I remember Edgar going through these periods where his bat would be a little less special, and they'd ask him what was going on. He'd say "Just trying to find the right grip" or "I'm a little far forward so I'm tweaking" or some such.
When he started clubbing for power it was much the same. Little tweaks about swing plane, how far to open the front shoulder...and then the power showed up.
Ackley didn't have a great first showing in the AFL in 09. The first couple of weeks were bad, and they asked him what was up. "I'm a little ahead of the action, this happens to me when I get too eager, so I'm just gonna wait a little longer instead of getting out in front all the time" was the gist of what he said. By the end of it he was a .300 hitter. Couple weeks of being too eager, he methodically stepped it back, and voila!
He started this season brutally. His pulse didn't flicker. He tweaked and massaged his approach, then hit .300 his last couple months there with a crazy number of walks. He was moved up to AAA but didn't continue that same approach. He started looking to drive the ball a little, took more Ks over walks, and experimented.
I don't know many kids who can experiment while facing the best competition of their lives and knowing they're being judged on it. He seems to be putting on a show now in the AFL with doubles, homers, average AND walks. Is that him putting together all that experimentation on the year?
- Stay back at the plate, don't be too aggressive
- take a TON of walks while figuring out the strike zone
- ditch the walks now that you can get em, so you can swing at more pitches and get that right
- start driving the ball instead of just making contact
- condense all lessons into unified plate approach
- oh yeah, keep working on defense
Ackley scares me. He only has to hit about 60 % of his potential to keep the starting job at 2nd for a long time. I think he could do that in his sleep. What frightens me is what happens if he hits 80%. 90%.
After seeing his power show in his junior year, it took the only question I had about him out of the equation. I was willing to sign off on him as John Olerud with wheels.
I've never seen John Olerud with wheels at 2B. As far as I can tell his name was Charlie Gehringer and he was one of the best 2B that ever lived.
I'm not gonna spend my time expecting that from Ackley. But knowing what he can do if he CAN boost his power to go with the average and OBP...
He's a scary prospect. The numbers don't reflect it yet because he's compiling data, as Sandy says.
But I believe they will. He's gonna light it up from the middle infield. Glad it's for us. Thanks Strasburg, I guess, for making him only the second best player in the draft.
If someone could do that this season for Rendon I'd really appreciate it.
~G
Muds updates us,
Ackley still on a tear. He goes 3 for 5 tonight with 2 doubles. He leads the league in OBP at .557 & leads the league in slugging as well with a gaudy .756 giving him a monster OPS of 1.313. His OBP isn't just a product of base on balls either as his batting average is third in the league at .422. Yea I know it's fall ball where the hitting numbers are usually better. But still, it makes your heart thump a little bit. I'm guessing they see a greater proportion of fast balls with all of the relief type pitchers down there.
And wildness, which can be disorganizing for some kids. Not all of the first-year pro's walk 5 times in one game against 5 pitchers.
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Quoth San-Man...
The scary part ... is that he was a baseball knowledge sponge while still a teen.
Baseball history (and brain chemistry) both confirm that the brain doesn't finish maturing until around age 25. While I'm perfectly willing to wait for Ackley to methodically step through his study, adjust, grow, settle, (repeat), cycle - and that it "may" take 3-5 years. The upside is that what took him a year at a time to do in college "MAY" only take him 6-8 weeks in the majors - based on the concept of better tools and coaches - fewer distractions ...
So, while it might take Ackley 3-5 years to jump from single-digit HR power to 20-something. It would not be shocking to see him take all the MLB tools available and massively accellerate his development path.
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Good stuff Muds.
... it's a funny thing, ain't it San' ... in Seattle we're conditioned to think it's unpossible for a rookie to have a good year. :- ) But somebody wins rookies of the year...
ARod wasn't quite eligible for ROY at age 20, when he hit .358 with 54 doubles and 36 homers for us.
Jose Cruz Jr. came up and slugged .541 in his first 49 games before leaving. It just seems to us -- us Safeco-era fans -- that you can't ask a rookie to play well.
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=== Coach GQ Dept. ===
If a player is going to be a star, it's nice to see flashes of real specialness, as George Karl would say.
Karl -- who, remember, won 60 a year in Seattle, flanked beforehand and afterward by losing Sonic coaches; and who took over a 17-25 Nuggets team and instantly went 32-8 with them --
-- centers a lot of his coaching around his patented concept of 'specialness.' That element in a player or team that is different from what other good players and teams do. He tries to isolate that and deploy it.
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=== In Ackley's Case ===
We don't say uniqueness; we're not claiming that nobody ever hit great in the AFL, or that it's a guarantee. Just that it's nice to see flashes of specialness.
Ackley's hitting better in the AFL than Albert Pujols would hit in the AFL, so there's that. There is Ackley's 22 homers in 260-odd AB's in his senior year, the broken metal bat on a GS etc. And there is his surprisingly-smooth conversion to 2B, from a non-glove position.
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=== Biggio Dept. ===
Not everybody here will recall that when Craig Biggio came up with the Astros, he was their starting catcher for three (3) years.
We recall that when the Astros tried to convert Craig Biggio from C to 2B, at age 26, Bill James wrote up a lot about it. All amounting to, "You've really got to be kidding me."
There wasn't a comparable position switch in baseball history, IIRC the argument. And there's likely to be a good reason there was never this switch.
................
At ages 23-25, Biggio hit reasonably well. At age 26, Biggio took over 2B and -- simultaneously -- stepped it up with the bat. 118 OPS+. First year!
James stopped on a dime, gave nine cents change, and wrote "I'm tremendously impressed by what Craig Biggio has accomplished. If I remember it right, Biggio was always James' favorite player, or one of his favorite players, after that.
Ackley is apparently going to raise the count of Biggio-type conversions to (2). While learning a new position, Ackley is tearing the AFL limb from limb. Pretty cool specialness on display down there in the AFL.
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
... if you HAD a John Olerud, or an Edgar, with wheels, what would you have expected them to look like?
I don't know many kids who can experiment while facing the best competition of their lives and knowing they're being judged on it.
... in the AFL ... is that him putting together all that experimentation on the year?
Just so!
Tremendous insight to bury in a comment :- )
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Thanks Strasburg, I guess, for making him only the second best player in the draft.
In public, there was a certain amount of arguing about the #2 overall. At least in the sense of Baseball America representing the GM's as having a "short list" after Strasburg.
'cause of Ackley's size, I guess. I wonder how many people understood him as well as Zduriencik did? 50% of the GM's? 70%?
As we'll recall, MC/SSI had Ack wayyyy out in front of the 3, and was it Taro? who argued him ahead of Strasburg?
I had Ackley at #2, but not too far off of #1. I was pretty happy with the #2 pick that year because Strasburgs mechanics really concerned me.
Ackley has zoomed through the system as suspected and the guy is starting to look like he might already be MLB-ready. The "special" guys are usually good MLBers from very early on.
Bottom-line, Ackley is the most exciting prospect we've had since Felix.
Olerud with wheels....I love that comparison. I would add that Olerud had a bit more of long-distance pop, but it is a very fair comparison. BTW, check out Oleruds first three Toronto seasons: Composit .267-.365-.440. he hit 47 homers in those first three (full) years....but they are eerily reminiscent of my .270-.370-.400 call for Ackley in the 2nd half of his '11.
Olerud was an Ackley-like young phenom. Heck, he was a pitcher at Wazzu, as well as a masher. Played in the league at age of 20 having never played an inning of minor league ball. From '93-'02 Olerud OWNED the strike zone (in either league) as was a 20-plus homer threat...and a 35 (or more) two-bagger guy. Give Ackely two years in the league...and he's Olerud-lite. Not quite the power at the plate and he might not hit Olerud's peaks (Olerud has a .363-.473 year and one that was .354-.447) but Ackley is going to play a middle infield spot, as well. I suppose we could all be full of hooey and Ackley crashes and burns....but it ain't going to happen. He's going to play 2B (or LF or DH or 1B with Rose type versatility) for the M's for the next 10 years, and do it well, unless they let him get away.
Found two hitters:
Ryan Braun in AFL in 2006: .326/.396/.641 with 9 dbl, 1 tpl, 6 HR, 11 BB, 23 K in 25 G
Evan Longoria in AFL in 2007: .308/.378/.585 with 6 dbl, 4 HR, 6 BB, 21 K in 18 G
Ackley so far: .422/.557/.756 with 6 dbl, 3 HR, 15 BB, 8 K in 13 G
nm
2-for-4 today, 1 walk, no Ks, and a homerun.
Ackley needs to pace himself.
"Dustin Ackley has been named the Arizona Fall League player of the week. Ackley leads the league in slugging percentage (.756), on-base percentage (.557), runs (20) and walks (15). His .422 batting average is second in the league."
And that's before today. Twice as many walks as Ks, and half his hits are for extra bases.
It may only be 50 ABs, that that's some 50 ABs. The pitching gets harder next year in the pros, but this is a nice little warm-up for a guy who didn't get a September callup.
~G
I am curious whether he's fixed his one weakness: his terrible at-bats against lefties.
So far he's only had 9 mediocre ABs in 11 games against em, so that's not helping me assess it - or him, probably.
Lefties will likely be the weakness he fixes in the pros. Once kryptonite no longer works, we'll see how he does.
Also, he's busy stealing third and such down in the desert because our coaches don't want him to get bored:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101105&content_id=16017948&vke...
"They told me, 'Don't be afraid of being picked off or getting thrown out,'" Ackley said. "They want me to learn my limitations and know myself and what kind of pitches I can steal off of. They put emphasis on me doing that, kind of taking it to where I get into situations and I look for pitches to go on."
...
"I feel as comfortable [hitting] as I've ever felt," Ackley said. "I'm really comfortable hitting any pitch in any count, and that's what I need to be."
Go get em, kid.
~G
And today he went 2-for-3 (1 double) with 1 walk, no strikeouts. Batting average of .442.
I like to remember that AFL stats don't mean anything (just look at a couple of other leaders and see how their seasons went) but he's just unstoppable right now. Nothing like being on a hot streak to make look forward to seeing him in Spring Training. And June, and July, and August...
~G
reach Oleruds power numbers? I keep seeing people claim that Ackley's power is dubious, but then everytime I go to compare Ackley to someone (especially other college players like Olerud) I find I am surprised that Ackley hit more home runs is college then they did. Olerud hit 33 total Colege HR's with a high of 23 as a sophomore, while Ackley hit 39 total college HRs with a high of 22 as a senior. And remember that Ackley was nursing TJ surgery for part of his college time.
Even the guys we claim as having awesome power often don't blow away Ackley's college power. Poythress is a guy who we hope can overcome SafeCo with his Awesome power, yet what was his college HR high? 22 his sophomore year, just like Ackley. Rich hit more overall, but I think that is due to Ackley being injured his sophomore year (he later had TJ surgery). Does everyone just assume those 22 HR's didn't happen or they were a fluke or what?
Anyways what do we do with the fact that Ackely may actually have the same amount of power as Rich Poythress??? Maybe Ackley really IS Joe Morgan part deux! :) :) :)
I love off season hype ;)
Olerud was 6'5. Ackley is 6'1. Olerud weighed 205-215, easy. Ackley has trouble making 185 with his scrawny body.
Olerud had a line-drive/slight-uppercut swing that meant he could loft balls out of the park, especially with his leverage.
Ackley has been slapping them along the ground, which makes people doubt his ability to do more than leg out doubles.
That's basically what's going on.
This is what he looks like in the Fall League this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23uKZcbMeoA
He's a little wrist-y with his swing. So's Chase Utley at times - can use those wrists to just flip balls over the outfield fence.
Watching his senior year of college, Ackley drove the ball incredibly well. I guess some people attributed that to the metal bat, but to me it was the last thing I wanted to see before signing off on him as the real deal.
He does remind me a lot of Utley. If he finds Utley's power he'll be unstoppable. If he runs his way to a lot of doubles and triples instead, that's fine too.
Utley: .295/.380/.515/.895, 38 2B/5 3B/29 HR per 162
Pedroia: .305/.370/.460/.830, 50 2B/16 HR per 162
Olerud: .295/.400/.465/.865, 36 2B/18 HR per 162
Ackley's gonna be in that range, IMO. I think Ole splits the difference nicely (higher walks than Pedroia, less HR power than Utley) but Ackley will leg out doubles that Ole never could.
Maybe he'll only hit 10 HRs a year...but if David Bell could pull 30 2B and 14 HR for his 162-game line, then I don't see how Ackley could fail to match that, with a higher BA and OBP.
Can we get around to March already, please? I want to see some GOOD baseball players wear the Ms uni this year.
~G
1-for-2, 3 walks, no Ks after having yesterday off to give the league a break.
That makes 21 walks against 8 Ks in 54 ABs.
Isn't there some better league he can go compete in...?
~G
I get home in the evening and do my routine. It includes house chores and what have you, the typical stuff. Lately the first thing I do is hop on the computer to see what Ackley did today. Screw the email, weather and all that crap. It's Ackley Fall League. And he walked 3 times today! Oh and he hit the ball too as usual. In a recent interview he says "MAYBE or HOPEFULLY, this spring they will remember what I did down here." or something like that. And it's like, Dude! You are in the friggin spot light. All of baseball knows what you doing down there right now, all modesty aside...please.
His K rates seem to be dropping a bit too. Which is nice considering he up against what many teams consider their best set up type pitchers for the future. Guys who I assume come in and simply attack the strike zone for an inning or so.
I really don't want to hear the mantra "This is the Arizona Fall League the numbers don't mean anything." If the torrid pace continues you can bet your behind it means something.
Yes, SSI is a bit saturated with Ackley, but not without reason he is looking so head and shoulders above the rest. So....more Ackley in your face.
Oh yea, that future phenom Bryce Harper kid off to a bit of a start too. If you're into baseball outside the bubble.