Coby Mayo, Jackson Holliday Headline 10 Statcast Standouts (July 1)

Jackson Holliday, 2B, Orioles

I’ve somehow never written about Holliday in this series. Let’s correct that error today, and do a deep dive on back-to-back Orioles prospects.

My first step when looking at a lefthanded batter is to check on how they perform against same-side pitchers. That’s a matchup many left handed batters struggle with. We see very clearly what fuels Holliday’s success: elite chase rates, even against LHPs. He simply does not chase, period. When he does chase, he’s able to make enough contact to avoid swing and miss. This comes at the expense of some in-zone aggression, but it’s very rare to have a batter this young with this level of plate discipline. The red flags in this profile vs LHPS are the below-average zone contact rates, against all pitch types, as well as the lack of above-average thump in his bat against LHPs, sitting just below major league average.

Against RHPs, where he has the matchup advantage, we see a very similar story, with even better plate discipline, with lower chase rates and more in-zone aggression. While his top-end exit velocities are slightly below major league average for now, he makes consistent hard contact against RHPs, against all pitch types, with the caveat that he isn’t able to get the ball in the air with consistency. It is somewhat concerning that he isn’t making a ton of in-zone contact yet, but there’s a giant caveat with all of these data points: Holliday is extremely young for the level.

The art of projecting young players is forecasting the aspects of the game that they’ll be able to improve on as they mature. Young players often see moderate gains in contact ability as they accumulate experience, much more often than we see a player go from being a free swinger to an ultra-disciplined hitter like Holliday. I’m very confident in projecting Holliday’s approach to translate to the majors. I’m somewhat confident that he’ll make enough gains in bat to ball, that his elite approach will shine through at the major league level.

Let’s dig a little deeper into Holliday’s approach, using our aggression/contact charts:

We see he is keying in on a specific area of the zone, and ignoring pretty much anything that is on the inner third. He needs to work on his swing against fastballs up in the zone, as that looks like a current hole in his swing, and a likely target in the major leagues. While he does have two home runs against four-seam fastballs up, he doesn’t yet do a ton of damage against fastballs up:

In my opinion, this is the key area that Holliday needs to work on before he’s thrown back against major league pitching. Holliday isn’t Mike Trout, but it does remind me of that time when the book on Trout was to simply attack him at the top of zone. Needless to say, Trout figured it out, and all signs point to Holliday figuring it out as well. Players with this pedigree, major league bloodlines and performance track record at a very young age, tend to take leaps. When Jackson figures it out, the Orioles might just have a historically great infield.

Dylan Crews, OF, Nationals

We don’t have a ton of pitches for Crews at Triple-A just yet, so we’ll have to settle for a brief overview, rather than a deep dive, as we need larger sample sizes to properly break down a player. In the early going, he’s showing a much improved contact rate, up from percentages in the low 70s last year and in Double-A this year, to a stellar 80.7% through Saturday, including 87% on pitches in the zone.

He’s posting above-average exit velocities, with a 105 mph 90th percentile exit velocity (+1 mph compared to the major league average), as well as an average exit velocity of 90.7 mph, which is closer to 2 mph above the major league average. These aren’t the monstrous exit velocities that you’ll get from fellow Nationals prospect James Wood, but they are plenty good. His 92 mph average exit velocity on balls hit in the air (20 degrees or higher launch angle) suggests he’ll be able to get to most of his power, as he makes better contact on balls he lifts.

Moises Ballesteros, C/1B, Cubs

Ballesteros is a baller, with a stellar track record of performance at every level, even without giving him credit for being extremely young at each stop. Through Saturday’s games, Ballesteros is off to a .366/.409./.561 start to his early Triple-A career. As with Crews, we don’t yet have enough data to do a full deep dive, but he’s already posting a 106 mph 90th percentile exit velocity (plus raw power), and he has a long track record of making contact, with contact rates above 75% at every stop in 2023, and I expect that his 72% contact rate at Triple-A in the very early going will trend up to the 75-80% mark as he gets more reps, and tones down the aggression somewhat.

Ballesteros has flown under the radar somewhat as he may or may not be a catcher, which adds a ton of variability to his projection. He’s rapidly ascending to the top of the catching prospect ranks, along with the next guy on this list:

Agustin Ramirez, C, Yankees

Ramirez is a shining example of how important patience is when evaluating prospects, because every now and then, there’s an exception that breaks the rules of thumb we often apply to prospects. In this instance, when a guy is old for the level, and repeats a level, especially in the complex league, we tend to write them off. This is a reasonable heuristic to apply, as J.J. Cooper outlined, showing that prospects repeating even Low-A is a large red flag, let alone the complex league.

So let’s celebrate what looks to be the rare exception, a prospect who repeated a complex league level in 2022, then had a massive breakout last year, reaching Double-A. This year, he absolutely hit the cover off the ball at Double-A, hitting 16 home runs and forcing his way onto the Triple-A roster, where he’s struggled in the really early going, and outside of his lone home run, his early data are showing low EVs, with more swing and miss than he had before. However, his track record over his last season and a half, as well as the EVs he put up in Single-A, strongly suggest he’ll recapture the form he showed in Double-A, once he adjusts.

I usually only write up guys with interesting Statcast data, however, in my mind, Ballesteros and Ramirez are always intertwined as catchers who are relatively under the radar, but deserving of more attention. I’m a huge believer in Ramirez’s bat, and we’ll check back in again in a month or two to see if the data reject or confirm said belief.

José Tena, SS, Guardians

Tena was recently promoted to the Guardians, so let’s take a look at what to expect from him.

Tena makes really hard contact, with plus to plus-plus exit velocities, belying his 5-foot-9 frame, however much of that contact is into the ground, which severely limits his offensive upside. He’s also extremely aggressive, with high chase rates, and a subpar ability to make contact when he chases.

Tena provides an excellent contrast to the elite approach of Jackson Holliday:

Here we see lots of aggression out of the zone, and even more so against breaking balls:

I’m not overly confident this approach will work at the major league level, but he does hit the ball really hard. Sometimes that can be enough to carry a player as they work on fixing other holes in their game.

Ronny Simon, 2B, Rays

Simon caught my eye in the inaugural article of this series, and somehow he’s escaped my notice since then. I’m out of town next week, but he looks like a good candidate as a headliner in couple of weeks.

Simon is a switch-hitter, which means he’s actually two different hitters. Let’s see what he looks like as a righty:

Against lefties, he’s showing plus exit velocities, with strong contact quality, and a unique ability to make contact against pitches he chases, a big reason he’s been able to keep his K% below 20% so far this year.

From the left side of the plate, we see much better contact rates, especially in zone, where he shows exceptional bat-to-ball ability. He shows average to plus raw power from the left side, which combined with his strong contact skills and up-the-middle profile, makes him look like yet another Tampa Bay Ray who’s going to put up a lot of very quiet, but very useful 2-3 win seasons in the major leagues.

Owen Caissie, OF, Cubs

It’s Canada Day, so it behooves this author to look at a premium Canadian baseball player. Let’s begin by looking at Caissie in the L/L matchup:

The good: Caissie doesn’t chase.
The bad: When he does chase sliders, he doesn’t make a lot of contact.

The good: Solid ability ability to lift the ball.
The bad: Underwhelming average and top-end exit velos.

For the most part when I look at a lefty hitter I want to know if they can hold their own against four-seam fastballs in the zone and make enough contact to be viable. The early data would suggest Caissie might be able to hold his own against LHPs.

When he has the platoon advantage, we see the real Caissie, with massive top-end exit velocities, easily plus-plus, but only plus from an average exit velocity perspective. We’ll do a more thorough break down later in the season, or if he gets called up.

Kyle Manzardo, 1B, Guardians

That’s a solid gold approach + contact + power combination when Manzardo has the platoon advantage. It’s not surprising that he’s been on fire in Triple-A recently. He’s rolling over a lot of offspeed pitches, which is his only weak spot in terms of contact quality.

The story against LHPs isn’t quite as stellar though, but he have very limited samples.

The thing to focus on here is the overall exit velocities against LHPs, which are on the low end, likely due to the majority of his balls in play coming against sliders, as he is far too passive with in-zone fastballs. It’s a very weird L/L profile, with some promising traits (contact) that could allow him to at least tread water when he doesn’t have the platoon advantage.

Zach Maxwell, RHP, Reds

Does Maxwell have an 80-grade fastball in terms of pure stuff? He might. Let’s look at some of his fastball metrics:

• He averages 99.2 MPH, and has been up 101.9
• He gets 18.8 inches of IVB, which is the equivalent of 19.7 inches for a pitch with average velo
• Gets about 3 inches more ride than a typical pitcher will get from that arm slot
• 24% Zone whiff rate
• StuffPro has it as 1.9 runs better than average
• My SMOKE score has it as 1.5 runs better than the average four-seam fastball

That’s as close to an 80-grade pure stuff fastball as you can get, and it might play even with subpar command. Because the fastball is so nasty, his slider/cutter is performing admirably, getting whiffs on over 50% of swings. If you’re in a dynasty fantasy baseball league, this may just be the rare closer prospect worth stashing.