Pitching Performance, rate stats: Brian Broderick, 3.43 tRA
Pitching Performance, counting stats: Brian Broderick, 16.0 pRAA
Hitting Performance, rate stats: Aaron Luna, .411 wOBA; Matt Carpenter, .398 wOBA
Hitting Performance, counting stats: Aaron Luna, 27.4 bRAA; Matt Carpenter, 26.3 bRAA
Entries (RSS)
Should Aaron Luna be getting more attention?
Yes
Agree
I’m not so sure. He has an extremely valuable skill: plate discipline that lets him draw a positively indecent number of walks. That has real value, has persisted across all levels, and conceivably could tee him up as either a leadoff hitter or “second leadoff” guy in TLR’s pitchers-bat-eighth lineups. However, it looks like the organization has all but given up on him as an infielder. The walk-to-get-on skill looks much better in the second baseman that he was than in the corner outfielder that he’s turning into. Note that his RF/9 at second has been rather poor; while minor-league defense is something where I’d rather get scouting reports than just rely on a statistic, the way the organization is behaving suggests that they don’t like what they saw when he played second.
Still, what we’re looking at here seems to have an upside like a right-handed Skip Schumaker with a bit more pop and considerably better plate discipline. If he can play 2B at least as well as Skippy (not a terribly high bar to set…), he may be an interesting “fallback option” going forward. If he’s definitely confined to a corner outfield position, though …
Luna’s power is under rated. He had a .200 ISO at Springfield this year,
I don’t have the translations at hand (can anybody find them?), but an ISO of .200 at Springfield probably projects to about a .160 or .170 ISO in the majors. That, to be sure, would be an upgrade on Skippy at 2B. However, even allowing for maturation as he advances through the system, it’s not really the kind of thing you want to see in a corner outfielder. Yeah, you can live with it if it’s all you’ve got. It’s nothing to get excited about, though.
Personally, I’d love to see Oquendo or some other fielding guru in the system sit down with this guy over the off season and see if there’s any hope of getting him to be effective at 2B. A second baseman who has an ISO of .160 and walks 12% to 15% of the time … now that IS something to get interested in. But can he do it?
What you are saying, and I agree with, is that Luna is only a prospect (of middling value) if he is a 2B. As a corner OF, he has little value. Why they are playing him sparingly at 2B in the minors is beyond me (6 games in 2010). Would it have hurt to start Luna at 2B for 30 or 40 games over Jose Garcia in Springfield?
Yes, that’s the basic message. The worrisome thing is that he played 2B more in 2009 than in 2010. That, in combination with a poor RF/9, is why I infer that they’ve decided he can’t cut it there defensively. Given his definite on-base skills (not to mention the, uh, deficiencies of the incumbent at the big-league level…), I’d sure like to see them give him one last try at second, rather than consigning him to corner-outfieldhood.
Is Broderick near the prospect that Kopp is? Is he the Springfield version of Dickson? Not sure how to think about him as a prospect.
Why do you disregard Dickson?
How good a prospect is post-op Kopp anyway?
I made no value judgment on Dickson. I only made a comparative statement/question.