The Bowie Boost for First Basemen

Joe Reisel's Archives

Christian Walker (2013-2015 Tides), first baseman on the All-Harbor Park team. Photo courtesy of Steven Goldburg / Norfolk Tides

After I wrote about the Norfolk Tides' catchers while they were an Orioles affiliate, I began to look at the Tides' first basemen of the same time period. I intended to do a similar survey of the first basemen, hoping to find general patterns among a long list of memorable and not-so-memorable names. (Anyone remember Robbie Widlansky?) But I re-discovered something much more interesting and potentially more important than a list of names and trivia. It involved four first basemen were unlike any of the catchers.

Brandon Snyder, Joe Mahoney, Christian Walker, and Trey Mancini arrived in Norfolk as highly-regarded, but not uber-regarded, prospects. (Among the catchers, Matt Wieters was an uber-prospect while none of the others were well thought of.) And all four of the first basemen were coming off outstanding performance at AA Bowie.

Brandon Snyder (facing camera) (2009-2011 Tide). Photo courtesy of Megan Morrow / Norfolk Tides.



The below table shows their Bowie performances.

	Age	G	PA	Slash	OPS
Snyder	22	58	233	.343/.421/.597	1.018
Mahoney	23-24	137	564	.300/.356/.518	.874
Walker	22-23	112	480	.292/.360/.488	.849
Mancini	23-24	101	429	.350/.399/.604	1.003

While Mahoney and Mancini were, perhaps, older than you'd like for AA players, all four put up some pretty impressive numbers. You might like them to take a few more walks, but these numbers are nonetheless impressive on the surface.

But when they were promoted to AAA Norfolk, all four looked a lot more ordinary, as shown in the below table.

		G	PA	Slash	OPS
Snyder	22-24	285	1167	.256/.317/.394	.711
Mahoney	25	132	536	.265/.319/.389	.708
Walker	23-25	313	1332	.260/.324/.429	.754
Mancini	24	125	536	.280/.349/.427	.775

Yes, I know that Norfolk is a level up from Bowie and that Norfolk is a terrible hitter's park. The fact remains that there have been four first basemen who performed very well at Bowie, achieved some prospect love, and then looked much less impressive at Norfolk. And Brandon Snyder and Joe Mahoney - whose careers are essentially defined - have been what we should have expected based on their Norfolk production, not their Bowie production.

Two years after starring at Bowie, Joe Mahoney was out of baseball. Photo courtesy of Allison Veinote / Norfolk Tides.

But this boost appears to be limited to first basemen. The statistics of other Orioles prospects such as Brandon Waring, Jonathan Schoop, L.J. Hoes, and Xavier Avery were not inflated (as much, at least) at Bowie. Obviously I don't believe that there is something special about first basemen that would cause their performance to be uniquely boosted by Bowie. I'm sure that a more detailed analysis would identify shared characteristics that Prince Georges Stadium favors.

As fans, we should learn this lesson - be skeptical of players in general, and first basemen specifically, who produce apparently dominant numbers at Bowie. Wait and see how they do at Norfolk before project them to be a future star. Brandon Snyder, Joe Mahoney, and (most probably) Christian Walker failed to live up to the promise of their Bowie performance.

But at least as compared to the others, Trey Mancini may still become a productive major-league player. Yes, his Norfolk performance dropped significantly from his probably-unsustainable high at Bowie. It's still better than the performance of the other three. While Mancini almost certainly won't be the star hinted at by his Bowie performance we can still be optimistic that he can become a useful major-league player.