Selected just two spots after Colby Rasmus in the 2005 draft, Tyler Greene has steadily moved his way through the farm system. Often regarded as something of a raw college talent who had some bad metal bat tendencies, Greene struggled to make consistent contact through the minors and did little to offset that with plate discipline. Defensive metrics for the minors show Greene having everything from slightly below average seasons to well above average ones. His defense is generally regarded as above average for a shortstop and he exhibits good range and a strong arm.
Something clicked for Greene last season though and it seems that it’s been somewhat overlooked.
Greene split time between St. Louis and Memphis. While in St. Louis he flashed some impressive defensive prowess but was largely inconsistent. He displayed the same weaknesses that had plagued him throughout the minors batting just .222 and striking out in 30% of his ABs while walking in just under 4%. That’s not a ratio that will produce good results as Greene’s .270 OBP will attest. Of his 17 hits, 7 went for extra bases offering a glimpse of the tantalizing upside Greene could have as a shortstop.
The erratic nature of Greene’s play coupled with the emergence of Brendan Ryan as a legitimate gold glove shortstop served to put Greene in Memphis for most of the season. These deficiencies on display in St. Louis as well as the notion that Greene’s been around for quite some time (he’ll be 27 next August), obscured the tremendous season that Greene had in Memphis.
He posted the highest OPS of his career since 2006 when he was at the Quad Cities. With a .852 mark, he eclipsed his 2007 and 2008 numbers by nearly 100 points. Greene’s swing showed the same old holes with a strikeout rate over 25% but he finally graduated above the double digit mark in walk percentage posting his best strikeout to walk ratio to date. The combination of power and speed was on display as he hit 15 homeruns and legged out 5 triples*. With a .291/.369/.482 line, Greene added to his offensive contributions by stealing 31 bases and being caught just 3 times. (A quick look at an run expectancy matrix offers a worst case gain of 3 runs and a best case game of 9 runs on the base path — it’s likely something like 5 runs added).
*Am I the only one who thinks triples are more fun to watch than homeruns?
The translation for that line isn’t terribly rosy with a rather low MLB equivalent OBP. It’s also worth noting that Greene’s BABIP was slightly elevated at .351 though not a mark that indicates it was entirely luck given his LD% (21) and his speed. Without trying to project Greene, his season in Memphis is laudable.
If you decide to look down the road a year or so, it’s well within reason to think that something did click offensively. To think that maybe he could get the OBP into a tolerable rante (.320-.330) for the majors and offset that with secondary skills like baserunning, defense and power. He may never have an awesome nickname like Boog, but the upside, given the diversity of Greene’s skillset, is significant. Don’t be surprised if he supplants Brendan Ryan as the Cardinals’ shortstop in the future.
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I’d think he has a better chance of supplanting skippy at 2nd…Schu will start costing more than he is probably worth after next season
How many PA’s in Memphis?
388
Going into his 27-YO season, I find it very hard to get excited about TG “supplanting” Boog. He’s simply unlikely to get any better than he was this year. This year, that wasn’t good enough to get the nod over Ryan, and IMO, correctly so.
That said, there are worse starting shortstops out there in the majors. Wonder how much he’d be worth as trade bait?
Gruntosaurus, I wonder is he wasn’t good enough this year to supplant Boog? The MLE of his AAA line is 0.255/0.314/0.399 for an OPS of 0.713, which isn’t great, but bear in mind this is from minor league splits (which is traditionally pretty pessimistic) so the real equivalent line is probably higher, over a full season. Given his excellent baserunning and apparently good defence, he’s probably already a decent enough SS.
The question is whether 2009 was a fluke season (on both sides of the ball) for Boog or not.
Boog and Greene together in the middle infield would be just fine with me. Both can handle both short and second and both are decent enough with the bat to fill those slots. And I agree with VolsnCards that Schumaker is getting more expensive every year and once his arbitration seasons start it will make me wonder if they will stick with him.
*Am I the only one who thinks triples are more fun to watch than homeruns?
Top two Most exciting offensive plays in baseball, along with stealing home .
Let’s not forget that Boog goes on the DL almost every season. None of us want to see Lugo playing SS every day so I view Tyler as an important insurance policy on the 40 man. TG should see time in majors this season and, if he impresses, Skip will need a platoon partner in 2011. I think Tyler is the best base stealer on the 40 man roster.
I’m generally very skeptical of the stolen base. There are very few basestealers who are consistently a positive for their team on a year to year basis. That said, I wish Ryan and Rasmus were running more often. I feel like they’re ideal candidates to run.
It woul be nice to try and increase the offense production by running more with Greene rasmus and twitch
Greene was hurt by getting forced into regular PT on his 2nd promotion from Memphis, He was just starting to draw more walks but all that was lost after getting overexposed in St Louis.
Greene drew 8 BB the last 13 games in Memphis in 2008, and did decent job in AFL but got HR happy and K’s mounted, went to ST and did good with 5 BB and 9 SO and was good up till 2nd call up hitting .316 with 18 BB and 25 SO.
Then he came back to St Louis and goes 2-for-2 with 2 BB in his first game back then this happened .169/.194/.200/.394 with 1 BB and 21 SO over the next month and then goes back down to Memphis and walks just 20 time over the next 57 games while striking out 61 times.
I like the fact that Greene improved in his deficit areas at Memphis but I would resist any attempt to supplant Ryan at shortstop. In fact TLR seems to be open to any opportunity to play anyone else there rather than the Gold Glove caliber Ryan and I’m afraid he’ll do it if given the chance. Ryan was his umpteenth choice this last year behind the two Greenes, Barden and the ghosts of Luis Ordaz amd Cesar Izturis but I think that Ryan is the best looking shortstop we’ve had since Tony benched Ozzie. The Cardinal had a lot of things go right this last year but I believe the best one was that Ryan solidified the defense behind a ground ball pitch to contact staff. I thought he looked great when he first came up but Tony hated him because he wore his belt wrong or something and only gave him a chance when he couldn’t justify anything else.
If Greene proves his improvements are real then let’s bring him up as a utility guy. Ryan’s the guy I want to see at shortstop for the next few years.
I still like Greene as a prospect better than Descalso. More speed, more power, better range, stronger arm. Only if Descalso shows the power he did in Springfield on a more consistent basis would my opinion change.
Greene vs. Descalso:
is it a useful question? Not really. Both could become ML players, at different positions.
Descalso needs 1+ years at Memphis.
Descalso benefits from matchups vz. RHPs and could grow into an Adam Kennedy or Skip Schumaker hitter.
Tyler Greene has much more speed.
Greene can play SS.
For a SS, Greene can drive the ball. One of his HRs in St Louis was to right field. Renteria did that a few times.
@azruavatar. “I’m generally very skeptical of the stolen base.”
The redbirds with Ozzie, Willie, and Vince Coleman defied skepticism. But that was a track team disguised as a baseball team. Fun to watch but perhaps overboard. They all had great steal percentages. For teams that mash homeruns at a high clip in the upper ecelons of baseball, SBs might not be as important. But the Cardinals are not one of those teams. Rasmus is afraid to run. Boog is a fair but not great base stealer. He’s not in the same class as T. Greene. TG has freakishly fast acceleration. If a player is successful 80-90% of the time he steals, it’s hard to argue that skill does NOT add value. It remains to be seen if T. Greene will post SB percentages in that range at the MLB level.
“They all had great steal percentages.”
That’s the kicker obviously. I’m just saying that there are few players out there who are truly net positives on the basepaths year in year out. Not that they don’t exist but rather that they are rarer than a lot of people think.
Cj. the stolen base only increases run production if it succeeds. There are two components to that. The teams of the 80s, which were enormous fun to watch, succeeded with the running game not just because they were a “track team disguised as a baseball team,” but because they got on base. If TG can’t get on base with a high OBP, his speed won’t help the team.
Second, speed does not necessarily translate to success in stealing bases. The other thing about that track team was that the SB/CS ratios for all of the jackrabbits were high. On this count there is more reason to be optimistic about TG, I’d agree. However, he still has to get on, and there remains uncertainty about his ability to do that vs. major-league pitching.