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So with the offseason being here now, a lot is going to be made about prospects. How they did, what they will become, what to expect next year, will they be here next year, so on, so forth.
Not much is made though of what we can expect from players that lost their rookie eligiblity. Yet there's still big questions of what exactly can we expect.
Four players lost their rookie eligibility last season: Cameron Maybin, Chris Coghlan, Brett Carroll, Sean West. I'm also going to touch on Bonifacio, since last year might as well have been considered his first year.
I'm going to start with Chris Coghlan. Coming up he was expected to give a mid to upper 700 OPS (I personally had him at a .750 OPS before the season), but he had a monster rookie season with a .850 OPS. But can we expect that going forward?
What happened last year, a lot we more or less were expecting. He drew walks at an above average rate and struck out at well above average rate. His power also translated; while it was below average, he still has good enough gap power that he's far from a slap hitter.
The thing that sticks out is his .366 BABIP, finishing 10th in all of baseball. It's very unlikely this stays so high going forward, which is more or less saying he isn't going to be a .320+ hitter going forward, not exactly controversial. He finished his minor league career with a .324 BABIP, further showing that a .366 BABIP going forward is not likely.
If we assume his BB and K rates improve from experience in the majors, to say 10% BB and 14% K, and his power stays roughly the same (40 2b, 5 3b, 10 HRs over 650 PA), but drop his BABIP down to the .320 range, this puts him at a .287/.358/.424/.782 slash line.
This puts him on the high end of what was expected out of him as a prospect. However there's also a good deal of hope his power improves as he was just 24 this past season. With his improved power, I think you can more or less say he'll be a ".800ish" ops bat going forward (Hitting just 2 more HRs puts him at that). So a drop, but still an above average bat, especially if he's at 2b.
Base running wise, last year was a bit of a disappointment as he only stole 8 bases at a 62% rate. This is a far cry from the minors, where he averaged 36 SB over 150 games, and stole them at a 80% rate. This should certainly improve next season. EQBRR had him at +0.5 runs on the bases last season, but was -0.95 runs in SB. If we assume he's the 20 SB, high rate guy going forward that he's suppose to be, that's basically equal to 1 run, improving his SB runs by 2, and his total runs now lands at 2.5. So, going forward, he'll probably be about 2-3 runs on the bases. Good, but not outstanding.
The question about his defense still remains rather high. Going by the metrics, he was horrible in LF this past season, which isn't surprising based off his lack of experience. However, he has above average speed and is a good athlete, and should be a plus defender there going forward, especially if he spends the offseason getting more experience there.
But the place everyone really wants him is 2b. So all we have to go there by is the minors really.
Going by total zone, it's hard to really say what to expect. We essentially only have two seasons worth of data.
In 2007, his first year playing 2b full time, he was rather horrible. In Greensboro, he was at -5 runs in 261 chances (-9 in 150 games), and in jupiter he was -2 in 114 chances (-8 in 150), putting him at a total of -7, -8.8 per 150. It also doesn't take into account league adjustment, dropping his total to -12 runs, -15 per 150 games.
But in 2008 in carolina, he was extremely good, saving 9 runs with his glove, +12 runs per 150. League adjusted, it's still worth +5 runs, +7 runs per 150.
If we look at his career league adjusted numbers, this puts him at -7 runs, -4 per 150.
The scouting report on him was simple: rough around the edges now due to inexperience, especially around the bag, but the tools to be average to above average defensively. But in other words, slightly below average now, about what the numbers said. For the sake of this experiment, we're going to say he's -5 runs defensively with room for improvement.
Putting all this together, it puts him at around a 3.5-4 WAR win player going forward at 2b. This is generally in the top 5-10 range for 2b's in all of baseball.
If he's in LF, it's not nearly as pretty. Unless he becomes an elite defender like David Dejesus or Carl Crawford (which seems highly unlikely to me), it'd put him in the 2.5-3 WAR range for the position, or about top 10-15 range out of LFers.
You really have to hope the Marlins at least try Coghlan at 2b to see if he can handle it, even if they don't believe he can. There will be a big gaping hole there with Uggla likely being gone, and Coghlan is currently the only in-house option that can handle MLB pitching.
Not much is made though of what we can expect from players that lost their rookie eligiblity. Yet there's still big questions of what exactly can we expect.
Four players lost their rookie eligibility last season: Cameron Maybin, Chris Coghlan, Brett Carroll, Sean West. I'm also going to touch on Bonifacio, since last year might as well have been considered his first year.
I'm going to start with Chris Coghlan. Coming up he was expected to give a mid to upper 700 OPS (I personally had him at a .750 OPS before the season), but he had a monster rookie season with a .850 OPS. But can we expect that going forward?
What happened last year, a lot we more or less were expecting. He drew walks at an above average rate and struck out at well above average rate. His power also translated; while it was below average, he still has good enough gap power that he's far from a slap hitter.
The thing that sticks out is his .366 BABIP, finishing 10th in all of baseball. It's very unlikely this stays so high going forward, which is more or less saying he isn't going to be a .320+ hitter going forward, not exactly controversial. He finished his minor league career with a .324 BABIP, further showing that a .366 BABIP going forward is not likely.
If we assume his BB and K rates improve from experience in the majors, to say 10% BB and 14% K, and his power stays roughly the same (40 2b, 5 3b, 10 HRs over 650 PA), but drop his BABIP down to the .320 range, this puts him at a .287/.358/.424/.782 slash line.
This puts him on the high end of what was expected out of him as a prospect. However there's also a good deal of hope his power improves as he was just 24 this past season. With his improved power, I think you can more or less say he'll be a ".800ish" ops bat going forward (Hitting just 2 more HRs puts him at that). So a drop, but still an above average bat, especially if he's at 2b.
Base running wise, last year was a bit of a disappointment as he only stole 8 bases at a 62% rate. This is a far cry from the minors, where he averaged 36 SB over 150 games, and stole them at a 80% rate. This should certainly improve next season. EQBRR had him at +0.5 runs on the bases last season, but was -0.95 runs in SB. If we assume he's the 20 SB, high rate guy going forward that he's suppose to be, that's basically equal to 1 run, improving his SB runs by 2, and his total runs now lands at 2.5. So, going forward, he'll probably be about 2-3 runs on the bases. Good, but not outstanding.
The question about his defense still remains rather high. Going by the metrics, he was horrible in LF this past season, which isn't surprising based off his lack of experience. However, he has above average speed and is a good athlete, and should be a plus defender there going forward, especially if he spends the offseason getting more experience there.
But the place everyone really wants him is 2b. So all we have to go there by is the minors really.
Going by total zone, it's hard to really say what to expect. We essentially only have two seasons worth of data.
In 2007, his first year playing 2b full time, he was rather horrible. In Greensboro, he was at -5 runs in 261 chances (-9 in 150 games), and in jupiter he was -2 in 114 chances (-8 in 150), putting him at a total of -7, -8.8 per 150. It also doesn't take into account league adjustment, dropping his total to -12 runs, -15 per 150 games.
But in 2008 in carolina, he was extremely good, saving 9 runs with his glove, +12 runs per 150. League adjusted, it's still worth +5 runs, +7 runs per 150.
If we look at his career league adjusted numbers, this puts him at -7 runs, -4 per 150.
The scouting report on him was simple: rough around the edges now due to inexperience, especially around the bag, but the tools to be average to above average defensively. But in other words, slightly below average now, about what the numbers said. For the sake of this experiment, we're going to say he's -5 runs defensively with room for improvement.
Putting all this together, it puts him at around a 3.5-4 WAR win player going forward at 2b. This is generally in the top 5-10 range for 2b's in all of baseball.
If he's in LF, it's not nearly as pretty. Unless he becomes an elite defender like David Dejesus or Carl Crawford (which seems highly unlikely to me), it'd put him in the 2.5-3 WAR range for the position, or about top 10-15 range out of LFers.
You really have to hope the Marlins at least try Coghlan at 2b to see if he can handle it, even if they don't believe he can. There will be a big gaping hole there with Uggla likely being gone, and Coghlan is currently the only in-house option that can handle MLB pitching.
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