Quote:
Originally Posted by twista6002
If Troy Glaus can stay healthy, if Martin Prado (a career backup) can keep having an MVP type year and a few other unlikely variables fall into place, including beating the Phils for the division, bless their hearts. They deserve to win the WS.
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Can't predict Glaus' health
Prado, I don't know much about him, so I'll entertain myself by taking a look
Martin Prado » Statistics » Batting | FanGraphs Baseball
First thing too look at
BABIP
2010: .363
At first glance that looks pretty high. But his career BABIP is .344. Some hitters can maintain a high BABIP (see Ichiro). They usually do this by hitting groundballs (groundballs have a higher batting average than flyballs) and by being fast (more infield hits)
Prado does have his highest career ground ball rate this year (49%) and a career high line drive rate as well (21%). That means a career low flyball rate as well (29% + 10% Infield flies).
So, Prado does look like a guy who should maintain a high BABIP, so the batting average, though it may come down a bit, isn't really that flukey.
The problem with hitting a lot of groundballs is that ground balls mostly end up as singles, with some doubles, rare triples, and extremely rare home runs. So, power suffers. Prado does have a little pop with 7 home runs thus far. Is his power likely to continue?
His home run per flyball rate (important because he doesn't hit a lot of flyballs) is 10%. It was 10% last year as well. Big strong guys, Adam Dunn for example, hit more home runs per fly ball (Dunn is 22% for his career). They also hit more flyballs which is why Dunn hits more home runs than Prado. So, the flyball rate looks ok. I don't expect any drop off him home runs for Prado.
His slugging percentage is .474 this year. His career is .450. His minor league slugging numbers were gererally below .400. It is a bit odd that a guy gains power when he comes to the major leagues. He didn't become a major league regular until he was 25 though, and player's power generally starts to increase between 25 - 27, so that could be a factor.
So far, so good...but...
His walk and strike out rates are going the wrong way.
2008: 8.3-BB 12.7-K
2009: 7.2-BB 13.1-K
2010: 6.0-BB 14.0-K
Walking less and striking out more is rarely a good thing.
Why is that happening?
2008: 18.8%-OSwing, 40.5%-Swing, 87.8%-Contact
2009: 20.8%-OSwing, 40.6%-Swing, 89.6%-Contact
2010: 25%-OSwing, 40.8%-Swing, 91%-Contact
OSwing=Swings on pitches outside the strike zone
Swing=Total % of pitches swung at
Contact=% of pitches swung at made contact with
So, He's swinning at more pitches outside the zone. That has a tendency to make guys walk less, and strike out more. And is usually a bad sign.
I'm gonna let Prado slide a bit on this though. Since his contact percent is rising, and his BABIP is rising, and his power is rising instead of assuming that Prado is having trouble recognizing pitches I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he is just being more aggressive.
So, what do I make of Prado? He's legit. I don't see any reason for him to suffer any serious decline. I do think he's playing to the absolute top level of his ability, and he's more likely to decline slightly than improve much more for the rest of this season.
He doesn't look like a great defensive player. His career UZR at 2nd is -7 runs, but trending upwards. He's probably an averagish defender. But with a bat that's well above league average he's been worth 2.9 WAR so far this season.
That's very good, just short of excellent.
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