FanPost

2016 Midseason FaBIO Ratings: Quad Cities and Lancaster Pitchers


This is a brief update as to where the full-season A starters and relievers of the Houston Astros organization graded out relative to their league's pitching peers of that type per my Fielding- and Ballpark-Independent Outcomes (FaBIO) evaluation system during the first halves of the 2016 Midwest and California Leagues (second halves begin today, June 23). Much more detail on many of these arms can be found in my pre-2016 organizational top pitching prospects post.

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Rating Explanations

Each rating approximates the percentage of league peers that the pitcher stood to better at the corresponding stat. A 97 denotes plus plus (2 full standard deviations above league average), 84 is plus (one standard deviation above), 50 is average, 16 is minus, 3 is minus minus. Asterisks indicate southpaws.

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Results

Quad Cities: Midwest League (full-season A level)

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Franklin Perez continues to impress with his all-around abilities, ranking in his league's top 2% on overall performance while essentially being the circuit's youngest hurler. Later-round 2015 NCAA picks Matt Bower, Ryan Deemes, and Alex Winkelman got off to strong starts with Quad Cities that echoed their beyond plus 2015 pro debut FaBIO ratings and that work pushed them up to Lancaster in short order. Part-time 2015 QCers Rogelio Armenteros and Jacob Dorris were thrust up to Lancaster quickly as well. Fairly young for the level Jose Luis Hernandez is performing quite well at the non-batted-ball side of pitching but has some work to do in cleaning up his batted ball profile before a promotion enters into consideration. Albert Abreu's leap from the 2015 Appalachian League to 2016 Midwest League has had its rough stretches; though Abreu has improved to a plus plus bat misser, he is also a minus minus control artist who is getting pulled far too often on his OFFB (suggestive of some combo of his plus fastball velocity playing down and extreme changeup reliance).

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Lancaster: California League (full-season Advanced A level)

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2015 draft 3rd-round fireballer Riley Ferrell was off to a blazing start before being sidelined with a likely-season-ending surgery to address an aneurysm that developed in the vicinity of his throwing shoulder. The K ability of 2014 Oklahoma juco pick Joshua James has skyrocketed upward in the California League, suggesting that his offspeed repertoire is very much improved versus a year ago; accordingly, it is now rather easy to project him as an MLB relief prospect. Over the course of 3 seasons, seasoned organizational southpaw Evan Grills has fully transformed from a strikethrowing groundballer into a bat-missing flyballer. Though Armenteros' groundballing and control skills have dropped off considerably following his promotion to the Cal League, he continues to perform rather well overall while leaning more heavily on the strikeout. The batted ball profile of Dean Deetz has dropped off some versus 2015 but remains in plus territory; as was true then his second-half development focus stands to be on improving non-batted-ball outcomes. An aerially-skewed batted ball profile got preseason FaBIO favorite Elieser Hernandez into trouble in the Southern Division of the California League, and that he was so young for the circuit makes the recent Devenski-esque demotion to the Midwest League more palatable.

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Those Who Pitched at Both Full-Season A Levels

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Dorris' near plus plus K ability from a sidearm release slot makes him rather unique among MiLB relievers and a definite sleeper sort of MLB short relief prospect. Armenteros has improved from a nearly minus overall performer versus opposite-handed batters in 2015 to a plus plus one versus them so far in 2016.

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Exit Poll

Who earns your vote for Organizational A Ball Pitcher of the First Half?

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