his value to another level. Almora without the walk rate and speed is probably close to a 4 win player. You give him 20-30 SB speed and a 10-11% walk rate and he's probably close to a 6 win player if not better.
 

85Bears

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The point in a topic like this was letting fans who aren't paying attention know that this belief that the cubs have a shitty farm system just isn't accurate.

Thanks Beck, your post did exactly that for me.
 

CSF77

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Beck I was looking at some of the pitchers there and only 1 has a ERA under 4. He is on the 2nd AZL team and those guys are pretty raw.

You are posting walk rates. Well when you are facing lower levels in the the dry and hot Arizona climate it favors the hitter and it doesn’t favor a pitchers control. Especially if you are talking about a fresh teen that has never been in that environment.

Look it is 35 AB’s and against questionable factors. You really can’t quantify anything with that example.

Let’s wait until he has a full year outside of that sand box ok
 

beckdawg

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Beck I was looking at some of the pitchers there and only 1 has a ERA under 4. He is on the 2nd AZL team and those guys are pretty raw.

You are posting walk rates. Well when you are facing lower levels in the the dry and hot Arizona climate it favors the hitter and it doesn’t favor a pitchers control. Especially if you are talking about a fresh teen that has never been in that environment.

Look it is 35 AB’s and against questionable factors. You really can’t quantify anything with that example.

Let’s wait until he has a full year outside of that sand box ok

You really need to understand relative stats. Your stats may decrease with an increase in quality of pitching. However, the relative quality of your play is comparable. What I mean by that is if you're dominating guys in Mesa as compared to someone who's just above average, you're probably going to be better than that player at A, AA, AAA, MLB...etc. Torres was very good in Mesa(119 wRC+). He mostly skipped A- but was very good in A(116 wRC+). Stop me if you're seeing a trend here A+(121 wRC+), AA(138 wRC+), AAA(145 wRC+). Russell was very good in Mesa(206 wRC+), A-(163 wRC+), A(129 wRC+), A+(131 wRC+), AA(141 wRC+). So, yes the overall quality of Russell's performance went from 106% above league average to just 41% above league average at AA but the point is he still was dominant relative to his peers.

In the case of Roederer, he's sitting at a 208 wRC+ after another HR and a 1-4 night last night. Obviously, like Russell he's not going to continue staying at 108% better than league average. But relative to his peers he's playing that much better than them. So, like a myriad of other players who out performed their peers in rookie league the expectation should be they are going to do it at other levels. And in fact what you're far more likely to see like with Torres and like with Russell is that because he's this much better than his peers you promote him faster than his peers. And how do you identify prospects with helium before BA/BP/fangraphs/mlb.com tell you? When you see them promoted faster than their peers.

Also I'd point out that walk rate is more reliable than you think. Russell had a 11.6% walk rate in Mesa. He's at 9.6% this year. Torres had a 13.7% walk rate in Mesa and over 139 AA PAs last year had a 12.2% walk rate and a 13.5% walk rate in AAA over 96 PAs. Now I'm not saying Roederer is going to keep his current 17.0% walk rate by the time he reaches AAA. I'd argue that still needs more of a sample to even out a bit. But I was never expecting that to begin with. The number I used in the initial post was 11%.
 

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