Not
every prospect ends up working out for their respective teams, in fact for
every Mike Trout and Ryan Braun there’s a Rickie Weeks and Brett Wallace. They have talent but always seem to
fall short in reaching their potential.
Rookies can be very unpredictable on when they become star players and
start playing at the level that make them top prospects, as such today I’m
taking a look at Domonic Brown.
After such a hot start I felt it was time to let the stats show us if
this is real or if this is just an extended hot streak, lets find out.
The
Philadelphia Phillies drafted Domonic Brown back in 2006 in the 20th
round; once again proving that talent doesn’t have to come from the first round
to be good talent. He quickly
became one of the top prospects in the system with a combination of speed and
power till up until he was called up back in 2010 he was the #1 prospect in the
system rated by Baseball America.
After he was called up he did horrible, striking out at the rate of 34%
of his at bats. His contact rate
was no better when he first came up and didn’t improve in the next 2 seasons
which lead him to be a non-tender candidate just this last off-season. He hasn’t had a very successful Majors
career up till this year so lets see what the stats say about this current
season.
Brown
is currently hitting .271/.302/.437 with a OPS of .851. The OBP is low and this may not change
drastically throughout his career since he likes to swing the bat. He currently swings at 32% of pitches
outside the zone and 79% in having 10% of his strikes come from swings. Much like most young bats that come up
he’s a free swinger but a powerful one.
At current pace he is hitting a Homerun every 13 Plate Appearances (PA),
which if he gets 620 PA’s he could have roughly 47 HR’s by seasons end. That most likely isn’t going to happen
but it seems more reasonable to assume he gets to 30 HR’s.
With
the information about his tendencies lets look at his current stat line. His .302 OBP is a direct result of walk
totals. Brown’s walking about 4%
of the time which is down 4% of his career (Major and Minors) walk rate so we
can assume that will average itself out.
If we take just his Major’s BB% he owns an 8.3% walk rate so his OBP has
a good chance of coming back up.
As for his AVG. its actually about where it should be; Brown’s BABIP
(Batting Average on Balls in Play) is a career .268 and his current AVG. is
.266 which means he’s not hitting into luck and his luck isn’t bad. Knowing his tendency to be a free
swinger will determine how he ends the season though. Many players like him start the season hot and end the
season with a .212 AVG because they can’t control the swing. Power is legit, nothing here says his
power wont stay so if you were to say the over under on HR’s for the season at
30 id say over but not by much.
OPS+ has him at a above league average power at 127. (OPS+ weighs more variables into the
equation such as park effects etc.
An OPS+ of 100 is considered league average. Example: if a player has an OPS+ of 90 he’s 10% below league
average OPS.) In the end I
wouldn’t be surprised to see a stat line that looks like .268/.320/.510 by
seasons end.
The
speed hasn’t shown itself like many thought it would and instead of being a guy
that could maybe steal 20 bases Brown may only end the season with 13-15
range. Good but not what he was
expected to do before the season, he may break out of this later in the season
but we have to see. His defense
has been solid only committing 1 error in 89 possible attempts and that was a
throwing error; Brown has also had 4 outfield assists and can gun down runners
trying to stretch a single and such.
Over
all I’m actually surprised and not surprised by what I’m seeing. I’m surprised that the stats actually
point that not only is it legit he could end the season better than he is
now. On the flip side the walk
rate and K% aren’t a shock and if anything is going to lead to his downfall
it’s going to be him continuing to swing and miss on balls outside the zone and
not taking a walk. Overall Domonic
Brown has become a great story this year and shows that sometimes patience with
prospects can turn out for the team.
He’s not Trout but in some ways he’s better than Trout, power is legit
and it could become 35-40 HR power at some point the sky is the limit for him
since he is only 25 and 1 year away from what most scouts consider the “peak”
years.
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