Yohendrick Pinango, Jhostynxon Garcia Headline 10 Statcast Standouts (June 16)

10 Statcast Standouts

Yohendrick Pinango, OF, Blue Jays

A couple of years ago when I was consulting for a major league team, Pinango’s profile stuck out to me like a bright, shining light. He hit the ball really hard. He made a ton of contact. There was just one glaring problem: He wasn’t very good. He was repeating High-A, still couldn’t muster an OPS above .700 and had a wRC+ below 90. I checked in on him last year, and outside of some early-season dominance in his third try at High-A, he wasn’t great either, especially after being traded to the Blue Jays.

Sometimes, it takes a while for the performance to catch up to the metrics. In the long run, the metrics usually win out. This year, Pinango has finally put it all together, with an OPS pushing .900 and a wRC+ more than 50% better than the league average.

It’s not a flawless profile, as his average exit velocity on fly balls is significantly lower than his average exit velocity, and his average launch angle on hard-hit balls is well below average. The raw power is easily plus-plus, with limited chase and a pristine zone-contact rate against fastballs. Pinango’s early career struggles put some serious doubts in my head about the efficacy of metrics-based analysis, but his improvement has turned him from the exception that proves the rule to a stellar example of the importance of patience with prospects with plus-plus raw power and above-average bat-to-ball, no matter the on-field performance.

Jhostynxon Garcia, OF, Red Sox

Forget everything I just said about questioning metrics. Garcia, known as “The Password”, is tearing the cover off the ball at Triple-A, with an OPS around 1.000 and a wRC+ that’s 60% better than league average. He’s hit really well at every level and is still only 22 years old.

With all that said, he’s whiffing a ton in zone, making very poor swing decision, not hitting the ball particularly hard and not excelling at making exceptionally hard contact in the air. He’s almost the exact inverse of what Pinango was in his early career. Ultimately, all that matters is the performance on the field, which begs the question: Did the metrics enter the password incorrectly?

Chase Burns, RHP, Reds

Burns’ slider is an exceptional pitch. At times, when the seams catch the air just right, it attacks hitters at 90 mph with negative IVB, which is incredible given his extreme vertical delivery. Other times, it won’t bite at all and will have more cutter-type shape. It plays off his fastball, which gets a ton of ride but not much more than what batters expect given his vertical slot. The vertical separation between the pitches is as elite as it gets. This is somewhat reduced from what we saw from Burns in college, so we’ll take another look in a couple weeks and see how his stuff translated, as that may be instructive when looking at this year’s crop of college pitchers.

The changeup has a great movement profile, but hasn’t generated whiffs for him yet. From a stuff perspective, it’s getting a ton of seam-shifted wake movement and comes in at a blistering 90 mph. It will play. The curveball is a straight hammer and tunnels well off the slider, which he mixes in sparingly.

It’s four plus pitches with premium velocity and a slider that will absolutely play at the major league level.

Miguel Ullola, RHP, Astros

Breaking news: The Astros have yet another unheralded pitching prospect who is looking like he’s about to be an important rotation piece for quite some time. Ullola works primarily off a plus fastball that ranges from a true four-seamer to a hard cutter. It’s hard to say if it’s really two distinct pitches, but he does uncork a fair amount of them that get significant seam-shifted cut. He struggles to command the pitch, landing it in the zone only 35-40% of the time. He gets plenty of swing-and-miss with the pitch against both righties and lefties.

Ullola’s changeup is his best pitch against both righties and lefties from a swing-and-miss perspective, getting whiffs at a 42% rate against lefties and 50% against righties. He throws it quite hard but generates a lot of seam-induced depth.

His slider ranges from a cutter to a bullet slider, and iit s his go to weapon, both for whiffs and for getting a pitch in the zone. It has the highest zone% of any of his pitches, including the fastball.

Ullola rounds out the arsenal with an interesting curveball that has some seam-shifted run, pushing it more armside than most curveballs. This makes it mostly north-south pitch, biting straight down.

It all adds up to a pitcher who has struck out more than 30% of batters over the past two seasons, including this year at Triple-A.

Nolan McLean, RHP, Mets

McLean’s arsenal covers an incredibly wide range of movement—east/west and north/south—and is headlined by an incredible sweeper, which is a monster of a pitch touching 20 inches of sweep at 86 mph. It’s such a strong pitch for him that he uses it as his primary against righties, generating whiffs on 44% of swings and 20% of pitches. He uses it against lefties about 24% of the time, and it isn’t as effective but still plays.

McLean’s fastball is about as average as it gets, with about average ride given his slot and slightly above-average velocity. It’s not a great pitch, but it’s enough to allow the rest of his arsenal to play up. Against righties, he mixes in a plus sinker with tremendous seam-shifted wake movement that gets a ton of whiffs. It comes out at the same velocity as the four-seamer but has about 5.5 inches more drop. More importantly, it comes out of his hand with the exact same spin axis and release point, making it very difficult for hitters to pick up. He uses it sparingly against lefties, who may have an easier time identifying it.

The bridge cutter is a key pitch against both righties and lefties, helping to somewhat mask the sweeper. The changeup has great shape, but he isn’t getting great results on it, even against lefties. He rounds out the arsenal with a massive two-plane curveball which he mixes in against both righties and lefties.

It’s a fascinating arsenal, with the potential for the changeup to take a leap as he gains experience. This is McLean’s first year focusing solely on pitching, so it may behoove the Mets to give him plenty of runway to develop at Triple-A.

Brice Matthews, SS, Astros

If we ignored the zone contact rate, we’re looking at one of the more spectacular profiles we’ll see, with plus-plus game power and excellent swing decisions against all pitch types except changeups. If you’ve read this series every week, you’ll notice the hitters who do significantly better on balls hit in the air tend to over-perform their tools. And that is Matthews in a nutshell. His raw power is roughly a 55 to 60, but when he hits it 95 mph or harder, he’s averaging 17 degrees of launch angle, and when he hits it at least 20 degrees, he’s hitting it almost four miles per hour harder than the average MLB player.

What that all translates to is a guy who is extremely dangerous when he makes contact but will also strike out a lot. Before you dismiss him as having no chance at success given the whiff issues, let me present to you a more extreme version of this profile:

Despite a woeful zone contact rate, Wallner and his prodigious ability to hit the ball hard and in the air has amassed a career wRC+ of 142 through his first 200 games. Matthews doesn’t have Wallner’s raw power, but the principle is the same: If you make a lot of hard contact in the air, you stand a good chance to hit enough home runs to offset the strikeouts.

RJ Schreck, OF, Blue Jays

It’s only 98 pitches, so we shouldn’t draw too many conclusions, however, Schreck’s metrics are almost too good to be true. We have 16 tracked balls that he’s hit, and his average exit velocity on fly balls is elite. As are his launch angles, suggesting that, while his raw power may not be more than a 55, he might massively outperform that, as his best contact comes in the air.

The craziest part of all this is Schreck’s contact rate. Most batters with extreme launch angle profiles have major whiff issues. Not so with Schreck, who is posting plus contact rates in the early going along with plus-plus swing decisions. It seems unlikely to me that this is his true talent level, but a 98 pitch sample like this is more than enough to make him a very interesting follow as we accumulate more data.

Owen Caissie, OF, Cubs

Caissie has one of the more internally consistent exit velocity/launch angle metrics. It pretty much spells out a 70 raw/game power profile. His contact and swing decision metrics also point to a player with limited bat-to-ball who will be a three true outcomes type of player. This is Caissie’s second year at Triple-A, so let’s take a look at what’s changed:

He’s hitting the ball much harder (about three mph), while also getting it in the air more. That’s come at the expense of just a couple of points of zone contact, with basically identical swing decisions. That’s a fantastic trade-off. Caissie has clearly reached a new level, and is pushing to crack a crowded Cubs lineup soon.

Chase Petty, RHP, Reds

Petty is a fantastic example of a pitcher who understands the he needs to work backwards to have a successful career. His fastball has decent velocity, but its poor ride makes it a below-average pitch. The sinker isn’t particularly good either, with a mediocre movement profile and little seam-shifted wake. Its success mostly relies on looking a lot like the fastball, with just enough separation that it can be mixed in occasionally to both righties and lefties.

What makes Petty interesting is the 90 mph cutter/gyro slider he throws 31% of the time to righties and 24% of the time to lefties. Despite it’s high usage, he generates almost 50% whiffs on swings and over 20% whiffs per pitch.

Against righties, all of Petty’s secondaries (sinker, slider/cutter, changeup and sweeper) are generating whiffs on at least 30% of swings and over 14% of pitches, suggesting he may benefit from featuring his four-seamer even less. Against lefties, he breaks out the changeup a lot more— around 28% of the time—and relies on a movement profile that looks a lot like the fastball and sinker, leading to a lot of whiffs. The slider, sweeper and changeup are all very effective against lefties, suggesting that Petty may actually be better against opposite-handed batters, mostly due to how good his changeup is.

Will Robertson, OF, Blue Jays

As usual, we’ve left the best for last. Our bookender this week is Robertson:

Robertson is a little older, but he’s found a new gear, posting some absurd metrics. His exit velocity suggests 70 raw power and 60 game power with average contact and plus swing decisions. More importantly, take a look at how much of an improvement this is compared to last season:

Not only has Robertson increased his launch angles by four degrees, he also hitting the ball 2-3 mph harder and is making considerably more contact, both in and out of zone. Two months ago, we highlighted three older prospects who developed a grade or two of power later in their careers. Robertson is yet another example of this phenomenon. The growing prevalence of “older” prospects adding significant power has led me to be less skeptical of these players and their potential to have an impact at the big league level. Robertson is an exciting prospect, and he may be a strong signal of good things happening within the Blue Jays’ player development organization.