Alcides Escobar: impressive Venezuelan Winter League numbers

[Turnbowsaves24]

Anyone else look at Escobar stats for the Venezuelan Winter League? He did pretty well this past league hitting an impressive .392 and was 16 for 18 in SBs. Getting more and more excited about this season

[owbc]

He also added 14 walks to that in 45 games, which is a modest improvement over his minor league numbers.

[stalton]

Anyone else look at Escobar stats for the Venezuelan Winter League? He did pretty well this past league hitting an impressive .392 and was 16 for 18 in SBs. Getting more and more excited about this season

C/P from my post in the minor league thread

Escobar with a great .393/.440/.491 and OPSing at a .931

Hurricane even with a very respectable .309/.365/.446 and a OPS of .810

 

The pitching might not be the greatest, but count me as someone who is impressed.

[rluzinski]

What is the Venezuelan Winter League compared to, AA? AAA?

[endaround]

I think its much closer to wood bat summer leagues than organized MiLB.

[thebruce44]

Yea, it would be interesting to see rough ML equivalents.

[JohnBriggs12]

The pitching down there is a mix bag. It includes a lot of veterans that had long AAA and fringe major league (ala guys like former Brewer Horacio Estrada) careers but no longer are in affiliated baseball. It also includes current minor league guys from Rookie ball on up to AAA with most in the category of high A types. It also includes a handful of current/recent major leaguers such as Yusmeiro Petit and a few others. So endarounds contention that it's the equivalent of wood bat college leagues is pretty far off.

 

You want a better read on the pitching? Look what other hitters did. Gamel hit .211/.268/.447 in very few AB's (38). Heether hit .214/.389/.371 in 70 AB. Katin hit .246/.373/.431. Former Twin Lew Ford hit .262/.364/.348. Current Cub OF Sam Fuld hit .241/.313/.448. Current Brave IF Martin Prado hit .271/.286/.333. Current Pirate and former Cub Ronny Cedeno hit .300/.327/.553 in a fairly significant number of ABs. Current Cub utility If Andres Blanco hit .291/.353/.430. Henry Blanco hit .267/.338/.467. 2009 NL MVP candidate Pablo Sandoval hit .395/.425/.605 in 81 ABs. Toronto AAA 1B Brian Dopriak who hit .330 in AAA last year, hit .270/.358/.474. One time All Star Richard Hidalgo (remember him) hit .306/.429/.480. Current D-Back OF Gerardo Parra hit .333/.422/.375.

 

So endaround can dismiss the pitching quality all he wants. The fact is the only current major leaguer that put up numbers that equate to what Escobar put up was Pablo Sandoval, a .330 hitter in the NL last year.

[endaround]

How is it far off? Yeah there are some stars there but there are also a great deal of never will bes and never has beens. Some take it seriously some take it for a nice paycheck in the winter and some use it for rehab.

I don't mean talent wise, yeah the winter leagues have more talent, but on the ability to tell anything from it I think they are pretty similar.

[TooLiveBrew]

The fact is the only current major leaguer that put up numbers that equate to what Escobar put up was Pablo Sandoval, a .330 hitter in the NL last year.

 

Actually the fact is also that Ronny Cedeno, he of the .240/.280/.346/.626 career MLB line, came darn close to equalling Escobar's production. Between small samples & the lack of overall pitching talent, I don't think we should put too much stock in anyone's numbers. It's nice to see that Escobar raked, but aside from feeling good about it I don't see the production telling us anything new about the players.

[rluzinski]

Is this where people are getting their data?

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/s...&lid=135&t=l_bat

 

That's just the batters who qualified, so you must be going somewhere else for the whole group. The qualified batters had an aggregate line of .304/.383/.456/.838!!! I'm glad Escobar had a great 173 AB but what are we talking about here, A ball pitching? Who is Tom Evans and how did he put up an OPS over 1.000?

 

With regard to projecting Escobar's 2010 season, this should be completely ignored, IMO.

[TooLiveBrew]

For some reason, Cedeno isn't listed as a qualified batter, but he has more ABs (151) than some of the guys on the 'qualified' list -- at least, when you sort by OPS. If you sort that page by ABs, it looks like you can see everyone. I think it's just a poorly-maintained webpage.

[rluzinski]

Thanks for the info. The line for the Venezuelan league was .286/.362/.429/.790. In comparison, MLB batters averaged .262/.333/.418/.751 in the majors last year. I wonder what the batting line looks like for just minor league batters.

[Ennder]

For some reason, Cedeno isn't listed as a qualified batter, but he has more ABs (151) than some of the guys on the 'qualified' list -- at least, when you sort by OPS. If you sort that page by ABs, it looks like you can see everyone. I think it's just a poorly-maintained webpage.

I don't know what the cut off is but it goes by PA not AB so if there are guys who BB a lot they can be qualified but have lower AB.