Performance Scouting the Independant Leagues: Canadian-American League

Previously, I ran some numbers on who performance scouting indicated were exceptional players in the American Association and Atlantic Leagues.  In the time between those posts and this one, the Orioles have struck a deal and acquired SS/3B Cam Kneeland out of the Canadian-American League.  As a 23 year old, he was one of the younger players in the league.  Although not quite as mature as the Atlantic Leagues (mean age is 29), it is in line with the American Association (mean age is 27).  My metrics only hit on Kneeland for batting average, but perhaps I am too hard on players much younger than the average age or maybe I am looking at the wrong statistics or maybe he simply is around for organizational depth.  I assume with him being a SS/3B in CanAm that he might wind up being a better fit as a 2B, 3B, or LF.  Typically, if you can play SS in the minor leagues then you will not find yourself in the Indy leagues.  It simply is very difficult to find good defensive SS.

Below are Kneeland's statistics:

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	PA	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
2012	22	Worcester	CAMA	182	7	0	5	4	0	18	39	.236	.320	.376
2013	23	Trois-Rivieres	CAMA	419	29	2	9	10	3	32	59	.306	.364	.468

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/2/2013.

Anyway, here is a refresher on what I am looking at for these posts.  I will be focusing on three skills measured with four metrics.  To qualify as being exceptional for a specific skill, the player needs to rank in the top 20% of players in the league for that metric.  The skills:

Plate discipline - I measure plate discipline by the walk rate (BB%) and the ratio of walks to strikeouts (BB:K).  The intention behind this is to target players who have a good understanding of hittable pitches and their ability to work for a walk.

Contact rate - I use batting average for this.  From an anecdotal perspective, players with good plate discipline AND poor contact rates have trouble progressing through the minors.  As they face a greater number of pitchers with more command of their pitches, the opportunities for walks will decrease.  Pitchers are more likely to pitch in the zone and for a player to make contact.  Players who do not have good contact rates tend to get eaten up as they move on to higher levels of competition.

Power - Good contact rate and plate discipline are a great foundation for a hitting skill set.  However, slapping the ball in professional leagues with players who field better is not as useful.  There are just not many Ichiro Suzukis out there who have the speed to take advantage of a rapidly improving defense.  In the pro game, there needs to be some power to go along with these skills.  Otherwise, pitchers will go at hitters and give them pitches to hit, knowing that there is unlikely to be much damage.

Additionally, these leagues have a level of competition that is more or less on par with low A and below talent with an occasional old salt who would be average in AA.  As such, I am looking for players who are 25 and younger (emphasis on younger) where there may be some hope for a few years of development.  This kind of player should be not available in these leagues.  The MLB scouting apparatus should have found them and locked them into their minor league systems.

Here are the metric values for the Canadian American League as well as the two previously covered.  The first four columns mark the top 20% while age is the league mean:

	BB%	BB:K	AVG	ISO	AGE
American Association	11.6	0.97	.315	.194	27
Atlantic	9.8	0.77	.296	.166	29
Canadian-American	12.5	0.90	.303	.176	27

Players Who Excelled in all Four Categories

None

Players Who Excelled in Three Categories

Jonathan Malo, INF
29 years old
Drafted in the 48th Round (Miami-Dade College) by the New York Mets

Year	Age	Tm	Lev	Aff	PA	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
2005	21	2 Teams	A--A+	NYM	184	5	4	2	8	3	35	35	.222	.379	.354
2006	22	2 Teams	A+-A-	NYM	413	16	1	7	3	7	46	69	.228	.328	.339
2007	23	St. Lucie	A+	NYM	262	10	0	6	2	4	23	37	.255	.322	.377
2008	24	Binghamton	AA	NYM	316	14	1	4	12	3	28	52	.261	.333	.362
2009	25	2 Teams	AA-AAA	NYM	416	9	4	1	10	3	36	64	.224	.299	.279
2010	26	2 Teams	AA-AAA	NYM	308	15	3	3	6	5	33	62	.217	.311	.330
2011	27	2 Teams	AA-AAA	NYM	264	6	3	3	1	1	18	52	.226	.290	.315
2012	28	Quebec	Ind		456	23	3	12	9	2	40	53	.288	.354	.448
2013	29	Quebec	Ind		447	23	0	11	27	3	56	50	.305	.399	.455

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/2/2013.

In the Mets' organization, Malo showed an aptitude to adequately play several infield positions.  He also showed an inability to make contact, make good contact, or able to earn walks in the higher minors.  It was unsurprising that he has not played with any organization in the past two years.  That said, the past two years have been immensely successful for Malo in the CanAm.  He is showing a good walk rate, a good average, and an exceptional walk to strikeout rate.  The only thing not impressive has been his power.  I think at his age that he will likely be continued to be overlooked even though he probably would be fine as organizational depth for a team in HiA or AA ball.

Other Notables

One player who would have shown up in our list is someone who was snatched up by a Major League club before he could accrue enough innings in this exercise: Chris Edmondson.

Chris Edmondson, COF
25 years old
Drafted in the 43rd round (LeMoyne College) by the St. Louis Cardinals

Year	Age	Tm	Lev	Aff	PA	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
2010	22	2 Teams	A--Rk	STL	250	17	4	8	1	0	14	34	.294	.352	.509
2011	23	Quad Cities	A	STL	380	22	6	10	5	3	39	73	.260	.347	.456
2012	24	Palm Beach	A+	STL	508	18	2	9	11	4	34	82	.256	.317	.362
2013	25	Rockland	Ind		156	15	1	8	19	5	24	13	.413	.513	.738
2013	25	Rome	A	ATL	36	2	0	1	2	0	2	10	.206	.250	.353

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/2/2013.

Last March, the Cardinals decided to cut ties with Edmondson.  I am unsure why the Cardinals released him from the organization, but I imagine it began with him not exactly playing good defense and struggling at HiA ball.  Beyond that, I don't know.  The Braves started him out in the low minors and he did not accrue many innings.  It would not be surprising to me if he will be a free agent before next season.

Conclusion

Expectations should be tempered when assuming what Kneeland may offer the Orioles.  Edmondson was completely dominating the CanAm league, but that was not reflected in the handful of plate appearances he had as a member of the Braves' Rome club.

Performance Scouting the Independent Leagues: Atlantic League

As we mentioned in the previous Indy scouting post, performance scouting can be a dreadfully misleading thing to do.  Briefly put:

1. Statistics can often hide things, such as a well performing player who makes more of his success against filler.  
2. However, this does not mean the stats are worthless.  They are an incomplete story just as in person scouting is incomplete.  They both add a piece to complete the puzzle.  
3. Ideally, you want them both together to give you a full picture.

In these posts, we are trying to find the players who are young and are exceptional.  Exceptional performances are less likely to be situations where a player is taking advantage of the poorer part of the talent spectrum.


I will be focusing on three skills measured with four metrics.  To qualify as being exceptional for a specific skill, the player needs to rank in the top 20% of players in the league for that metric.  The skills:

Plate discipline - I measure plate discipline by the walk rate (BB%) and the ratio of walks to strikeouts (BB:K).  The intention behind this is to target players who have a good understanding of hittable pitches and their ability to work for a walk.

Contact rate - I use batting average for this.  From an anecdotal perspective, players with good plate discipline AND poor contact rates have trouble progressing through the minors.  As they face a greater number of pitchers with more command of their pitches, the opportunities for walks will decrease.  Pitchers are more likely to pitch in the zone and for a player to make contact.  Players who do not have good contact rates tend to get eaten up as they move on to higher levels of competition.

Power - Good contact rate and plate discipline are a great foundation for a hitting skill set.  However, slapping the ball in professional leagues with players who field better is not as useful.  There are just not many Ichiro Suzukis out there who have the speed to take advantage of a rapidly improving defense.  In the pro game, there needs to be some power to go along with these skills.  Otherwise, pitchers will go at hitters and give them pitches to hit, knowing that there is unlikely to be much damage.

Additionally, these leagues have a level of competition that is more or less on par with low A and below talent with an occasional old salt who would be average in AA.  As such, I am looking for players who are 25 and younger (emphasis on younger) where there may be some hope for a few years of development.  This kind of player should be not available in these leagues.  The MLB scouting apparatus should have found them and locked them into their minor league systems.

In this post, we will cover is the Atlantic League.

The Atlantic League is where baseball players after a long career, holding onto the hope that they can easily shift back into a MLB roster.  Alumni include Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Jose Offerman, Bill Hall among others.  Some in the Baltimore Metro Area may remember that prior to there being the Aberdeen Ironbirds, the Aberdeen Arsenal played in the Atlantic League.  The business model of this league is basically is to fix up stadiums to a standard between AAA and MLB clubs and focus on signing players who are on the fringe.  As such, the league tends to be older than the other Indy leagues and players often shuttle back and forth between this league and AAA.

The 20% marks for the Atlantic League are as follow (players with >300 PA):

• 9.8% BB
• 0.77 BB:K
• .296 batting average
• .166 isolated power 

The average age for the league is 29.  That is 2 years older than the league we last covered the American Association.

The only player to hit all four marks was the 32 year old Brian Burgamy.  Of those that hit three of the marks, the youngest were 28 years old.  Perhaps the most interesting younger player in the league was 25 year old UTL Paddy Matera.  He was in his fourth season in the Indy league having never been in the MLB system.  With 180 PA in 2013, he managed a slash line of 304/365/525 for Camden and was signed for the Indians Hi A minors team.  For the Mudcats, he showed some difficulty in the field, but was at home at the plate slashing 282/415/419.  He may well be the best Indy pickup this year for a position player.

Anyway, here is the role call for the Atlanti League.

Brian Burgamy CIF/LF
32 years old
Drafted in 9th round (Wichita State University) in 2002 by the Padres

Year	Age	Tm	Lev	Aff	PA	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
2002	21	Eugene	A-	SDP	303	17	1	9	14	4	38	64	.268	.361	.444
2003	22	Fort Wayne	A	SDP	539	20	2	4	17	4	78	98	.222	.335	.301
2004	23	2 Teams	A+-A	SDP	204	12	0	1	4	4	18	35	.257	.322	.339
2005	24	2 Teams	A+-AA	SDP	470	18	6	9	6	3	52	92	.254	.338	.393
2006	25	2 Teams	A+-AA	PHI	574	21	6	13	24	8	95	102	.269	.392	.422
2007	26	2 Teams	A+-AA	PHI	521	21	3	13	11	7	70	99	.233	.337	.381
2008	27	2 Teams	Ind-A+	NYM	172	8	0	3	5	1	33	31	.273	.420	.402
2009	28	Camden	Ind		505	25	3	10	3	4	50	87	.247	.323	.382
2010	29	Camden	Ind		507	27	0	15	14	5	74	90	.307	.409	.476
2011	30	Camden	Ind		474	15	2	18	9	0	68	88	.259	.372	.442
2012	31	Camden	Ind		548	29	1	20	8	4	80	92	.294	.409	.493
2013	32	4 Teams	AAA-Ind		540	19	3	32	5	1	79	88	.322	.425	.588

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/10/2013.

Burgamy had difficulty figuring out baseball in AA.  Those failures led the Padres leave him open in the minor portion of the 2005 Rule 5 draft.  He was then picked up by the Phillies who gave him a couple more years to prove he could hit against advanced competition.  Gaining his freedom as a MiL free agent, he signed on with the Mets where he promptly injured his shoulder with the Mets letting him go.  Since 2009, he has been playing in the Indy leagues where he has progressively shown improvements in contact, power, and plate discipline.

In 2014, he will be 33 and vying for a corner spot on a team.  I doubt that any MLB teams will give him a chance due to those two facts.

The Near Misses Under 30 years old

Blake Gailen, LF/CF
28 years old
Gailen was last year's Baseball America Independent Player of the Year.  However, he went unsigned by any MLB team.  After performing well with BB%, BB:K, and ISO, the Blue Jays picked him up to help finish the year out at AAA Buffalo where he held his own in a handful of games.  For a team like Baltimore, perhaps some upper minors depth would have been useful.  That said, it is probably a stretch to think Gailen is serviceable as a 4th/5th OF.

Travis Scott, C/CIF
28 years old
Scott tended to hold himself well against HiA pitchers, but struggle greatly in a small sample of plate appearances against AA talent.  I do not know, but he appears to not have a true position along with a bat that won't carry him.  Scott showed good marks in BB%, BB:K, and ISO, but not quite to the same success as Gailen.


Next time:
Canadian-American Association