re: The ATL Thread: Offseason Edition

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I suspect he'll hit between .270-.280 with 12-15 HRs this year.

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There's such a big difference between .280 and .290. A whole one percentage point.

Dan isn't my BFF though. That would be Hull.

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Players with low walk rates don't generally sustain high batting averages. Michael Young is the only current guy I can think of that walks as little as Prado and sustains a really high BA.

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Robinson Cano, Placido Polanco, Pudge, are a few more current non-speedsters who have lower walk rates than Prado and have sustained high batting averages over their careers. If you went back through the last 20 years you could find a ton around Prado's rate, it's not that rare. I personally think Polanco is a pretty good comparison for what we might expect from Prado's career (with Prado having a smidge more pop proabably).

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But I will assure you one thing. Prado was not just "lucky" for the first 1500 PA of his career. He's a good hitter from line to line.

A player doesn't just go from having a .335 career BABIP to a .266. That just doesn't happen. You'll see that increase by a pretty wide margin this year if he is 100%. All I said was I feel confident he is going to hit .290 which is well below what his career average was before last year.

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From every year since 2008, Prado's O-Swing% has risen, from 66, to 75 to 79.8 to 80.4 last year. The pitches he is seeing in the strike zone are dropping yearly, based on Zone%.

From my perspective, the reason his numbers declined is partially due to injury and partially because pitchers have caught up to him. He's not a disciplined hitter and he doesn't have a good eye (the percentages back me up on this).

He swings at a lot of pitches out of the zone and watched a lot that are in. Here's a pretty good article about it, based on last year's numbers:

LINK

And I know you, and many, believe it was simply a one year, blip on the map, injury-riddled season, but to me, the fact that he's seeing more and more pitches outside of the zone indicate that pitchers now understand they simply don't have to throw him strikes.

The reason his BABIP dropped starkly is partially because of his injury, but it's also because he's swinging at more bad pitches, and thus, making worse contact... so his LD% drops.

Now, Martin could obviously fix this and become a different player. It will be interesting to monitor his plate discipline stats throughout the year. But my inclination is that he'll be more or less the same player he's been growing into, so his BA will raise above what it was last year, but still say south of what it had been.

And considering that he doesn't walk, hit for power or have great speed, that makes him nothing more than a solid regular.

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Robinson Cano, Placido Polanco, Pudge, are a few more current non-speedsters who have lower walk rates than Prado and have sustained high batting averages over their careers. If you went back through the last 20 years you could find a ton around Prado's rate, it's not that rare. I personally think Polanco is a pretty good comparison for what we might expect from Prado's career (with Prado having a smidge more pop proabably).

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Good points.

Polanco isn't a bad comparison. His career .332 wOBA is identical to Prado's as well. If only Prado could play 3B like him...