Dennis Raben
Dennis Raben is a 6'3", 220-lb thumper out of an awesome baseball school, Miami, taken by the M's with the #66 overall last year. For those guys with stars in their eyes about five early picks in 2009, Raben's grist to the mill.
Here's a real good early-2008 scouting report on Raben. It comp'ed him to David Justice, projected his role as "perennial ML all-star in RF," and slotted him to the #10-20 overall (#5-10 if not for his injury). Concerns about that dropped Raben all the way to the #66 overall, where the M's grabbed him.
As y'might remember, Raben started his pro career 10-for-12 with 5 BB and 0 K, LOL. Five doubles and a homer. Swinging the wooden bats, he went on to hit .275/.411/.560 (about a 1000 OPS) at low-A Everett.
It looks like the next-best AquaSox hitter had a 850 OPS.
Hadn't heard about the back in 2008, but it looks like he missed the middle of August, and returned to play some in late August. It's probably something that's going to flare up on him off and on. Maybe ARod can get him the hookup and put the DL worries in the past...
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D-O-V with the kibitzing on the above scouting report:
Physical Description - Large, extra strong, muscular frame. Wide shoulders and is a true physical specimen. Thick legs, muscular arms. … Has the look of a slugging big leaguer already. Well proportioned athlete, doesn’t look overly muscled despite his size. Looks like Chipper Jones.
Actually, he looks like Fred McGriff. Dennis is a skosh thicker through the core, but they move in a similar way — real loose hips, flicky power, super light on their feet, look like they're swinging Wiffleball bats.
Sandy could check the vid; he knows Chipper and McGriff real well. Maybe he's got some thoughts.
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Hitting - As confident a hitter as you’ll see. Good swagger at the plate. Short, powerful stroke with great extension. Long follow through with very little effort through the zone. Ball just explodes off his bat. Smooth, compact swing. … Looks like he was born to hit, not many things to go [awry] in his swing. [Fkey7 auto-comment]
Swing reminds me eerily of, um, Fred McGriff's.
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Draft Projection: Between picks 10 and 20 (would be 5-10 if not for injury) … Projected Role: Middle-of-the-order hitter, perennial all-star in right field
Ahhhhhhhh … I know what you're thinkin'. :- ) How did this guy slide?
With such obvious franchise upside, he slides because scouts get too precious about his weaknesses. They stare and stare for a year, and that weakness just starts becoming an obsession.
We've heard about three of them. Weaknesses, I mean:
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Pre-draft injury. ML teams are notorious about wanting their early-rounders to be as fit as possible on draft day. Even one bad start, for a pitcher, right before the draft, can drop him 15 picks. It's not logical. It's a moneyball value opportunity.
That said, I can sympathize with the concern that (1) he's got a loose lower back and hips, and (2) has had back problems. Mr. B will relate to the Golfer's Back Syndrome. But I don't know a lot of hitters whose careers were ruined because of that, do you?
I'm guessing that Fontaine would tell you that Raben's a bit of a gamble, that he's a top-10 talent if his back holds up.
Again: I've heard of lots of hitters with bad backs, but heard of few who retired at 25 because of bad backs. Buy an extra whirlpool and hand him the Advil.
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Reports of weak batspeed. Like with Jeff Clement. Good luck finding anybody who thinks he'll be much of a major league player. ;- )
Honestly, "batspeed," handspeed, launch speed, perceptive speed, throughspeed, as you know, D-O-V thinks that it's all terribly difficult to judge. From what I can tell, "slow batspeed" usually seems to mean, "I saw him swing through a couple of 90 fastballs that day."
When the ball flies 425 feet, there's some batspeed going on. As to whether Raben can turn around Erik Bedard, well, we'll see. :- ) We'll see whether anybody else can, either...
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"Passive at the plate." Again, a visitor gets excited to see a game, and then the kid goes up there and takes 15 pitches, walks two or three times, lets a real good one go by in the third AB, and now the scout's ticked off. You try spending a day, or a weekend, going to see a kid, and then not getting to see him swing the bat.
This is before your time, but I remember when Frank Thomas was busted for precisely the same "fault." Frank had such Ted Williams-like confidence in his own strike zone that he'd just stand there and refuse to swing at a ball, even in college.
Again, you can sympathize: it's like waiting all week to go to an NBA game, and then the players don't show you anything. But I also wouldn't worry — at ALL — about a report that said "needs to swing the bat more." Practically every hitter needs to swing the bat less, and do more when they do swing, like Teddy and Bonds and Ruth and Edgar and the Mick did.
If I read a report that said "needs to swing the bat more," I'd chuckle and upgrade the kid on my board. B'lee dat.
Incidentally, the Crime Dog was also super-confident and super-patient at the plate — and note that McGriff was drafted in the 9th round.
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=== Get Excited with Dr D's Blessing, Dept. ===
The average major leaguer was drafted in the 15th round. Mike Piazza was drafted in the 62nd. Seeing ML All-Stars drafted late isn't something that is possible; it is something that usually happens, something that happens most of the time.
I'm not a Mangini fan or an Almonte fan or an Orta fan; I'm not a guy who gets charged up about every 2nd-rounder. But a glance at that Raben video, along with his awesome confidence/plate discipline and documented 425-foot power, tells you all you need to know.
The main question at this point seems to be Raben's health. Maybe JFro or G-Money can update us?
At this point, M's fans have every right to ask whether the Mariners reeled in the second coming of Fred McGriff.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
I'll get back to you in full
I'll get back to you in full later when I get home to my research, but I find it's funny that we bring Mangini in to the discussion and bust his chops when both he and Raben have the bad back thing working against them. I believe that when we compared the two, however, that we'd find very different swings. Mangini's weight transfer was awful, from what I remember, and that probably messes up his back while sapping his power. He might be a guy like Thornton were suddenly someone gets an Idea about him and he's fixed.
Similarly, I wouldn't discount Orta that much. No second rounder, sho' nuff, but did you see his Venezuela numbers? 38/4 K/BB in 28.2 innings with 21 hits. Our boy Shawn Kelley only had 21/2 in 14.2 IP with 14 hits. Now is a fantastic time to buy low on Orta.
[and for the record, the org loves Almonte]
While your reputation for
While your reputation for making stuff up is legendary, this has to take the cake. The average major leaguer is drafted in the 15th round. Wow.
This is better than Morse = A-Rod, Betancourt = Soriano, Lopez = Tejada, Sexon\'s career is on an upswing, and all the other amazingly stupid things you\'ve written over the years.
You really don\'t have any idea about how baseball works, do you? The average major leaguer is drafted in the 15th round... Maybe you learned that from Ann Coulter...
Unbelievable. Even you can\'t top something this stupid.
I thought deleting posts was
I thought deleting posts was what those other nazi websites that you hate did. Don't you call that censorship?
Just own up to the fact that you just wrote the stupidest thing in the history of you writing dumb things. Or admit that you're a hypocrite. Either one is fine with me.
The average major leaguer is drafted in the 15th round... Unbelievable.
98% of posters are aware of
98% of posters are aware of the spamfilter delay for new contributors. The internet has been around a while now, as has blogging.
About once or twice a year we get somebody who assumes he's been censored -- with an 0.1 second response time -- and who starts screaming and throwing chairs around the room. Congrats, you're the first for '09. :- )
Such posters, who pop veins at their assumption of censorship that D-O-V does NOT perform, heartily endorse censorship that other blogs DO perform. The technical term for this is "hypocrisy."
Or can you point me to where you ever objected to censorship at USSM? Thought not.
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You're not the one who objects to censorship. I am. As you know, since you've been reading me faithfully.
You seem a little angry at
You seem a little angry at seeing a statement you think is in error. :- ) Any chance of being a bit less emotional? This, and Mariner Central, are sites where people talk *baseball*.
Yeah, about 5-10 years ago I read a study that pegged the average MLB player's draft round as being about 15.
If it's changed since then, great, link me up amigo. What's your source?
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Next time, how about something more like "Actually, this study [hyperlink] has the average draft round at 7.1" rather than throwing your strained peas at the wall?
This is better than Morse =
Nobody reads an author for "YEARS" without being a closet fan. For example, you'll notice I don't visit your site. ;- )
I don't think there are ANY baseball authors I've read for "YEARS." Maybe Ken Rosenthal. Glad to be in your bookmarks, pal.
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1. Are you saying, after watching Jose Lopez in the 2H last year, that you STILL don't judge Miguel Tejada as a possible archetype?
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2. I gave a 30% chance of Yuniesky Betancourt fulfilling his talent. The equals sign = gives a 100% chance. It's hard to think when you're sneering, isn't it?
Betancourt took the 70% road. His work ethic cost him his shot at stardom.
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3. Everybody reading knows that we never projected Mike Morse to hit 55 home runs and win an MVP. We comp'ed him to Jose Valentin IF everything broke right for him. Morse IS similar to ARod in physical frame and in swing shape.
My material is public and can be checked. Distortions like "You said Morse = ARod nyah nyah" do not get the audience laughing at me. It gets the audience laughing at you.
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4. Yep, I thought Sexson would age well. That turned out to be exactly wrong.
We'll see to what extent Safeco, and the weird luck of 2007, will have been responsible for that.
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If you were looking for stuff I wrote that was genuinely dumb, you could have done a lot better than my comp'ing Lopez to Tejada. I'd have started with me recommending the M's sign Barry Zito :- ) Now, THAT was dumb.
Sound like the guy has a
Sound like the guy has a problem with your political views, and chooses to use his life energy to spew venom at you because of it. If he is displaying his version of rational discussion and the tolerance he most likely fantasizes as his ethos, he is hardly persuasive. If he disagrees with your views, say, on gay marriage, your an intolerant bigot. If you express an opinion he disagrees with, you are...an intolerant bigot. Hard to engage with someone like that. The only way you can please them is to agree with them. Everyone else is an intolerant bigot.
Ya, real shocker there. He's
Ya, real shocker there. He's anti-Coulter and militantly liberal. I'm different from him. Ergo, he justifiably hates my guts.
I can feel the tolerance :- )
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What is interesting is how FEW trolls we get on DOV / SSI / PB / MC. Most blogs are flooded by them; here it's the exception.
Seems to me that the reason is not the author, but the audience. Trolls know that they're going to be on their own at these sites, so usually manage to restrain their rage at those who think differently.
Most of the amigos at Mariner Central are liberal -- 70% of internet users are -- but manage to speak to non-liberals in a civil manner. :- )
*sigh* I was reading through
*sigh* I was reading through the LL QC thread over at lookout landing and got to thinking about why I post at DOV/SSI/PB but not the other sites that I like to read. In the end, the reason is that too many sites place too much value on incremental improvements in SABR methods relative to the overwhelming failure of SABR methods to accomplish the methods they are designed to achieve -- namely predicting future performance.
A classic example for me is the obsession with FIP, xFIP, or whatever the newest method of choice is at Fangraphs et al. Pirata Mirado had an interesting post at MC that showed, not surprisingly, that ERA is poorly correlated year to year. Great, SABR wins again...But wait, FIP is also poorly correlated from year to year. My main point is FIP is an incremental improvement over ERA that still fails to do the job at hand, yet you bring up ERA at certain blogs and you are equated with a baboon. Where is the sense of proportion? Where is the humility?
"Where is the humility?" --
"Where is the humility?" -- Kelly
Funny how this trait is seemingly being bred out of our social fabric. In our zeal to instill self-esteem in kids, it seems to have come at the expense of others. If we could but teach them to serve others well, not as slaves but as free people, not for self-promotion but for the good of those served, then we might regain civil dialogue in our society.
Hmm....those quailites remind me of someone, both his life and his lifestyle...
For the record, I did the
For the record, I did the math on the last eight All-Star rosters, using who the fans voted in, and while there is certainly some inherent issues with that formula, the average draft round for those drafted was between the one and two. The rest were international signings.
An employee of a club that does this sort of analysis told me that the Opening Day 25-man rosters in 2006 produced a draft-round average of earlier than the third round.
But this isn't just a matter of things changing so much between 1996 and 2006, it's at least somewhat about the players making the bonus money getting pushed to the big leagues quicker, and given more opportunities to make the 25-man.
Same guy says he'd estimate the draft cutoff being about the 10th-12th round in 2000. You used to find more gems later in the draft, but clubs scout so much and have so much more information and motivation to get it right, that guys don't slip through the cracks nearly as much. And when top talents do fall, it's rarely because many teams missed out on the fact that he was indeed a good talent, it was due to injury, bonus demands... ya know, signability stuff.
Did you really say that Morse was A-ROD... I don't remember you saying that's what Morse was, or was going to be. I think I walked away from that connection thinking you were speaking of the correlations between the two guys as bigger, taller shortstops... that's been a while, though.
Not to interject potentially
Not to interject potentially flammable material here, but to the point regarding tolerance, it's amazing to me that the guy who best communicated this message (about 2,000 years ago) is at the center of probably the *most* vexing organization for liberals to extend their own tolerance towards. Flabbergasting to me ;)
I've always been impressed with the civility of D-O-V, and have never found its equal on the internet. Not saying it ain't out there, but I haven't seen it.
I don't want to echo in with
I don't want to echo in with the same stuff everyone has already said but I've read DOV and the rest of the blogosphere for years and while I disagree with Doc a good percentage of the time (more recently it seems) no one is more tolerant of opposing views than the good doctor.
Jason Churchill recently told me that since 2001 something like 80-90% of major league All-Stars were either 1st round draft picks or international signings. Since I haven't the time, energy or motivation I haven't run the numbers myself but if this is accurate, it would put an interesting spin on the 15th round number thrown out by the doc.
I can believe the average major leaguer would be taken on average in the 15th round (though the number does seems a bit high, Jamie Burke was a 9th rounder). Albert Pujols is by far the exception to the rule, for the most part the scouts get it right pretty early on. I think an individual organization might get too down on a player for any of the reasons you stated above but for 30 organizations to look at a draft board with Raben on it and pass him up... Look I'm not saying you are wrong, but it says something. You are talking about the same mistake being made over and over again and I don't see major league organizations doing it unless they have good reason to do so.
I look forward to watching Raben work his way up the professional ranks, but I won't be keeping a close eye on him until he hits AA.
[...] jemanji placed an
[...] jemanji placed an interesting blog post on Dennis RabenHere’s a brief overviewAgain, a visitor gets excited to see a game, and then the kid goes up there and takes 15 pitches, walks two or three times, lets a real good one go by in the third AB, and now the scout’s ticked off. You try spending a day, … [...]