Brief Update From Peoria
Jay Yencich · October 26, 2010 at 8:36 am · Filed Under Minor Leagues
Dustin Ackley in the Arizona Fall League last night: 1-2, R, 2 RBI, 5 BB, K.
Ackley now leads the AFL with a .556 on-base percentage. He has three more walks than Ks and half of his hits have gone for extras. He’s pretty good.
You got that right. He should look good in teal – excuse me, Northwest Green.
Jay, I trust your minors opinions immensely, and wouldn’t insult your intelligence by stating that this is “just” the AFL. You wouldn’t say he’s good if you don’t have reasoning.
But, obviously, we can’t expect him to have a .556 OBP in the big leagues either. Based on what you’ve seen between AA, AAA and now AFL – what sort of realistic expectation would you project for his first few years in the majors?
If Ichiro, Figgins, and Ackley can bat together and synch up, our power shortage might not be quite as damaging as it was last year. Moneyball A’s proved OBP CAN help carry an offsense. I’ll be Ackley can pull a .340 or .350 OBP over his first three years.
Not to mention they all are probably 65’s or 70’s in baserunning (2 – 8 scale).
The caveats you had opening were well-founded. It is just the AFL, and furthermore, it’s just six games. What we saw of him in West Tenn emphasized walks and on-base percentage once he recovered from April. In Tacoma, his game was more about the power numbers than the walk totals, which still were nothing to scoff at. The extra-base hit rate remained about the same at each stop, but some of those doubles turned into home runs for him.
A particularly hopeful commentator might say that we’re seeing the synthesis of the two now: walks, and more power than we’re accustomed to seeing from him. I’m not buying it quite yet, and think that I would like to see a greater sample before I start making any such claims. What I do think we’ll see from him out of the gate in the MLB is about a .270 average (give or take ten points), sixty or so walks (conservative estimate), about thirty doubles (+/- 5) and around five dingers (conservative estimate again). From there, as he gets adjusted, I expect those numbers to start going up, the power numbers in particular, and he’ll end up around .300 most years.
These are estimates based around the fact that it took him a little while to get adjusted to minor league ball and that he didn’t hit for power until his junior year.
We all agree that OBP is a great stat to evaluate talent and great job to Ackley. I totally love all the walks he is taking.
I was wondering if it is OK to teach young 8-10 year-old baseball players to take their walks and not to swing outside the strike zone. I think so and that’s what I teach them but then I hear folks saying that we should teach them to be aggressive. I would love to hear opinions on that.
Five walks! Five!?!? 🙂
I’m happy to see Ackley’s progress, even if it is in the Fall League. Any new reports on his defense?
The kid definitely has a future! I’m glad we’ve got him!
I’m starting to think this kid just might be the new Gar, only with a second baseman’s glove . . . (Yeah, I know, best-case scenario and all that — but it’s fun to hope.)
For what it’s worth…
In the abstract, I think it’s a wonderful idea to teach kids plate discipline, and I think a great many minor league hitting instructors would love not to have to undo years of accrued bad habits among youngsters. I applaud you, GoMariners, and am 100 percent in sympathy with your noble cause.
I have the following observations/reservations, however:
1) In my own experience of little league ball (as a player — a very long time ago), as a spectator (in more recent years) and as a fill-in umpire when the 14-year-olds couldn’t show up to work the games, is that at that level teaching kids to maintain a consistently selective approach could be potentiallybe counterproductive. I say this because, at that level, the umpiring is typically wildly inconsistent, not just from game to game, but even from inning to inning, and nowhere moreso than behind the plate. Whenever I have subbed, I have told the coaches on either side that I will call a wide strike zone (more on that below), but they can count on it to be reasonably stable. In other words, tell your kids to be prepared to swing at anything close.
2) I have done this not because I believe in big strike zones for their own sake, but it has been my experience that relatively few pitchers at that age can routinely find the strike zone as defined by the rules (much less as it’s usually called in the bigs). Perhaps the only thing more frsutrating and boring than watching a parade of walks in a little league game is watching someone on the M’s staff marshal one. So, while I think plate discipline is great, I worry that an endless parade of walks has the potential to suck the fun out of the game for kids that age. If I barely have the attention span to tolerate that for very long, I can imagine what it must to do the inner workings of the juvenile mind — and I have to imagine, because far too many years and far too many beers have interceded for me to remember my own thoughts with any clarity. But I do seem to recall that, while standing out at 2B or 3B while our pitcher walked his sixth consecutive batter, I started determining how many current major league rosters I knew by heart.
3) For all of the changed thinking in baseball scouting and player development — all to the good, in my opinion — I worry about what I would call the “Jamie Moyer Syndrome.” That is to say, I think you would still be hard-pressed to find a scout who would look at a high school or college kid with an 82 MPH fastball and think “That’s our organization’s next 250-game winner!” regardless of how clever or how much baseball smarts the kid had. It might be less of a problem on the offensive side, but I would wager that there will always be a certain “wow” factor for kids who can sting the ball. Having talked to a few scouts over the years, whenever I bring up the issue of OBP, they seem to be reluctant to take it very seriously at that level. There is a certain circularity to their logic, I grant you, because insofar as they have given it much thought they often regard it as a by-product of the lack of quality pitching at most amateur levels (as nearly as I can tell, the assumption has been, “Most kids can’t get it over the plate at this level consistently, and when they do, they’re usually very hittable, so why doesn’t this kid have a high average if he’s such a good hitter?”).
4) I don’t necessarily agree with that, and my evidence is anecdotal and possibly idiosyncratic. However, baseball culture can change, and by the time your kids are getting scouted or recruited as high schoolers, the landscape of baseball’s culture may be thoroughly unrecognizable. Ever the visionary, back in the late 70s and 80s, before I (or most everybody else) had ever heard of Bill James, I thought that batting average, win-loss records, and fielding percentages were terrible ways to evaluate performance; however, I decided there could never possibly be any money in that, so I ultimately became — wait for it — a professor in the fast-paced, high-paying field of ancient history and classical languages. So, bear that in mind while considering my advice, which comes with the disclaimer that it is worth exactly what you’ve paid for it.
So, I’m sure by now that you’re sorry you asked, but those are my mind droppings on the topic. If this was helpful in any way, I’m glad to have been in service. If not, my apologies for wasting your time with a very long post.
I still wouldn’t make Ackley a favorite to make the M’s roster out of spring training, but I think his odds may be improving… and if he IS the best guy to make the roster, he will, because I don’t see the Mariners signing anyone to roadblock him (the guys they will sign in the middle infield will probably be depth guys who can rotate to either 2B or SS while swinging between bench and starting, given that Ackley might not be ready and Figgins probably ends up at 3rd, and Wilson is a complete question mark for contributing to the 2011 Mariners in any real fashion).
I hope the M’s at least let him start in AAA this year, and if he still tearing up the minors by midseason, call him up.
Of course, if Jack Z and company sees something in Ackley that everyone outside the organization don’t and believe he is ready for Opening Day with the M’s, why not? Either way, I’m glad he’s actually doing well, as opposed to some naysayers who figure that he’d be outmatched because of his slight build.
So far, missing out on Strasburg hasn’t been so bad =D
Ackley in AAA next year? Sweet! That means I’ll be able to see him play when he comes to Portland… Oh nevermind.
Go Mariner,
Hitters need both aggressive (in the strike zone) and have good plate discipline (letting balls out of the strike zone go by for little kids). In my opinion, you can start working on that as early as possible, but with the kids I work with inevariably at that age most of them will vasilate from one extreme to another in the process, but by working on it early, without forgetting they are kids just playing a game having fun, as they mature they seem to mature with some semblance of balance in their agressive plate discipline…you can create some sort of game where they get points or whatever for letting balls out of the zone go by and gain points or what ever swinging at strikes and as they get older or master that rudimentary level then make it more chalenging by add and take points for if they are ahead and behind in the count and they either look for more perfect pitch or loosen up and protect more. Key is it has to be fun and then work towards incorporating more of what ever the kid is struggling with. My 2 cents.
I was going to ask you if you had read through Jonathan Story’s book yet. Now I don’t have to. Nicely done as far as a grade of pure speed, but “baserunning” isn’t one of the 5 tools. Don’t confuse the “speed” score with “baserunning” ability. The are two different beasts entirely. Obviously, one will help with the other, but there have been a lot of fast guys who were average baserunners.
and as we know, Jamie Moyer himself suffered from the Jamie Moyer Syndrome
The plan should be and always should have been to bring Ackley and Pineda up after two weeks in Tacoma. So what if those guys end up as super two arbitration players. They could both be top five prospects going into next season and they are certainly both top 15-20. Keeping either in Tacoma past April 20th would be a profound mistake.
Ackley should be penciled in as 2B from mid April on and the free agency budget should be spent on a SS. Sign Uribe, let him play 2B for two weeks and then make him SS and work on dealing Jack Wilson.
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I think this can be a double edged sword. When I first started with my group of kids when they were in 5th grade, I was impressed with how patient they were. It didn’t take much teaching on my part, as they drew tons of walks and went deep into counts, protecting with two strikes.
But now, as 8th graders this past summer I found that some of them never developed a great swing because they took so much. As the pitchers in the league got stronger, some of these kids are just insanely outmatched at the plate.
I’m no expert – but from my experience, I think that the younger age group you’re talking about should probably be taught to be aggressive with anything in the strike zone, since the pitchers are mostly throwing cookies and the fielders are way under developed. Trying to teach them to lay off stuff that is close could result in a lack of practice at hitting live pitching when those arms start throwing better heat and breaking stuff.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but is there any chance Ackley is traded this offseason? I hope not, and I don’t expect it, but I am a little concerned that Jack may have to do something drastic to keep his job.(Horrible memories of Erik Bedard and Bill Bavasi danced in my head as I typed that)
Five walks in a game ? Obviously those pitchers are scared by his powerful bat. Really curious to watch what will be Cliff Lee behaviour when he faces him. C’mon Dustin, hit those spinners !
I don’t mean to be a downer, but is there any chance Ackley is traded this offseason? I hope not, and I don’t expect it, but I am a little concerned that Jack may have to do something drastic to keep his job.(Horrible memories of Erik Bedard and Bill Bavasi danced in my head as I typed that)
Bavasi traded for Bedard after a 88-74 2007 season where “Hey, we can add a second #1 and be a 90+ win team!” wasn’t facially ridiculous in terms of conventional baseball wisdom (even though we had some idea at the time it was stupid, and hindsight proved us right).
Zduriencik HAD a second #1 starter on the 2010 Mariners- Cliff Lee. That team was still terrible. Trading away a good young player in this environment, post-2010 belly flop into the subbasement of the American League, isn’t something even Bavasi would have done.
)
No chance whatever. Zduriencik is not a moron, we need a second baseman, and we’re rebuilding next year.
It’s a thoughtful response to a good question. No waste of time. And for what it’s worth, I concur with each point. A Little League strike zone is “anything close” if for no other reason than to keep the game moving (by generating outs).
Teach your kids to make contact—a big enough challenge for an 8- to 10-year-old player—and let the plate discipline come later.
Re: Trading Ackley
Also, toss in the fact that payroll is not likely to increase and that the organization zeroed in on a manager who last oversaw a rebuilding team…well, let’s just say that drastic measures that lead to Bavasi’s final offseason don’t appear to be even close to being on the radar.
Jay (or anyone else)–
I always hear about the Fall League, but have never really paid much attention before… Other than hearing updates, and such.
Where do you view the AFL in relation to normal minor league divisions… Low A? AA?
And how do teams determine who goes to Arizona, and who goes to Venezuela in the offseason?
Just curious how to relate Ackley’s numbers to other leagues, both during the off season and during the regular season.
The usual rules (it may be different this year) is four pitchers and a lottery for the three position players, and all the players have to be double-A or triple-A save one. Pitching conditions are terrible though, so teams aren’t inclined to send top starters.
msfanmike,
After recently having my schedule open up, I actually recently contacted Story on Linktin. I hope to hear back soon.
5 walks?!?! Wow that’s more than Lopez gets in like two months!!
For what it’s worth, Alex Liddi just had a heck of a night in Venezuela. 3-for-3, two doubles, two walks.
I think I’ll echo what a few others here are saying. Teach your kids to make contact early, which means being aggressive. It doesn’t do any good to have good plate discipline if you can’t put a good bat on the ball.
On a side note – I’ve done some interim umping including a few games in Shoreline with 8-10 year olds a few years ago. During one game, a coach was actually telling his kids not to swing at ANYTHING, because the opposing pitcher couldn’t find the zone. I called about seven walks in a row, scoring three. This doesn’t help your kids develop at all. It only helps the team and the coach get the W. Since I wasn’t a paid umpire and it was complete B.S. I loosened up the strike zone. ALOT. Coach wasn’t too happy with me, but at least his kids got to swing the bat a couple times.
Dustin Ackley is sex on a boat
I am pleasantly surprised at the performance of Liddi in Venezuela. I honestly believed he was going to fall flat on his face. Nice job Alex.
Pitching is weak in this league i wouldn’t get to excited its just a place you go to work on stuff.
Thanks for the great advice about teaching my 8-10 year-old players plate discipline. I appreciate it.
I have been guilty of asking players to take walks from struggling pitchers in order to get the win in the Tacoma Metro Parks league myself. It was important for us because we had stacked several losses in a row to begin the season and we wanted to get on a winning roll, so one of the things that helped that happen was taking a bunch of walks from struggling pitchers. I had some players who still swung at balls and were aggressive, and I didn’t penalize them for that.
It is just so interesting that when I am coaching I keep on referring in my head to the huge library of things that I have read and learned about baseball at USSMariner.com, but some of them may not be directly applicable to 8-10 year-olds even though I did keep full stats and posted them to the kids, and the stats that I praised the most to all of them was OBP.
A few observations for the conversation on teaching the little guys about plate discipline. I agree there’s value in teaching kids about selectivity and not “getting yourself out” as a favor to the pitcher etc. But at the lower levels of kid-pitched youth baseball, you’re dealing with many kids that don’t even have a sense of what a strike zone is to begin with. Before you can start to talk to the pre-11Us about taking pitches and working counts, you have to teach them about the zone and teaching them mechanically correct swings.
Even when you get to an age or experience level where many more kids start understanding the zone, you still get predominantly defensive at-bats. You can teach defensive swingers tricks to avoid repeatedly striking out, but patience is not always suitable unless you have a wild pitcher, a stingy ump, or both.
Futhermore, at the league all-star and local select youth levels, by 12Us you have pitchers than can command the zone with the fastballs and most can at least change speeds. In my experience there already has been an emphasis in the past few years on “seeing more pitches” automatically taking first pitches. The coaching response has been to teach pitchers to be aggressive with their fastballs early and finish at-bats with off-speed, junky, or out of zone pitches.
From a limited sample of tournaments I observed last summer alone, our kids took about 95% of first pitches thrown (our lead off guys and no-out hitters, took 100% of the time). Of those takes, we saw high percentage of first pitch fastballs thrown for strikes against us. Pretty frustrating for us dads when you have your lead-off guy on and good contact lefty at the plate and coach calls take on the first pitch.
Getting back to the little guys, I found my best approach as a coach was to tell the kids to look for what we called “hittable pitches” between their knees and numbers and around the plate. The little league AA (8-10U) strike zone was typically “shins to chins” and two balls wide of the black until 11U. The PONY strike zone (again in my experience where we had paid adults calling games) was knees to belly button and at least touching the black through 12U. Despite the enlarged early strike zone in both organizations, league games (as opposed to summer or tournament play) could turn into no-fun walkfest jokes until the studs came in to finish games.
Summary? Teach the 8 to 10 yo’s about the zone, work with them on grip and swing mechanics. Start teaching them on approach to the plate with repeatable mechanics at 10U, but always have them framing their own zone based on the concept of “hittable pitches.” Let the tactical at-bat stuff come when they get to big-boy ball post 12U, which seems to be the point at which most of the remedial kids leave the game.
“I am pleasantly surprised at the performance of Liddi in Venezuela. I honestly believed he was going to fall flat on his face.”
Lot of people believed he would have fallen flat on his face two years ago in HD and he did not. Lot of people believed he would have fallen flat on his face this year in WT and he did not. Now it’s Venezuela and next season Tacoma. Who knows when he’s going to hit the ground ?
He does keep proving people wrong. But at this point he seems like a platoon bat at best.
Perhaps, but don’t forget he was really raw material when he arrived five years ago from a no-baseball country like Italy. A ML platoon bat would be a miracle at this stage. I would sign for something like it.
Hitting like Edgar + decent defensively at second base + wheels = Hall of Famer. That would be super awesome.
Jonathan was an on-line instructor for a course that I had taken a few years ago … and I think he has just recently left that part-time gig, but if you do communicate with him – tell him that one of his former students is still appreciative of his efforts. He is a good guy (not very old … relatively speaking) and I would bet dollars to donuts that you will hear from him. I have shared his book with a few people. They all seemed to have gotten somethign out of it. At last check, Story was scouting the AA Southern League (he lives/lived in that area at the time). I would be interested to learn where he has moved on to. I think he will some day make a great scouting director … but those jobs don’t just fall out of trees. He is in his mid-40’s, had a fairly brief professional career (reached AA I think) and has been a scout for a long time … working onward and upward presumably.