Let me see if I can explain my thoughts better:

I believe his OBP is an “empty” OBP, the product of a good eye and pitchers with subpar control. They aren’t pitching around him, they’re just having trouble throwing strikes. No one is doubting that his discipline is fantastic, I just think that as he moves up to AAA and the majors, he’ll be facing pitchers with better control and won’t be able to walk as often. That’s why his great OBP in AA doesn’t impress me.

the only thing I’m pointing out if that EME is hitting for power now, even in small samples, when he couldn’t hit for power in any sample, small or big or otherwise, during the regular season, and it is not like this is some league where anybody with even a modicum of talent can make hay there, Justin Maxwell is not having a field day there despite being a relatively good prospect for the Nats.

Justin Maxwell is irrelevant to our discussion. My point is this – you can’t draw anything away from what he’s doing in the Winter League. Yes, you’re pointing out that he’s hitting for power — doesn’t matter — but you’re also attaching all this “He’s lofting the ball!” nonsense, which quite frankly, you have no idea of. Unless you’re watching the games first hand.

Or do you really think that I’m so stupid to see a prospect (or non-prospect like Jose Castillo) have a great winter short season and pronounce him a top prospect? If so, that’s about the worse insult I’ve received here, and one doofus here tried to use my dead father in an effort to insult me.

Uh, nope. Not at all, no insults intended. But when you make outrageous claims (plus-power, lofting the ball, the power is back, etc.) backed up by thinly sliced micro samples, I’m going to call you on it. I’d hope everyone would do the same with me if I was making such statements.

Power in the PR league is just one piece of the full package of EME.

Power in the PR doesn’t tell us anything, let alone if what EME is doing right now is anywhere near his true talent level. I know you know what sample sizes are, but I think you’re putting way too much stock into what EME is doing right now in an inferior league.

He now appears to have that package back

How do you know it’s back? How do you know that he’s not beating up on washed up pitchers in a Caribbean League? Or maybe it is back. Or maybe the parks are really small. You don’t know.

I’ll re-quote myself on EME, since you seemed to have missed it:

“I think EME is a terrific hitter, in terms of pure talent, but injuries have killed him.”

It was his injuries getting in the way. The first hope for us was that the last surgery fixed things. In 2008, he showed that his eye was still there and ability to make contact, however, his power was lacking. If the PR league showing shows that his power is back – and I think it does – then he’s back to where he was before when BA had him ranked in the Top 5-10 in Giants prospects.

Shows how much you know, Dodd cuts power hitters’ home run rate by almost in half, that is the AB/HR almost doubles. Emphasis on POWER hitters.

If you examine all the players stats, like I have, you would have found that there is a dichotomy between players with some power and those with not much power and just looking at the overall numbers will cause you to adjust incorrectly. Power hitters have their numbers severely affected by the park. Non-power hitters, not so much, if at all.

And no, at the time I wrote about Dodd, there was no such information discussing how bad a park it is for power hitting and I read pretty extensively and there was nobody who told me at that time, “you n00b, don’t you know that XXX said this already”. You are the first in three years to tell me that such knowledge is well known. And I know there are a lot of smart and well-read posters here.

There may have been talk about it being a pitcher’s park because the numbers are obvious, but I did not see one word written about how the park kills the power of hitters there. As far as I know, I was the first to write on it, and I’ve written updates on it in subsequent years, showing that it still exists.

I did not delve into the proportion of players who are crushed by the park, you did. I know I can’t “prove” this with any specific example, not even Ishikawa. My position has always been: with the lack of position players in the Giants system, why lose even one prospect because of a freaking park messing with his confidence or his mechanics. Why extend the time necessary to develop even one player because of a bad park?

Even if his confidence isn’t crushed, there will be those players who like to adjust when things are not going well. They could have the same mechanics at home but get poor results, so then they mess with what is actually good mechanics in hopes of changing results, then keep to those bad habits when they go on the road, for example.

Again, why make it harder for our position prospects to develop?

About splits, I think you can’t just blanket do that with prospects. There are sometimes extenuating circumstances. For example, EME was injured in 2006 and 2007. So taking a three year “enormous” sample does nothing for analysis, you are introducing stats that are irrelevant to his potential when you include years he is injured or recovering from an injury/surgery.

Sometimes you have to make due with what little you have. That is the case here, we can’t look at his past stats because his injury and surgeries could mean the old EME might never return. That is my point here, I’m trying to see if the old EME is back or not. The old EME is a good prospect, a damaged one is not.

For example, I understand that small samples affects EME’s 2008 numbers and thus his good hitting might be an illusion of small samples. But one area where talent will out is his strikeout rate and his BB/K ratio. The best hitters can do both well in pretty much all circumstances. He can’t control his hits, but he can control the strikezone and what he swings at.

He continued to do both well in 2008 despite not being able to hit for much power. He did very well in these areas where random luck does not infect the sampling. Does his performance with his peripherals suggest that the small samples batting line is an outlier or in line with his talents?

Hitters in the majors who can walk more than they strikeout average .300 batting. Furthermore, of the hitters who can walk 1.5 times the strikeouts they get, 59% of them bat higher than .300, less than 4% of the hit under .250.

In addition, hitters in the majors who strike out less than 10% of the AB average about .290-.295. Not only that, but if they can combine it with BB> 10, hitters like that average .301 in the majors (all stats from Baseball Foreaster by Ron Shandler).

So yeah, small samples, but his peripherals suggest that his actual batting line is not that far removed from his actual talent level.

The only problem with 2008 relative to the old EME is the lack of power. He needs to show power in order to be the old EME that was worthy of ranking. He didn’t show any in 2008.

However, he is showing it now in the winter league. No matter how crappy the pitchers are here, if he can’t loft the ball for flyballs, he’s not going to be able to crank out the extra-base hits, his ground balls will still be groundballs. If he is cranking out XBH, that means he’s hitting more flyballs, i.e. he is lofting the ball more now.