Lastoria Has Brown as Indians' 15th Best Prospect
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afh4
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Brown is not entirely without value to the organization. I think he can provide something close to replacement-level production — which, at minimum salary, saves the Indians from having to go out and find another replacement-level player who would also have to be paid minimum salary.
by Jay on Mar 4, 2010 11:55 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Honestly, what’s the realistic best-case scenario for Brown in the majors? I’m thinking somewhere between 2006 and 2003 Sean Casey. .275/.345/.410
Steel Nick
I’ve got Brown at 278/331/405 and ZiPS isn’t known for being aggressive. Smith’s CHONE has Brown at 280/332/426. ZiPS gives Brown about a 1-in-3 chance at an OPS+ of 100 or greater.
15th probably isn’t an unrealistic ranking, especially as prospect rankings look at upside as an important component – a 26 year-old with limited power upside isn’t that sexy. However, there’s no reason that Brown can’t be a solid 4th outfielder for awhile.
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Dan Szymborski
dan@baseballprimer.com
by D.Szymborski on Mar 6, 2010 12:30 PM EST up reply actions
Respectfully, Dan, you must not be that familiar with the Indians system if you think a guy like Brown might be our #15 prospect. We are only a little above average in terms of Top 100 guys, but we have another 20-odd guys who are outside the Top 100 but still solidly better prospects than a guy like Brown.
Goldstein gave the Indians a Top 15 rather than a Top 11 — no Jordan Brown. Sickels went all the way to 24 — still no Brown.
by Jay on Mar 6, 2010 3:36 PM EST up reply actions
Again, it depends on how you weight ceiling vs. certainty. Brown’s ceiling may only be a solid 4th outfielder or a below-average stopgap, but I’d wager that he’s better now than many players in the 10-20 range on prospect lists will end up.
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Dan Szymborski
dan@baseballprimer.com
And again, I’m saying it doesn’t really depend on that, unless you weight present-day ability to play in the majors as 100%.
I understand that different weights will change the rankings. I’m saying that Brown is not credibly a Top 20 guy, regardless of whether you’re all-ceiling or econometrics oriented. He’s only Top 20 if you’re an all-batting-average guy who’s unable to account even a little for positional value.
by Jay on Mar 6, 2010 4:30 PM EST up reply actions
We’re not in the business of developing 4th outfielders.
< / guy who wants LaPorta to play 150 games in LF >
moving up from number 20 from last year. must be due to the decrease in depth that has occured in the last 6 months.
by Brick. on Mar 4, 2010 11:55 AM EST reply actions 2 recs
Rec.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Mar 4, 2010 11:45 PM EST up reply actions
Tony talks about his subpar 2008 season as if it something he has overcome, and this is where I disagree with him. Brown was an interesting guy coming out of 2007, but with a clear path towards what he needed to do to succeed. Given his defense limitations he needed to maintain his plus on-base skills while turning some of his gap-doubles power into HRs…not an inconceivable task. But he didn’t do that. Instead he completely lost his on-base skills and showed a regression in power. Even as his power returned somewhat last season, his on-base skills didn’t. He reminds me a little bit of Chris Shelton and I could see him, given the opportunity, having similar short-term (but not sustained) success at the big league level. It is hard to put that kind of guy too prominently in yours plans.
Anyway, I can’t pile on the guy. I’m more than happy to rip on Gimenez, Crowe, or someone like Jason Tyner…because those guys have received more than their share of major league at-bats. Brown has 0, and even if that’s what he deserves, there’s nothing to get worked up about.
Do you really think the 130 PAs Gimenez has at the major league level are more than his fair share? I agree that his usage late in the season last year was incredibly frustrating, but he is not a useless guy. Given the choice I would value Gimenez’s skill set over Brown’s.
See, I think it’s close. Gimenez is a backup catcher who can hit like a backup catcher and also play 1b and a poor left field. Brown is fringe bat at his positions. If you need a backup catcher fine, but if you’re just going to use Gimenez in the OF and 1b, why not take the guy who can possibly hit?
Regardless, my point is that Brown has no received no usage, so why should people be annoyed?
This guy really likes Jordan Brown.
Comparing him to Jordan Brown to Mark Grace, John Olerud, and Sean Casey is not helpful. The Lyle Overbay comp that several have given him as a top end works so much better.
Not really when you compare minor league stats. Overbay was a much better hitter than Brown, and I think we sometimes forget that Overbay was an above-average first baseman for a couple of years with a very solid peak.
First, I was simply comparing their bats, though for what it’s worth, UZR thinks Overbay’s glove has been exactly average for his career. Second, me and you have different definitions of “much better.”
I think the Overbay comparison is useful because they have hit for high average, so-so walk rates, and “doubles power.” Also, and importantly, they have gone through the minors at about the same age and pace. In fact, Brown was a year ahead of Overbay. Granted, we can’t dismiss Brown’s bad 2008 whether it was injury related or not, but given the age difference, it is difficult to say that Overbay outperformed him in any other year.
Overbay didn’t get significant ab’s in the majors until he was 26. Brown is entering his age 26 season. I stated that it was a top end projection and I stand by that.
The greater point that’s lost on Tony is that when your 90% PECOTA projection leaves you as replacement-level for your position’s offensive expectation, and you add nothing (let alone detract from your value) on defense and on the bases, you’re not really a prospect.
It’s not that Brown can’t do that for $400K. It’s that so many other freely available players can also do that for $400K. Now don’t get me wrong, Brown may be preferable to them because 1) he bats left-handed and can do it on the strong-side of a platoon, leaving room for a lefty-masher to pick up the slack,2) he plays for league minimum for three years, and 3) he has options, and roster flexibility is worth something.
What’s it’s not worth is a prospect status about which any of us should be excited.
Making the above points does not necessarily answer the basic question of whether a guy like Jordan Brown deserves a shot or not. He has had a very good minor league career as a prospect, he was successful last year, and it was a head scratcher/dis when Romero was called up instead of him.
While I didn’t rank JB as high as Tony, I still think he could have a ML career as good or better than Ryan Garko, who was more or less ushered into the major leagues without a lot of discussion of his ultimate worth – he was a good hitter, so he got a shot.
Brown could turn out to be a better hitter, we don’t know at this point. I don’t think anyone’s jaw will drop if at some point he shows he can hit around .300 with a little power and ops above .800. Not your big whoop at 1B or LF, but a ML player.
I refuse to believe it was actually head scratching. He is a guy who might, might!, OPS .750 and he can’t play any defense. That player doesn’t need to be on a big league rostered already littered with guys who can’t play defense and can hit just as well or better.
There is no doubt he takes too much heat from many of us but it’s only because he’s become so criminally overrated by a certain segment of fans.
He is a guy who might, might!, OPS .750
when your 90% PECOTA projection leaves you as replacement-level for your position’s offensive expectation,
O M G
This is my problem. I swear you guys have not looked at his numbers for at least a year. (unless your “might, might!” means more likely than not) He numbers project better than Aubrey and the like. If he’s in left, than PECOTA’s mid projection has him as a 1 win player. Maybe his defense takes away most of that win, I don’t know.
But just in case you’ve forgotten, we haven’t been able to round up above-replacement level corner guys in recent years as easily as one might think.
There’s a very good chance that his 25 year old season was his peak, and he’ll never repeat. But it might, might! not be, and then he’ll have some use.
Of course we shouldn’t make room for him, of course he shouldn’t start. But can we talk about him like he is, and not like he’s Aubrey? That’s all I ask.
by dgcambridge on Mar 5, 2010 11:19 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I’ve looked at his walks. I really don’t think he’s “more likely than not” for a .750. He’s got zero power and took 27 unintentional walks in 416 ABs last year. That’s going to get him nowhere, which is where he is.
He had a .370 babip last year. Granted, his career is about .330 but I really don’t believe in that.
I don’t believe in the future of an organizational soldier who’s built on bat to ball ability while always being one of the older players at his level. He’s got no power, no plate discipline, and no defense. He’s got this wonky bat to ball stuff. Whatever. Pass. I don’t usually do much arm-chair reconfiguring of numbers but I really think his deeper numbers indicate he wouldn’t hit at the major league level and that the MLE isn’t going far enough into the data.
Can’t walk and has no power and he answers that with turning balls in play into hits? That strikes me as a trick he can’t turn against major leaguers-the pitchers or the defenders.
I’m not sure if I’m more embarrassed by m investment in this or in the Joe Inglett wars.
by afh4 on Mar 5, 2010 12:01 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
This is I agree with. I keep wanting to stop myself, because it’s Jordan Brown. I’ll just go one more, and then stop I promise.
The guy is a singles hitter at a power position…except that he’s not. You can keep saying “no power” over and over again, but it’s not accurate. Adam even above said that he showed a regression in power last year. That’s simply not true. His iso was just under .200 last year. We can argue (but we will not) over what adjective to use there, but “no” is way too far. And yet that’s how we keep describing him.
If the thought is that last year was a total fluke, fine, let’s say that (and perhaps you just did). But let’s not pretend it didn’t exist, and that he’s never hit.
Actually I said he had a loss of power in 2008, and something of a power return last season. Though a power return to his not very powerful 2007 form, as opposed to that leap forward he looked poised to make following 2007. The fact is he has never put up an ISO over .200 in his pro career, which is a typical benchmark for decent power. Brown basically has Ben Francisco power, but instead of having decent speed and defense, he has neither.
Let’s be clear about a few things here.
Let’s say you give Brown the benefit of the doubt, and you say, I think he will develop over the next two seasons to be a guy who produces against AL pitching as well as he did against IL pitching in 2009. That means a .336 average and 20 home runs, and yes, we’ll take that, even at first base. Absolutely. And I suppose that’s what guys like Tony are thinking.
Even his “neutral” numbers would be acceptable — 874 OPS, I’m sold, and everyone else should be, too.
There are of course two gigantic reasons not to give him that benefit of the doubt. The first, of course, is age. It isn’t likely that he has a big jump still in front of him, and while he was one of the best hitters in the IL last year, he was repeating the level, and he didn’t dominate the league.
The second gigantic reason is the peripherals. A guy with a weak walk rate is not likely to take a step forward in the majors — maybe if he’s 21 and has lots of projectability ahead, but probably not even then, and Brown is sure as hell not 21 anyway!
No, in fact the strong likelihood is that based on his peripherals, he gets absolutely eviscerated by major league pitching. As a mediocre power threat with mediocre selectivity, opposing pitchers will have a plethora of options for fooling him.
I think this is the basis for some of Andrew’s seemingly over-confident proclamations. There is a significantly better chance that Brown’s approach at the plate will completely collapse at the plate in the majors, as compared to the chance that he develops into a solid-asset, 850 OPS guy.
What Tony doesn’t seem to realize is, Brown cannot succeed in the majors without rapidly developing skills that he basically has failed to exhibit in five seasons in the minors. He is a good contact hitter but not an extremely good one — not an outlier about whom we can ignore the norms. He cannot thrive without a selective approach, and probably can’t turn on an inside pitch and really make a pitcher pay. If he remains Jordan Brown 2009, he’s unlikely ever to keep a major league job of any kind.
by Jay on Mar 5, 2010 1:38 PM EST up reply actions
Jordan Brown’s position on the list aside, Lastoria seems to have him tagged pretty well. He’s a depth player at a position of strength for both the Tribe and MLB. He can hit and get on base, though he lacks the pure power stick that would make him a legitimate DH candidate. He is middling to poor in the field.
Where Tony gets in trouble is ranking him, and since I don’t think a 26 year old player about to start his sixth minor league season and third go-round in AAA can still be considered a prospect, I’d argue that Tony’s list criteria needs to be refined.
Tweet from Castro: 1st lineup might have 1st scratch. #Indians LF Jordan Brown carted off practice field with an injury.
There goes the future of the franchise.
by Brad D on Mar 5, 2010 1:01 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
2004 – Juan Gone
2006 – C.C.
2008 – Victor
2010 – Jordan Brown
by SuddenSam on Mar 5, 2010 1:12 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Down goes Brown, in comes Kearns according to Castro
by APV on Mar 5, 2010 1:19 PM EST up reply actions
Again positional value is the key. The lesson here is that if you throw left-handed, you better be above-average with one of the following tools: power, OBP, speed, or defense. And Brown isn’t.
While I like him slightly better than most here (because the bat-to-ball ability comes in handy in certain situations), he is pretty much as described on this site – a replacement-level player with a minimum salary. There’s value there, but not much. My guess is he’ll end up in the NL as a reserve 1B/OF who does a lot of pinch-hitting.
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