Hector & Gregor's Excellent Adventure (In the VWL)
by Fla-Giant on Feb 8, 2012 1:11 PM PST
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PrintNow that the Caribbean World Series has ended (with the Escogido Lions of the Domincan Winter League winning the title) and Giants' pitchers and catchers will be officially opening spring training in less less than 10 days, I thought it would be a good time to highlight the 2 best winter league performances by Giant prospects this offseason.
Both Hector Sanchez and Gregor Blanco had tremendous offensive seasons for the La Guaira Tiburones in the Venezuela Winter League over a 14 week period from October through January. They led their team to regular season division crown and all the way to the championship series (which they ended up losing 4 games to 2). Hector started out on fire and was leading the league in almost every offensive category throughout most of the season before fading slightly in the last 2+ weeks of the regular season and in the playoffs. Gregor Blanco, on the other hand, started out the first 3 weeks of the season hitting fairly well, but then he went on an offensive explosion for the rest of the regular season and all of the playoffs after the Giants signed him to a minor league contract on November 16th, and gave him an invite to the major league spring training camp. Blanco upped his game by so much that he ended up being named the MVP of the entire league at the end of the season.
To give you an idea what the level of competition is in the VWL, most evaluators would say that the level of play is comparable to an AA level American minor league, with the level fluctuating each year depending on which players are participating. They have a fair share of major league veterans, but the teams typically consist of mid- to upper-level minor league prospects. Like all of the winter leagues, the offense almost always dominates in the VWL due to the tendency for the best starting pitchers and starting pitcher prospects to skip winter league play. That being established, let's look at the specifics on how Hector and Gregor did.
Hector Sanchez(in 51 regular season games):
.339/.402/.548/.950 in 177 ABs, ISOp=.209, H=60, 2B=10, 3B=0, HR=9, BB=18 (9%), K=37 (18.6%)
Hector Sanchez(in 19 playoff games):
.279/.353/.459/.812 in 61 ABs, ISOp=.180, H=17, 2B=3, 3B=1, HR=2, BB=7 (10.3%), K=17 (25%)
You can see that Hector was able to hit for excellent power and average while putting up an above-average walk rate, which is something that he hasn't been able to do in his previous minor league seasons. The one worrisome thing to take note of was that his K-rate was a bit too high.
Gregor Blanco (in 57 regular season games):
.337/.478/.520/.998 in 196 ABs, ISOp=.183, H=66, 2B=14, 3B=5, HR=4, BB=47 (18.9%), K=46 (18.5%), SB=18 of 25 (72%)
Gregor Blancoafter signing with the Giants on Nov. 16th (in 32 games):
.376/.514/.578/1.092 in 109 ABs, ISOp=.202, H=41, 2B=8, 3B=4, HR=2, BB=27 (19.1%), K=23 (16.3%), SB=11 of 16 (69%)
Gregor Blanco (in 23 postseason games):
.322/.446/.567/1.013 in 90 ABs, ISOp=.245, H=29, 2B=2, 3B=1, HR=6, BB=20 (17.9%), K=21 (18.8%), SB=4 of 6 (68%)
As you can see, Blanco can be a prototypical leadoff hitter. He takes a ton of pitches and walks at elite rates, and he is also a speedy runner with excellent bat control. He is almost the exact opposite of what we've seen out of Andres Torres in the leadoff role over the past 2.5 seasons. Gregor chokes well up on his bat and usually takes short and controlled swings at pitches. Looking at his above stats, you can see that Gregor took his game to an elite level once he signed with the Giants in November. Not only did he significantly increase his BA and power output, but he actually managed to reach base in over half of his plate appearances. Blanco has always been a walk machine, but he took it to amazing levels this offseason. Then, he muscled up and hit 6 HRs in only 23 games during his run through the postseason. The main concerns with Blanco is that his k-rate was a bit too high and his basestealing success rate wasn't good.
To put their stats in perspective with what other hitters in the league did, let's look at the regular season numbers.
Hector ended up 2nd in BA; 3rd in OPS; 5th in HR; 7th in OBP.
Gregor ended up 1st in OBP, OPS, BB and SB; 4th in BA and SLG.
Both Hector and Gregor were rewarded after the season during the Venezuelan Winter League awards show. Gregor was named the MVP of the league, and Hector was named the Rookie of the Year as well as the Catcher of the Year (they only player to win 2 awards).
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Venezuelan Winter League awards show.
Gregor is 4th from the left (with his MVP plaque), Hector is 6th from the left (with his Rookie of the Year plaque and Catcher of the Year plaque):
Hector’s Rookie of the Year plaque:
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Gregor is an extreme choker:
Hector hits a HR for Los Tiburones:
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
FYI
The videos that I’m seeing of Blanco from the VWL league play show that Blanco has moved his hands about 4-5 inches down towards the handle of the bat. I think that’s the main reason why he saw such a big spike in his power numbers in the VWL.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
I know you stated it above (in regards to league quality), but I think it’s an enormous leap to take (moving his hands down = more power) when talking about Blanco’s power numbers in the Winter League. There’s just too much noise for me to really take these Winter League stats with anything other that huge boulders of salt.
I like what he’s done in the VWL, but it’s still a Winter League, and it’s still in a small sample size, and it’s still against middling competition.
Ask me about my blog.
Christian DFA'd
I just saw that Justin Christian was DFA’d by the Gaints to make room on the 40 man for Mota. I think that also makes it more likely that the Giants will give Blanco every opportunity to make the 25 man opending day roster as the 4th OF, with the option of starting him in CF if Nate, Melky or Pagan should stumble on offense.
Just to clarify, the Gaints will almost certainly assign Christian to Fresno if he clears waivers in the next 72 hours.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Here’s a clip of Blanco hitting a HR during the first round of the playoffs last month. Looks like he started choking up a lot less – maybe the source of his new-found power?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnO846C_azo
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Here’s a long interview with Blanco after the VWL awards show. It’s in Spanish, so maybe somebody can give us a thumbnail translation. I did catch him saying that he was happy to be signed by the Giants in November and looks forward to going to ST with the team. You also get several shots of Hector Sanchez in this clip, but he’s not interviewed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyLFzDiLBKg
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Here’s Blanco in CF – making a diving catch of a line drive off the bat of Wilson Ramos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLKV-0hRZdc
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Bold
Bold in their stat lines indicates league leading?
Looking forward to Hector Sanchez. I wonder if they start him in Fresno or SF – and I hope the decision isn’t decided on ST performance.
Bye Travis and thanks for 2010! Good luck with the Brewers!
The only way that I see him not being in Fresno at least the first few months of the season is if Buster is physically unable to catch at least 5 games a week. Hector needs too much seasoning to have him sit on the bench and only get 1 start at catcher and less than 10 ABs a week. You have to assume that Sabes & Co. feel the same way, otherwise there’s no way they would have used 2 spots on the 40 man to keep both Whiteside and Stewart.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
His power numbers spiked when he stopped choking up so much. 6 HRs in 23 postseason games can’t be written off as only a fluke, not to mention the .183 ISOp in 196 ABs for the entire regular season. He’s not going to be a power hitter in the majors leagues, but it certainly looks like he can get a lot more doubles and triples with the new grip. Most importantly, he has a career OBP of .358 across 3 major league seasons (836 PAs) despite only hitting .258. I’m not saying that he’s all of a sudden made himself into a major league starting CF, just that he obviously found something in his game this offseason that unlocked his power. He could be a very valuable 4th OF and PH on the bench for the Giants – especially if Pagan doesn’t thrive in the leadoff role.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Gregor's major league career stats
BREF.com normalized his 3 season of major league stats inot a stats line for a 162 game season:
.258/.358/.324/.682, OPS+=85, PA=535, AB=455, H=117, 2B=15, 3B=6, HR=1, BB=69, K=101, SB=17, CS=6
Keep in mind that he didn’t play in the majors at all in 2011 and only got 48 PAs in 2009, but he got > 500 PAs in both 2008 and 2010 (for Atlanta and KC).
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
I'm not particularly concerned about Blanco's k rate.
BB > K is a great sign,and taking so many walks will naturally increase the number of 2 strike counts which increases K- rate.
by Nivra on Feb 9, 2012 9:07 PM PST via iPhone app up reply actions
Pretty basic, actually...
Fla mentioned he was concerned about Blanco’s K-rate.
My point was that if BB-rate is hovering at or over K-rate, then it doesn’t matter how high K-rate is.
A quick look through BB-ref confirms this. The only high K-rate seasons that have BB-rate as high or higher were almost all successful years. 95% of seasons with BB>100 and SO>100 were above 2 WAR.
I think that's mostly a function of the BB's, though
For Fangraphs (I tried to find BB-R’s WAR formula but a quick Google search did not yield what I was looking for) strikeouts aren’t even a component analyzed. So those are just a lot of players who walked a bunch and as a consequence had high-WAR seasons – they weren’t hurt (or weren’t hurt much) by strikeouts, probably because K’s are only a little worse than other outs as productive outs are very situational and scarce.
That logic, of course, helps Blanco out even more – K’s certainly aren’t good, but having a high K rate is largely irrelevant. It’s more important that you do other things well, and walking is not the only thing that falls under the “other” category.
Seth Rosin can hit the side of a barn with a baseball. From space.
Giants baseball: We're stupid enough to WIN that (TM)
My point was basically that as far as warning signs, a high K-rate in a prospect isn’t alarming when it’s accompanied by an equally high BB-rate whereas in traditional scouting a high K-rate is a warning sign that the prospect has contact issues.
Part of the reason is that good plate discipline and high BB-rates tend to have as a side effect an increase in K-rate.
Not sure I'd call Blanco a prospect
I take your point, but I don’t think the high K rate needs to be considered a problem if they’re doing anything else right – if Fangraphs’ statistical analysis is right (and I’m pretty sure they’re at least close) then K’s just aren’t indicative of player value any more than other outs. It looks to me like a high K rate isn’t alarming as long as it’s accompanied by power, or speed, or OBP, or average, or defense, or any other component of WAR. BABIP may cause some further headaches (hard to get a high average/OBP/speed value if you’re striking out a lot unless you have a high BABIP). Actually, since K’s don’t hurt you, a high K rate just doesn’t matter.
I guess things are different for prospects, and this is purely statistical analysis – a high K rate in the low minors may mean contact issues, and could present a problem to posting good stats in actually important categories down the road, but again, I wouldn’t consider Blanco a prospect.
Seth Rosin can hit the side of a barn with a baseball. From space.
Giants baseball: We're stupid enough to WIN that (TM)
Great post. Thanks so much.
The most delightful ecumenical contradiction in nomenclature.
Dursh nerf darsh narf. Poop.
Excellent Post
Both of these guys are going to make spring training interesting. There are mixed signals coming out about Posey’s health and how this is going to play out. Definitely a strong chance Sanchez and Blanco end up in Fresno, maybe joined by Belt. But if they keep playing like they did over the winter that could change things.
The signing of Whiteside was a bit bizarre, but Sabean likes depth. What if Stewart gets hurt in spring training? I think that question drove the Eli re-up. There is a minor league portion of the contract, and Eli looks like an organization guy after his playing days.
The Giants refusal to get a more competent bat to back up Posey is a big indication to me they really like Sanchez and consider him pretty close to ready.
Good write up Fla. I will however, take exception with the suggestion that the VWL is analogous to AA. There’s a tremendous dearth of pitching in the league that prevents it from being at that level of competition. Looking at the VWL stats page on the MLB site, there are only 13 pitchers listed in the league (minimum 0.8 IP per league game) who have any US pro system experience and they’re all minor league journeyman or minor league FA. The best pitcher on the list is Renyel Pinto and he didn’t pitch anywhere in 2011.
Certainly from a pitching standpoint, it’s not a league made up of “mid to upper minors prospects” as it is a league made up of non professionals (from the perspective of American baseball). This is also true of the hitters to a lesser degree.
http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=l135&lid=135&t=l_pit
First off, I agree that the overall pitching in every winter league was down this past season, but you neglected to note that I did qualify my sentence:
…most evaluators would say that the level of play is comparable to an AA level American minor league, with the level fluctuating each year depending on which players are participating.
Secondly, the problem with that only looking at the VWL-supplied stat page is that the minimum requirement cuts off lots of pitchers and hitters with upper minors and major league experience who did play in the VWL this year. So many of the best pitchers in the VWL only pitch for 4-6 weeks and then skeedadle, or are used only in relief, meaning that they don’t qualify for listing on the stat page. Here’s a quick-and-dirty list of guys that aren’t on your list that I know who pitched in the VWL this season (I’m sure I could at more than double the number of names if I put in 30 minutes to search):
Shairon Martis: 20 games and > 100 IPs in majors, and pitched in AA and AAA, since 2008 season
Armando Galarraga: > 90 games & > 500 IPs in majors since 2007
Ryan Tatusko: pitched in AA and AAA the last 2 seasons
Felipe Paulino: 51 starts and close to 300 IPs in the majors the last 3 seasons
Samuel Freeman: 52 games in AA last season
Luis Avilan: 106 IP in AA last season
Cesar Jimenez: > 40 games in majors and > 60 games in AAA last 4 seasons
Deunte Heath: >100 games & 300 IPs in AA and AAA the last 3 seasons
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Still when you’re dealing with small sample sizes (which winter leagues are by definition) the introduction of lots of non-pro pitchers into in the mix creates a disproportionate amount of noise. The thing that makes AA what it is is that everybody there is a AA player. Mix 30-40% guys from the complex leagues or the VSL and statistics will become a lot less meaningless. This is why I don’t look at winter league stats or give them any weight at all. The mixture of levels of competition is far too disparate to convey meaning.
This is where you lose me:
The thing that makes AA what it is is that everybody there is a AA player.
Every year there are scores of players in AA that aren’t worthy to be called AA players. This is most especially true of pitchers. Each year there might be only 1 or 2 AA teams in the entire country, at most, that have the ability to populate their starting rotation with true AA pitchers – and that’s not even mentioning the bullpens. Then, as the season progresses and guys get promoted or have to go to the DL, the level of pitching gets worse. Face it, there isn’t any league in baseball, from high school through the major leagues, where 100s of innings a season aren’t being thrown by pitchers that shouldn’t be at that level. Winter leagues tend to be more extreme cases of this, but it’s not so out of line that you can say that the stats are illegitimate.
Now, if you want to go with the SSS argument then I’m with you, but even then you can’t say that it makes all of the stats for all players invalid for terms of judging players. IMO, you have to take it on a player-by-player basis every season that you look at it.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Whether they’re “worthy” of it or not isn’t the point — they are professional pitchers who have progressed to that level, which is an entirely different thing from being an unsigned, non-pro. A significant proportion of VWL guys are essentially high school or JC players going up against pro players. That’s a noisy environment.
Also, I’d say most AA teams don’t have a lot of future quality major league pitchers, but that’s an entirely different thing from being true AA pitchers. I’d bet the majority of AA pitchers fall within the bell curve of league average.
I'd just like to thank FLa-Giant for giving me knowledge about my son.
Proud parent of Gregor Blanco, the Mountain that Walks, MVP of the VWL.
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