Let’s look at the rookies’ performance after very brief playing time
Shay Whitcomb was destroying the Pacific Coast League. (Most of the prospect mavens said “meh.”) Zach Dezenzo moved like a flash through minor league levels and showed big time power in the PCL. (He was ranked as the Number 5 prospect in what the prospectors would call a weak farm system.)
Both of these guys were called up to the Astros at about the same time. The Astros desperately needed depth and hoped for offensive help in the bottom part of the batting order. Neither has been an everyday player, and their actual performances on the field has been brief. It’s far too early to reach any conclusions, even from the “eye test.” But I think most of us are watching both players to gain some insight on how they may help the Astros right now, as well as their potential for next year.
Sometimes articles talk about “small sample size theatre,” and in this case my article can be described as “miniscule sample size theatre.” Whitcomb has 26 PA and 60 or so innings in the field. Dezenzo has 40 PA and 81 innings in the field. Sabermetrics probably would say, “Don’t write this article.” But, what the heck! We still want to talk about the two young players. But please don’t reach any firm conclusions about the two players’ future at this stage of their playing time.
Given the small sample size, I will mostly stick with Statcast “expected stats,” because batted ball luck is magnified in the tiny sample. The X stat slash line below:
Whitcomb x-BA .362 x-SLG .580 xwOBA .458
Dezenzo x-BA .224 x-SLG .440 xwOBA .299
The Baseball Savant batting percentiles are shown below. Savant’s red and blue bars show a lighter color because of the players’ small sample.
Whitcomb
Baseball Savant
Dezenzo
Baseball Savant
While the Statcast rankings tell us something about what has happened so far in a small sample, the numbers can change very quickly and drastically as the samples grow in size.
- Whitcomb has gotten off to a very good start in a tiny sample. He has been hitting the ball hard with high exit velocity and shown the ability to barrel up the ball. While it’s a small sample, it’s worth noting that this is exactly what Shay was doing in AAA. The chase percent, whiff percent, and BB% are also early indicators of plate discipline.
- Dezenzo’s start is a little more spotty. On the positive side, his bat speed and hard hit rate has been exceptional. And hitting the ball hard is something that matches Zach’s minor league scouting profile. In the early going, Dezenzo has experienced some plate discipline problems as indicated by the whiff rate, chase rate, and K rate rankings. This undoubtedly has led to an unfavorable batting average. However, his x-SLG has been pretty good.
- Interestingly Dezenzo is the fastest of the two players. Dezenzo’s sprint speed (28.4 fps) is nearly in the top 20% of major league players. Whitcomb’s sprint speed is slightly above average (27.4 fps), putting him at the 53 percentile mark. However, Whitcomb’s speed isn’t quite as fast as I assumed based on the remarks of the Astros’ player development coach.
One of the key questions for both players is what positions they will play. This will determine how much playing time they can get for the remainder of the season. Dezenzo has mostly played 1b (other than 2 innings at 3b) and DH. Shay Whitcomb has only played 3b. But that mostly occurred when Alex Bregman was out of the lineup. With Bregman returning to the 3b position, there is a question mark how much additional playing time Whitcomb will receive.
Whitcomb hasn’t received many fielding chances at 3b, and is “0” on Outs Above Average (OAA). By the eye test in the few innings he has played, he appears to be around average as a fielder at 3b.
Dezenzo is relatively new to playing 1b and he has exhibited a few miscues. He is currently -3 OAA in his brief fielding time at 1b. By the eye test, he can look inexperienced, but his speed allows him to show good range at 1b.
Will either Whitcomb or Dezenzo get any playing time in LF? We know that the Astros have given both some practice reps in LF, but only Whitcomb has played the OF in AAA (and not a lot there). The unusual LF configurations on this road trip may not have been conducive to playing either inexperienced player in the outfield. Although Whitcomb played some OF in Sugar Land, I wonder if his limited speed would affect whether he plays the OF for the Astros.
The bottom line is…well, there is no bottom line. It’s too early to evaluate the two rookies But I will say that they both have shown some positives in their limited playing time.
A Note on Yordan Alvarez
Ben Clemens has an Fangraphs article entitled “What if all the fences were the same distance away?” As you can tell from the title, this is a hypothetical exercise. Basically he constructs a scenario in which all stadiums uniformly have equal distance outfield fences with a 10 foot wall. This would increase HRs overall, but reduce the number of singles, leading to only a slight increase in MLB OPS.
But guess who gains the most from the symmetric ballparks? Yordan Alvarez. As Clemens writes:
The hitter who would benefit most from the fences changing shape is a guy who plays with a notably short porch already: Yordan Alvarez, who would be hitting .317/.405/.625 in our new world. That’s an increase in every slash line stat, and he’d also have 11 more homers, as we saw up above. The guy really stings the ball to every part of the park, and these strange new fences would make that pay off in a big way.
This analysis doesn’t mean much in the real world as opposed to the make believe world. But it does show that Alvarez is very good because he hits the ball hard all over the park