Could he be Hos's replacement next year?

Considering Bubba Starling hit .183 with 7 HR at AA and AAA last year, no, no he couldn't.

Your hang up on batting average is silly. It's also worth noting Soler is a .260 career hitter through 700 MLB at bats. So focusing in on his 2016 BA, in a small sample with injuries also affecting him, is even sillier.

If he continues to OBP 70 points higher than his batting average, (and he did make progress here in 2016, OBPing nearly 100 points higher), he can hit .240-.250 and still be a plus offensive player.

If he can hit .260 while maintaining his OBP gains, that's a .350 or better OBP, and that's above-average.

BA is not to be ignored, but it shouldn't be focused on at the expense of OBP and SLG...


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Not really.

Striking out 25% of the time does, but BA and power are inversely related more often than not.

His fly ball rate actually went up a tick last year and his GB rate went down; that's a good sign for his power potential. And as BABIP is higher on GBs than FBs, more GBs generally means a higher BA but fewer HRs. They really aren't related apart from basic contact rates.

His xBABIP last year was .303 and his actual BABIP was .276. So he got hosed out of a handful of base hits by just raw dumb luck. If you correct for bad luck, his BA last year should've been .256. With the commensurate improvement in OBP and with the same ISO, regular batted ball luck means he's an .805 OPS guy last season in spot duty.

Again - I think folks are really underestimating his potential. If he's never any different than he is now, that's still a dangerous offensive weapon. And with just a tiny bit more contact, ideally in the form of line drives (as his LD rate was a little down), he could definitely be a legitimately strong middle of the order bat.

You want to talk about the increase in price for closers? How easy do you think it is to get your hands on young righthanded power? Closers are still nothing more than failed starters - righthanded sluggers, OTOH, are held onto like grim death.

Dude stole from me as well:


http://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showpost....&postcount=357

Mostly jazayerli seems to be a day behind this thread at this point...

Keep peddling this bullshit. "Dayton let him walk." Yeah, all the way to his old manager and to be closer to his home, taking less money than what other teams offered.

First you think Bubba Starling can hit .238 in the majors in 2017, now you're recycling this Zobrist crap.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/165729...ice-with-cubs/


If you think Soler won't pan out, fine. It's certainly an arguable point. But argue it. Don't cloak it in BS.

Maybe he will start stealing from half can and say we should've resigned Ben.....


In GMDM we trust (excluding the Soria signing).

ROFL

I remember you posted that.

You're being diplomatic.

For a guy who's primary offensive function is power - BA can pretty well be ignored. If you really care about what it suggests, just look at K% instead. You could look at Soler's baseball card and learn all you need to learn without ever looking at his batting average - it just doesn't matter.

Like I said, the inverse relationship between fly balls and batting average makes a high BA something that could actually HURT a player like Soler. That's just not his game.

That said, I understand why Royals fans are annoyed by him. The Royals have defied every 'three true outcomes' model there is to defy over the last 3 seasons so some of their fans seemed to have forgotten about some of the developments in that area. But the bottom line is that BA is still a shit way to measure a players offensive contributions.

[QUOTE=duncan_idaho;12601663]Considering Bubba Starling hit .183 with 7 HR at AA and AAA last year, no, no he couldn't.

Your hang up on batting average is silly. It's also worth noting Soler is a .260 career hitter through 700 MLB at bats. So focusing in on his 2016 BA, in a small sample with injuries also affecting him, is even sillier.

If he continues to OBP 70 points higher than his batting average, (and he did make progress here in 2016, OBPing nearly 100 points higher), he can hit .240-.250 and still be a plus offensive player.

If he can hit .260 while maintaining his OBP gains, that's a .350 or better OBP, and that's above-average.

BA is not to be ignored, but it shouldn't be focused on at the expense of OBP and SLG...

I was kidding about Bubba-he was suppose to be a "top prospect" and so far has not lived up to the hype. That is why I am cautious when talking about "potential" when compared to a guy like Wade - who nailed down the WS for us.

You make a lot of good point-I hope you are right and this kid knocks the shit out of the ball. We need some hitters in the lineup.

A member of my Cardinals board is Zobrist's wife's brother (more directly - Zobrist married his sister).

My memory is that it happened a year or two ago and the guy is from Illinois so I suspect her family is there as well.

There were a lot of things drawing Zobrist to Chicago. I'm not sure there's anything the Royals could have done to prevent that.

Jed Hoyer said that the Cubs and their trainers were given the opportunity to get a hands on physical of his arm this morning before finalizing the deal.

I have to assume they were confident enough that he can make through at least 2017 healthy.

It's rather confusing to me to see the Cubs dealing their best chips for rentals when there is an obvious hole next season in the rotation with only 3 pitchers under contract, one being Monty who has very little starting experience.

Obviously the Royals thought Bubba could hit at least that-or they would not have drafted him in the first place. The point was, most prospects don't pan out. Isn't that what Soler is? The Royals traded a known commodity -hoping he can be a descent power hitter they really need.

As far as Ben-it never seemed the Royals really tried all that hard-but I will let it rest. It was a great move on his part and I am happy for him. I am sure Wade is excited to be going for a repeat. The Cubs are loaded.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wade Davis tells me: &quot;<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash">#Royals</a> fans were amazing. They made me tick every time I stepped on the field. And ...they made me feel like family.&quot;</p>&mdash; Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/FlannyMLB/status/806591816371990528">December 7, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Starling and Elier Hernandez are examples of the Royals not succeeding with young players that are super toolsy but don't have great baseball acumen at the time of signing. It's frustrating to see it happen, if you know how to develop those guys you get stars if you don't you get dudes who never make the majors.

Um, I, uh ... Yeah, when you draft somebody, you always think they'll succeed. But after five years of on-the-field performance, I think it's safe to say that Starling is nowhere near capable of hitting .238 in the majors. He MIGHT hit 12 homers if you give him 600 ABs (while hitting .138 with 300 Ks).

I'd say Soler already has panned out a lot more than Starling has (or probably will). If Soler doesn't get even a tick better, he's still a useful player because he has power (whether he'd be worth Davis is another matter). The deal with Soler is HOW MUCH BETTER he can become. The deal with Starling and other MiL prospects is will he/they ever become anything?