Deeds vs. Swisher

by wcooley on Dec 12, 2005 9:33 AM EST

Developing Hitters

Prior to the demise of Twinsgeek.com there was plenty of talk on how the Twins have failed to develop hitters, especially hitters with any power. Many bloggers also noted that the A's, with their emphasis on high OBP and SLG, were a franchise worth emulating. Can we test this?

Take the case of Doug Deeds and Nick Swisher. Both Deeds and Swisher entered THE Ohio State University in 2000. Swisher, possibly because he was the son of former major leaguer Steve Swisher, played immediately and was the Big Ten freshman of the year. Deeds redshirted in 2000, but in 2001 he matched Swisher's feat as the Big Ten's best rookie. Over their college careers, Deeds actually outslugged Swisher, .628 to .613, and their OBPs were almost identical (.452 and .447).

Deeds and Swisher are either "versatile" or positionless, as both logged time at DH, 1B and the OF in their careers at Ohio St. But in pro ball both have settled into the OF.

Physically, they are almost identical:
Deeds L/L 6'1" 185 06/02/1981

Swisher S/L 6'0" 195 1/25/1980

Yet last year, Swisher was on the Big Club while Deeds was in New Britain:

Swisher (with the A's): .236/.322/.436
Deeds (with RockCats): .304/.382/.479

and just for further comparison, Swisher hit a paltry .230/.324/.380 at AA Midland (287 ab) in 2003.

Yet Swisher is being mentioned as one of the A's good young sluggers, while Deeds is a footnote in the Twins' plans. Is something amiss here?

Notes:
Deeds did have a short year in 2003 (5 games and 15 at-bats), did an injury knock him off the Twins board?

Swisher was a first round pick, while Deeds was a ninth rounder. So do the A's expect more from Swisher? Deeds may have slipped because he was just a redshirt sophomore with leverage, while Swisher was a junior who had proved himself.

Home Runs: Ah, yes, the long ball. Swisher had 29 of them in Sacramento in 2004. Deeds had only 16 last year in New Britain. But who doesn't hit bombs in the Pacific Coast League?

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Comments

In this case, maybe the Twins are correct

For whatever reason, Swisher was obviously a better prospect coming out of OSU as a 1st round pick vs. Deeds in the 9th round. Swisher made it to the A's at the age of 25 and is now 26, which certainly isn't young. And although he is just entering his second season...we don't know if he will ever become anything more than what he accomplished last year.

I don't know what you are trying to say with this comparison? Should the Twins be faulted for a player who came out of OSU as a 9th round pick not making it to the major leagues as a power hitter? I certainly don't think so! It would be much different than if the A's selected a college player on the 1st round and he didn't make it. Regardless of what their numbers were at OSU, people that know a lot more about baseball than you or I had them ranked significantly different. With that said, I think Deeds has done an excellent job as he has moved up the system and hopefully will be in the hunt for a job in the Twins outfield in late 2006 or 2007.

Considering where they were drafted, it may end up that the Twins took the correct approach and the A's didn't, however, we won't know that for several years.

by roger @ Twinkie Town on Dec 12, 2005 11:21 AM EST reply actions

Swisher just turned 25

So this was his age 24 season. 2006 will be his age 25 season.

by Sulla on Dec 12, 2005 4:03 PM EST up reply actions

Birthday

According to the posting and the A's 40-man roster, he was born on January 25, 1980. Therefore, he was 25 this entire past season. Deeds was born on June 2, 1981, thus, he turned 24 during the season.

by roger @ Twinkie Town on Dec 12, 2005 4:15 PM EST up reply actions

It's wrong.

He was born November 25, 1980.

by Sulla on Dec 12, 2005 4:22 PM EST up reply actions

Apt comparison

The fact is, the Twins have more hitters than the ordinary impression allows. Deeds would be a top prospect in most orgs, like Swisher was on the A's. He can't even make the 40-man roster in the Twins system. I was somewhat surprised no one took him in the Rule 5 draft. But the Twins chose to protect Alex Romero instead, who's younger and has better plate discipline. Deeds and Romero will likely fight for a roster spot at Rochester. Guess who will win? That's despite Deeds putting up some of the best numbers in the Eastern League last year.

With Kubel and Romero, the Twins could afford to lose Deeds. You can't say that about the A's and Swisher. And now Deeds finds himself even lower on the depth chart because of Jason Pridie.

The only reason the A's drafted Swisher so high (in the famous Money Ball draft) was Beane decided to do an experiment and ignored conventional draft forcasts in favor of DePodesta's numerical analysis of college players. I think he was rated a little higher than the 9th round. But he was not a top-15 overall pick. Jeremy Brown was a sandwich pick in that draft. Every other team had him ranked in the mid 20s, similar to our Deaon Burns (in a different way) because of a strange body type and despite great college numbers. So Beane passed up a huge pool of high quality talent on account of his experiment. If I'm not mistaken, Swisher is the only guy from that draft to make it (Dan Johnson?).

Joe Mauer fan since 1998, when I lived next to Cretin's ballfield.

by cmathewson on Dec 12, 2005 11:30 AM EST reply actions

Joe Blanton, Mark Teahan

Those two also came out of the first round of the Moneyball draft. Blanton, Swisher and Teahan were rated as 1st or 2nd round picks by most clubs, so it is no coincidence that those are the 3 of the 7 1st rounders that actually ended up having value.

by snuessle on Dec 12, 2005 11:38 AM EST up reply actions

Jon Paplebon

Paplebon was also drafted by the A's in 2002.

by moopdog on Dec 12, 2005 5:13 PM EST up reply actions

I don't know if you can say that

Baseball America had Swisher going at #15 to the Mets in their mock draft.

by Sulla on Dec 12, 2005 4:36 PM EST up reply actions

Careful about cherry-picking

Attempting to draw general conclusions from examining at individual cases is dangerous territory. 'Anecdotal evidence' is easily used to make things appear true that really aren't.

by hornbakr on Dec 12, 2005 11:33 AM EST reply actions

Cherry-picking

I'm not sure how comparing two players with this many similarities can be called cherry-picking. The fact is the Twins organization has a PROBLEM. The Twins have not had a 30+ home run guy since 1987 (correct me if I'm wrong). Now maybe Doug Deeds is not a 30 homer guy, but maybe he should be. If Swisher goes out an hits 20+ homers next year and Deeds languishes, can we draw any conclusions? Or is the Twins' power outage just a fluke? Paging John Vavra.

by wcooley on Dec 12, 2005 11:49 AM EST reply actions

Small sample size, then...

"If Swisher goes out an hits 20+ homers next year and Deeds languishes, can we draw any conclusions?"

No, we can't. Just like we can't draw general conclusions about the organizational philosophies of the Twins and the A's by looking at one player from each organization.

It might be interesting to look at the two players because of their similarities, but they each represent specific cases. If you want to compare organizational philosophies, you should look at the whole organization, not just two players.

by ubelmann on Dec 12, 2005 12:13 PM EST up reply actions

Evidence - actual vs. anecdotal

I'm not saying the Twins don't have a problem developing hitters. Nor am I saying the Twins do have a problem developing hitters. I'm saying that a credible analysis requires analyzing more than a handful of individual players. Your statement 'The Twins have not had a 30+ home run guy since 1987' does more to advance your thesis than your comparison of Deeds and Swisher does.

by hornbakr on Dec 12, 2005 12:26 PM EST up reply actions

Heh

All this comparisson says to me is that the Twins are too cautious.

by MNPundit on Dec 12, 2005 12:32 PM EST up reply actions

Thesis

I'm not sure that I have a thesis. Maybe this shows that the Twins actually have a lot of good prospects. Maybe they are being too careful. Maybe Deeds' injury set him back. Maybe this shows nothing.

Obviously, the data is incomplete, but if Swisher flourishes next year and Deeds is stuck behind guys like Lew F'ing Ford in right field...I will have questions (and you don't want guys like me to "have questions.")

I'm not scientist, but isn't "sample size" impossible in terms of prospects, because one cannot control for anything other than that they are all baseball players?

by wcooley on Dec 12, 2005 1:00 PM EST reply actions

Just a word to get the point across...

If we want to compare the A's farm system to Twins' farm system, then we should look at all A's prospects and all Twins prospects. If we don't, then we are looking at a "sample" of A's prospects compared to a "sample" of Twins prospects. If you wanted to do a more meaningful comparison, you could choose a larger group of players to compare, like say the draft class of 1999 or something. Then you would have a larger sample than the two players you chose.

by ubelmann on Dec 12, 2005 3:03 PM EST up reply actions

some thoughts

I've always had a soft spot for Doug Deeds for some reason. The lost season--due to a shoulder injury--certainly set him back.

Cmathewson is wrong about one thing: Swisher was regarded as first round material throughout baseball that year--in fact on draft day Beane was pretty sure that, as a result of Denard Span dropping because of bouns demands, that he would miss out on Swisher to the Mets. The Mets wound up taking Kazmir instead, just before the A's picked Swisher. I don't think you can compare usefully the two players; the entire industry saw them as much different level prospects. In fact, you could argue that Deeds succeeding at AA is as much or more than you would or could expect from a 9th round choice.

The Twins ability to develop hitters is certainly worth studying, but it would require quite a bit of work. You would have to adjust for where they were picking, what results have been obtained as compared to other teams, etc. If you found that they don't develop hitters as well as they should, the question then becomes is it a result of weaknesses in amatuer scouting, or is it an organizational development problem?

It seems to me, depending on when you want to cut it off, that the Twins have had their successes--the core of their division winning teams were home grown draftees: Jones, Hunter, Koskie, Mientkiewicz. You can say that these guys aren't star hitters, OK, but there aren't a lot of star hitters out there. Getting solid regulars out of drafts is a success.

More recently you have Mauer and Morneau as well, plus Cuddyer, who may be about as good as Swisher. Plus you can't forget Kubel, a 12th round choice.

I don't know how this stacks up, and I'll grant you that I'm not too high on any of the Twins current minor league hitters. I'm not sold that any of Moses, Span, Romero, Plouffe, et. al. will ever be regulars in the major leagues.

by Eric in Madison on Dec 12, 2005 4:36 PM EST reply actions

Deeds

Other than the fact that Deeds is from OSU, he has also been a favorite of mine. I likewise am of the opinion that the numbers he put up at AA last year for a 9th round pick, who missed an entire year, may be more impressive than Swisher's numbers for a #1 pick. Will be interesting to see how each does in 2006.

By the way, are you a transplanted Minnesotan at UW?

by roger @ Twinkie Town on Dec 12, 2005 5:34 PM EST up reply actions

I disagree

I see Romero as a solid player in the show. Matt Moses was only 20 this year at New Britian and while his average and D was subpar the rest of his stats looked good. Moses also missed almost a whole year due to back trouple in '04. I see moses potentially developing into a star and i certainly think he can be a regular.

by joeywyen @ Twinkie Town on Dec 14, 2005 2:38 PM EST up reply actions

Moses is #1

If you apply my formula to his 2005 performance, discounted for the levels he played at...Matt Moses was the #1 player in the Twins minor league system. Yes, I was surprised...but his excellent performance at Ft. Myers and playing AA at 20 years old, my numbers say he is #1.

by roger @ Twinkie Town on Dec 14, 2005 2:57 PM EST up reply actions

by the way Roger

when's your overview of twins outfielders coming out, I'm really curious to see your information on Romero, Span, Kubel, Deeds, etc.

by joeywyen @ Twinkie Town on Dec 14, 2005 3:09 PM EST up reply actions

Outfielders

Will be on Seths site tomorrow morning.

by roger @ Twinkie Town on Dec 14, 2005 3:25 PM EST up reply actions

Kubel

Seeing that Kubel joined the Twins in late August, 2004, and was on the Twins roster (injured) all of 2005...he isn't included with the minor league guys.

by roger @ Twinkie Town on Dec 14, 2005 3:28 PM EST up reply actions

Sample Size and scouting

ericinmadison: Thank you for articulating what I was trying to get at. In order to compare two franchises or draft classes with a proper sample size: "You would have to adjust for where they were picking, what results have been obtained as compared to other teams, etc. If you found that they don't develop hitters as well as they should, the question then becomes is it a result of weaknesses in amatuer scouting, or is it an organizational development problem?" Add in yearly draft emphases; factor in injuries, ballparks, international scouting, etc. etc. etc. It's nearly impossible.

But Deeds and Swisher also bring up other questions: With such similar numbers why was Swisher regarded as the superior player? What did the scouts "see" that the layman cannot? His genes? His "body type" or "athleticism"? (things that Beane seems to believe are overrated)

When I played college ball I was always struck by the brief appearances the scouts put in at the games (they were NOT there to see me and my .200 avg). Likewise, at U of Illinois games, most scouts only watch for an inning or two. What do they see that I don't?

by wcooley on Dec 12, 2005 5:39 PM EST reply actions

I wouldn't know what scouts look for specifically

But I would guess its things like bat speed, pitch recognition, athleticism. Body type.

Natural power. Speed. What position a guy will be able to play in the pros.

by Eric in Madison on Dec 12, 2005 6:53 PM EST up reply actions

Swisher

Great topic WCOOLEY, very interesting comparison...

I think great points are made. The Twins aren't completely void of offensive prospects. However, the only that are generally considered as top-level prospects would be Moses and Span and Romero probably. But the system also includes Deeds and Matienzo and Plouffe and Winfree and others that could (or will) contribute to the Twins. It is not necessarily a strong group, but it isn't as bad as many want to think.

Also, if you remember, Swisher was very highly thought of. Remember that Beane would not go to an Ohio State game just because that would make it known that he wanted Swisher. He knew that both the 'geek' crowd and the 'traditional' scouts liked Swisher.

by SethSpeaks on Dec 13, 2005 10:27 PM EST reply actions