It’s both interesting and difficult to evaluate a 20-year old in AA. Colby Rasmus makes it all seem so simple by living up to projections and mashing baseballs. Bryan Anderson represents a more complex case that sits in that middle zone of not yet having come to fruition but still showing some measurable skills and projection. Fear not! I’ll be your guide today to the #2 position prospect in the system.
The Draft
Selected in the 4th round of the 2005 draft, Bryan Anderson was the highest Cardinal draft of a catcher since Daric Barton in 2003. He signed out of Simi Valley High School in California for $250K. Here’s what Baseball America had to say heading into the draft:
Lefthanded-hitting C Bryan Anderson, an Arizona recruit, had expectations of going in the top five rounds, but his offensive production fell off as he had little protection in the Simi Valley High lineup. Scouts say his throwing mechanics also regressed this spring—even as he threw out almost every basestealer. Anderson can swing the bat well enough if a position switch is in order, but his lack of speed may limit his options.
From MLB’s draft tracker:
Aggressive hitter w/ good bat speed. Loft in swing w/ home run potential. Sure-handed receiver w/ quick release. Solid defensive tools w/ chance to hit for power.
While I think it’s fun to look back at pre-draft comments, I’m not sure how truly informative it is. Still the consensus was that Anderson was a good hitter from the left side of the plate who appeared like he would stick at a position where offense is a bonus.
The Stats
I don’t trust minor league stats below low-A so I’ll just make brief mention of the 2005 campaign at Johnson City. In 51 games there, Anderson hit .331/.383/.513/.896 — close to a .900 OPS is impressive from the catchers position but it’s predicated on that batting average and a BABIP close to .380, which obviously isn’t sustainable.
Moving forward to 2006, the Cardinals displayed a new aggressive plan with their top prospects from the 2005 draft promoting Anderson to full-season ball at Quad Cities.
| AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | ISO | BB% | K% | BABIP | GB | LD |
| .302 | .374 | .417 | .791 | .115 | 9.7 | 15.3 | .359 | 40 | 19 |
Love the walk rate. You should all know by now how important that is to me. The BABIP looks high and while the ISO isn’t great it’s certainly respectable for a 19-year-old in a pitchers park. There’s not a single stat that jumps out at me from this season but the collection shows a player who is advanced for their age and doesn’t have any major flaws to the offensive portion of the game.
Baseball America ranked him as the 13th best prospect in the Midwest league. Here’s what they had to say:
Anderson is a teenage catcher who provides offense, hits lefthanded as a bonus and shows some promise on defense. But more than any of his tools, what stood out the most was the way he ran an older Quad Cities pitching staff.
Anderson has more offensive potential than Matheny, hitting for average, controlling the strike zone very well and providing gap power. His arm strength is average at best, though he makes accurate throws and erased 36 percent of basestealers this year. He receives well but is working on improving his blocking skills.
Kevin Goldstein had him as the 4th best prospect in the system following 2006 with the following remarks:
The Good: Offensive-minded catcher with quick, compact swing. Knows how to wait for his pitch and then laces line drives to all fields. Rarely strikes out and has no platoon issues. Praised for his on-field leadership. Strong arm.
The Bad: Level swing and contact-oriented mechanics leave limited power ceiling. Not a great athlete and a below-average receiver, leading the Midwest League with 17 passed balls.
His perfect world comparison was to Jason Kendall, which I would be thrilled with. Take a look at the OBPs that Kendall posted early in his career - fantastic for a catcher. I think that’s an awfully lofty comparison and not one I’m comfortable drawing (although I’ll continue to draw Rasmus to All-Star CF comparisons).
2007 sees Anderson skip High-A and move on to the hitter friendly Double A Springfield.
| AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | ISO | BB% | K% | BABIP | GB | LD |
| .298 | .348 | .388 | .736 | .090 | 7.6 | 17.8 | .359 | 46 | 21 |
There’s not a single stat that jumps out at me from this season but the collection shows a player who is advanced for their age and doesn’t have any major flaws to the offensive portion of the game. Wait, did I say that already. Ok, well that’s where the good stuff ends. There’s not a single statistic that moves in a significantly positive direction. That really concerns me. He’s a year older in a better league for hitters and he struggled to hold his ground in every aspect except for his batting average.
At mid-season he looked like he was headed for another repeat of 2006 posting .316/.370/.421 after 66 games. That led Kevin Goldstein to rank him as the second best catching prospect back in July. At the end of the season Bryan Smith, echoed a lot of what Goldstein had said:
Like Rasmus, Anderson handled an aggressive jump to Double-A well in 2007, hitting .298/.350/.388 as a 21-year-old. That seasonal line doesn’t capture that Anderson subsequently struggled against southpaws and withered in the season’s later months, but at the break this was a guy hitting .328/.387/.460. The first-half line represents Anderson’s potential future, certainly as a better player than Yadier Molina if all breaks right. However, the presence of the latter will give Anderson the time to properly develop.
I really want to believe that he’s going to post OBPs that high in the majors but I’m starting to get scared off a bit. There’s always tepid remarks to be found about his defense as well. He was the 17th best prospect out of the Texas League last season by Baseball America. Scouts wonder about his ability to stay behind the plate long term and I wonder about scouts obsession with defensively minded catchers. At 20, Anderson still has time to brush up those defensive skills although he receives consistently good marks for game calling (another intangible I’m not fond of).
The Question
The question isn’t whether Anderson is capable of staying behind the plate; the real question is whether the organization will maintain both the patience and presence of mind to keep him there. Any discussion of him switching positions is both premature and foolhardy. Much as I wrote with Allen Craig, he’s an above average catching prospect but the bat doesn’t play as well at other positions. The defensive skillset for catchers is so unique as well that I don’t see how any transition away from the plate is going to be an easy one.
The Future
Dan over at GetUpBaby summarizes Anderson very nicely:
As good as Anderson has been to this point, we’re still dealing with a guy whose primary asset is his youth, whose .738 OPS in AA is only impressive because he was 20. He’s a few years away by the most optimistic estimation, and his development is far from assured.
Anderson is still a lot of projection in that his statistics are trending the wrong way but because of his youth many, myself included, are willing to bet on that projection that could take his game from average backstop to all-star production for a catcher. I’m still envisioning a player who posts a line something like .300/.365/.420 but when reading over the numerous blurbs from different sites, I wonder if I’m not just getting gun shy. He’s making all the appropriate “Top Prospect Lists” and I ranked him number #3 among Cardinal prospects — maybe I’m just getting cold feet.
At this point it’s largely academic since Molina should be sticking around for at least 2 more years. I’d like to see Anderson repeat Springfield since he was one of the youngest players in the league and his performance wasn’t terribly impressive in and of itself. It’s hard for me not to look forward to the day when the Cardinals employ someone who isn’t fawned over for their defensive skills but rather for their offensive skills. While Colby Rasmus has responded at each level, there’s nothing wrong with slowing down the pace set for Anderson and seeing if staying at some familiar confines with a familiar coaching staff doesn’t help him take his game to the next level.
Filed under: Bryan Anderson, prospect profiles
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Agree on all fronts, Az. I think it might not be a bad idea to start Anderson back in AA and let him get off to a good start, then move him up mid season.
Trust me, I share your frustration with the love for defense at a position that has, quite possibly, the least ability to defensively impact a game. Doesn’t anyone else see this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
One other thing specifically about Anderson. I’d like to see him move his hands up higher, into more of a preloaded position. I think that would significantly improve his power. As it is now, his swing gets very handsy because he loads, his body stays back, and he rushes with his hands to catch up to the ball. Its a testament to just how quick this kid’s hands and wrists are that he hits at the level he does. Also, is it just me, or am I seeing some significant difference between a report that says he has an uppercut swing, and one that says he has a contact oriented, level swing. What gives?
i don’t really see what having him repeat AA is going to accomplish. it seems like his only problem last year was that he got worn out in the hot summer days of the texas league. maybe if he would have just gotten another day off a week he would have kept his numbers up. i could easily see him putting up that same stat line he did last year (or maybe even better) in the first half, and we would really learn nothing about him.
Let’s face it, there are no problems in having Anderson spend one more year in the minors, if he responds well he can play mixed AA/AAA ball in 2008, and AAA/MLB in 2009, and this would not be that far off the schedule.
GO CARDS!!!
w/matheny now coming to camp to work with pitchers and catchers, maybe anderson could benefit from a little tutelage from the master.
Red,
I disagree that the catcher has the least ability (opportunity) to impact the game defensively. I would argue that they have the MOST opportunity to defensively impact a game. when you consider that a passed ball can occur on any pitch where there is a runner on base, they have more “chances” to make a defensive mistake than any other position player on the field. We Cardinal fans, I think, may be taking this for granted because we have had some excellent defensive catchers over the last few years (Matheny, Molina). In the case of Matheny, I personally believe that his anemic hitting ability was mitigated by his ability to block a ball in the dirt better than anyone in the game (subjective) and the ability to throw out a baserunners that was amongst the tops in the league year in and year out (objective). Molina is even better at throwing runners out and has a keen ability to pickoff runners at first. Less and less, teams are running on Molina because of his cannon behind the plate. While we live in an era where the stolen base isn’t nearly as big a part of the game as it used to be, granted, the ability to keep a runner on first keeps a runner out of scoring position and keeps a double play in order. Ditto for not allowing passed balls. This is to say nothing of the pitchers consistently raving about a catcher’s ability to call a game. That ability may not be quantifiable statistically, but if my pitcher feels more comfortable in a tough situation; if he is not afraid to throw a nasty uncle charlie in a scoring situation because he knows that his catcher can block a ball in the dirt, that certainly has great value, does it not?
All that being said (sorry for the long post), I share AZ’s concerns about Anderson. I am not AS HIGH on him as most, mainly because I am concerned about his defensive abilities, but I love that he is so young, I love that he was the youngest player on Team USA. If he can get better at not allowing passed balls, and show some more pop in his bat, I will be ecstatic about him.
Sorry to repeat myself from a Yadi-related post, but Molina last year gunned down 27 of 50 stealers. Since an MLB-average catcher would’ve thrown out 27 of 106 (MLB avg. 25.5%), Yadi effectively saved the Cards 56 bases v. the average catcher with his howitzer arm. Add those 56 bases to Yadi’s slugging%, and you have a .275/.340/.526 backstop. So when healthy, Molina was one of the 6 or 8 most valuable catchers in baseball last year. (By the way Yadi’s backups threw out just 7 of 42 runners.)
But of course we were supposed to be talking about Bryan Anderson. I think the young man will start in AAA, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a line of .310/.370/.460 come mid-July, which would make him a primo trade chip, or maybe presage a move to 3rd base or eventually corner OF if he stays with the Birds.
A guy playing the most physically demanding defensive position, and posting a league-average batting line, all while 2 years young for his level is a very good hitting prospect. I firmly believe Bryan’s (extremely quick) bat is underrated, and an OPS at least in the .830-.860 range is his MLB future.
Red Baron-
I understand your frustration with trotting out all world defensive guys who hit .240 with no real power or OBP skills, but catcher is one of the most important defensive positions on the field.
Ask Wainwright how important defense is in the 8 inning with a runner on third and a batter at the plate he has to strike out. If he is not confident in throwing his 12-6 curveball and burrying it in the dirt he is screwed! So defense is very important. Why do you think the Cubs traded Barrett? The pitchers lost all confidence in him blocking anything in the dirt. Lots of pitchers use strikeout & groundout pitcher that are low in the zone and end up in the dirt a bunch. They need to have confidence that the catcher is going to block the ball.
I like Anderson at this point. He is young and there is no need to rush him to the show. Heck he can play two and a half more years in the minors and still be young when he hits the show. I think letting him progress will be the best idea at this point. Who knows if he will get better or if what we see is what we get. I don’t think his current stats project out all that great at the MLB level but he has time to show improvement.
AZU- I agree the Kendell comparison is lofty. It is odd since Kendall was known as one of the fastest catchers ever. They say Anderson is slow? How slow is he? He can’t be slower than Yadi?
All in all I am very interested in seeing how well Anderson develops the next couple years in the minors.
I’ve seen a few studies concluding that catchers don’t have a significant impact (vs other catchers) via calling a game or stifling baserunners, and they always leave me scratching my head. I’ve played at a decent level with bad, mediocre, and one very, very good defensive catcher, and the differences is palpable. In addition, sometimes when a study fails to find a difference (or an effect), it’s more of an indicator of that study than it is of the subject - the study may have had low power, or they may be looking at the wrong variables.
In any case, I can’t really buy that Molina’s defense isn’t worth a lot….and if the pitchers claim his game-calling is excellent, then I think that’s worth a lot too.
“They say Anderson is slow? How slow is he?”
I’ll bite
he’s so slow, it took him an hour to cook a minute steak.
he has to speed up to stop.
scouts don’t use a stopwatch to measure his time from home to 1b, they use a calendar.
hardy har har har
good night everyone, i’m here all weekend. you’ve all been great, try the veal!
Bob - your math is kinda wrong. If you wanted to evaluate it in that fashion you’d take the total number of chances for the average catcher (106) multiplied by yadi’s caught stealing rate (54%) to see how many he would have cut down (58). So he would have saved about 31 additional bases compared to the average catcher — still significant but not the 56 that you’re quoting.
ICBIRDFAN - Aside from erik’s fantastic comic musings ;o) the answer is that Anderson’s speed is probably average. It’s not an area that he’s ever going to be recognized for but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a good baserunner. Plus, Yadi would rate as a 20 on a 20-80 scale for speed — he’s as slow as they get.
siddfynch - I think catchers are one of the areas where sabermetrics has yet to really make it’s impact felt. I would be absolutely fascinated to see the proprietary stats that Matt Girsch and Sig Mejdal presented at the winter warmup. It’s not that I doubt he’s the best defensive catcher but how they quantify it and whether they discuss it in terms of runs would be really interesting. Research on catchers has seemed to be more aimed at disproving theories (catchers ERA, game calling) than measuring defensive impact.
Okay. Maybe I stated my case a little incorrectly. I do feel that catcher’s ability to influence a game defensively is much more limited than most other players on the field. That being said, a truly terrible catcher will hurt your team. So how about this. I think that, as you go up the scale of defensive ability in catchers, your diminishing return curve kicks in much more steeply than any other player. A great defensive shortstop will impact a g ame far more than an average one. A great defensive catcher, on the other hand, offers veru modest impact over an average one. In other words, once you reach a point where a catcher isn’t missing half of the pitches thrown up there, the rate of return absolutely drops off a cliff for continued improvement.
There. That’s maybe a little better.
I do believe, though, that the contributions made by a great hitting catcher vastly trump those of a defensive whiz. Give me a player who affects balls in play. A player who’s primarily ability isn’t to eliminate a part of the game that’s virtually unused at this point anyhow.
siddfynch and others make an excellent point, even though it is subjective:
“I’ve seen a few studies concluding that catchers don’t have a significant impact (vs other catchers) via calling a game or stifling baserunners, and they always leave me scratching my head. I’ve played at a decent level with bad, mediocre, and one very, very good defensive catcher, and the differences is palpable.”
Just because certain impacts of a catcher’s play are not quantifiable does not mean that they are invalid. “Confidence” is as subjective as it gets, no? How many major league pitchers and hitters (or professionals in any sport) doubt that confidence has a major impact on their performance? How do you quantify the amount of damage Albert Pujols did with one swing to Brad Lidge’s “confidence” (or “bravado” or “swagger”, take your pick)? We can easily quantify the difference in Lidge’s performance before and after that single pitch. But how do we quantify Lidge’s confidence per se?
One other note. People often dismiss a hypothesis on this and other blogs because they say they’ve searched high and low and have found no evidence to support the hypothesis. That argument can be persuasive if we are swayed by rhetoric, but it is not a valid argument scientifically or mathematically. Hypotheses may be disproven when there is hard evidence to the contrary, but they are not disproven just because there is no quanititative evidence that fits the hypothesis. In that case the jury is still out, that’s all.
It’s like a crime detective who has a very strong sense that a suspect is guilty that the detective is totally convinced, but he can’t prove it because he can’t come up with evidence that will hold up in court. Then one day DNA testing is developed and all of a sudden the case can be proven decisively. Sometimes the detective was right, sometimes not (think of all the people who have been executed for murders they didn’t commit).
When it comes to questions like the impact of Yadi’s handling of his pitchers and his game calling, maybe we’re in a similar situation. Until we can measure such impacts precisely, the jury is still out, and drawing a conclusion either way might be premature and way off base.
CardsWinSeries:
There’s a saying that “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.” I think this is applicable to your 3rd paragraph, and to my earlier post about my skepticism over these “conclusive” studies finding no effect of catching.
That’s all, really - I think we are in agreement. As is AZ, who points out that current analyses may simply not be using the right metrics or asking the right questions.
I admit I am a little surprised that we don’t see differences in # if runs allowed by different signal-callers, but the importance of calling a good game has been so established for so long that I’m inclined to not accept the thin body of investigation so far as conclusive….my hunch is that the devil’s very much in the details here, and the Web is full of really crappy statistical analyses of baseball players and games, conducted by self-taught statisticians.
Great quote, siddfynch. I wonder if a paraphrase might apply to Kennedy: “Absence in body is not proof of absence of mind.”
I agree the devil is in the details in studying the underpinnings of baseball performance. If anyone can uncover the data needed to establish the impact of signal-calling and a catcher’s defensive value, AZ can. Maybe AZ and Eric can interview Mike Matheny and Jeff Luhnow jointly during spring training to compare their thoughts on the question. I bet that would be a great conversation.
Add Bob Gibson to that converstion with Matheny and Luhnow and you’d have a great episode for one of those ESPN shows. I’d pay to see that conversation.
Good stuff. Unlike Rasmus who I think is ready maybe Anderson needs to play AA one more time. If he did that and started at AAA next year wouldn’t he be only 22 years old? Long as he doesn’t tank he will be ready for the Birds or a trade.
Here is the thing about catcher defense. Bad defensive catchers in the minors don’t become major league catchers. They becaome 1B or LF. So in the majors there isn’t much difference in catching defense.
Really how many runs would Yadi save over Mike Piazza or Mickie Tettleton? I would say not as many as Omar Viz. would over Jose Offerman. That isn’t to say there is no difference just not as much as many think.
The Matheny article in the P-D specifically says that Mike’s looking forward to working with Anderson.
I can’t say how happy I am that Matheny’s back in the organization, even in this very limited role. He’s a class act, all around.
Red Baron - I argued a case stating catcher defensive value is somewhat overrated on VEB a few weeks ago. Not going to get into all the detail I did there, but will just say that I mostly agree with you. I don’t think it’s the least important position defensively, but I don’t include it as premium as SS and CF, that’s for sure. I agree much is lost if your backstop is pitiful. I think the gains rapidly diminish once you move from league average to elite.
As it pertains to Anderson, I am not very concerned about where he starts the season. I’d lean slightly towards AA, because time really isn’t an issue. Either way he’s going to have an opportunity to develop. Long term I am very much on the fence on the Anderson vs. Molina debate. Molina is becoming a pretty known quantity. Anderson is not at all. The answer to that question lies in how Anderson progresses over the next 2 years.