We’re now two months into the minor league regular season, which is a large enough set of data to have some meaning. With that in mind, I'm going to do a new series of pieces on the site over the next several days, in which I check in on the top ten and bottom ten players in the Oakland system on a litany of statistics. With each statistic, I'll talk a little bit about the lists and offer some commentary on what might be driving the strong or weak performances of players in these areas.
All statistics in this piece are current through June 6 and exclude players who are out of prospect eligibility or played in fewer than 15 games.
I'll start off the series with more basic, general statistics, and move into some more specific stuff as we proceed over the coming days. Thus, the first piece here, which will run through the offensive triple-slash statistics, wOBA, and wRC+ (and the second, which will run through some basic pitching statistics), will give us some general context about which players are excelling or struggling overall, and then the later installments will highlight more particular areas of excitement or concern.
Batting Average
First, let's look at the players who have attained the strongest batting averages so far in 2022.
Rank | Player | AVG |
1 | Jonah Bride | .355 |
2 | Michael Guldberg | .344 |
3 | Gabriel Maciel | .340 |
4 | Brett Harris | .338 |
5 | Max Schuemann | .322 |
6 | Zack Gelof | .315 |
7 | Denzel Clarke | .312 |
8 | Kevin Richards | .311 |
9 | Vince Fernandez | .309 |
10 | Jordan Diaz | .306 |
As we’ll see with a lot of these best-of lists as the series progresses, this is an interesting mix of top prospects, recent risers, and under-the-radar performers. Perhaps surprisingly, we don’t see an overrepresentation of hitters from Las Vegas and Stockton on this list, in spite of the extreme hitter-friendly environments in their respective home parks and leagues.
The hitters on this list get to their high batting averages in a variety of ways. Bride, Guldberg and Harris are all line drive-oriented hitters with patient approaches who wait for their pitch and then rip it when they get it. This description applies somewhat to Gelof as well, though he’s a bit more aggressive and has more of a power-hitting history. All are enjoying breakout seasons, though Guldberg’s still comes with small-sample caveats as he’s been limited to just 19 games due to injury. Conversely, Diaz and Maciel are both free swingers; Diaz has managed to continue barrelling the ball consistently in Midland, while Maciel makes a lot of use of his speed with more of a slashing approach to hitting.
It’s Clarke, Fernandez, and Richards who are the true surprises on this list. All three have a history of striking out a lot, and Clarke and Fernandez are around 28% and 31%, respectively, this season. Richards is down to a career-best 23%, but he’s repeating Low-A. Fernandez hadn’t hit .270 since his Rookie-level pro debut in 2016, Richards hadn’t hit even .250 ever in his four-year career, and Clarke was supposed to be a raw project after being drafted last year, but all three have posted very high BABIP figures this year. Maybe part of that is luck (and the Stockton and Vegas parks/leagues do help in this regard), but part is definitely their ability to impact the ball forcefully.
Schuemann falls somewhere in between these categories, as he has a leadoff man’s speed, solid plate discipline, and a short swing, but he does have moderate swing-and-miss to his game and swings hard enough to impact the ball with some real force. The fact that he’s maintained a batting average in the .320 area in Midland for about a full year now after hitting just .224 in Lansing for the first half of last season is one of the most impressive developments in the A’s system in that timeframe.
Who is having the hardest time getting hits to fall?
Rank | Player | AVG |
1 | Matt Cross | .119 |
2 | Jalen Greer | .120 |
3 | Sahid Valenzuela | .159 |
4 | Mariano Ricciardi | .162 |
5 | Cooper Uhl | .167 |
6 | Pat McColl | .171 |
7 | Brayan Buelvas | .178 |
8 | Pedro Pineda | .188 |
9 | Nick Brueser | .198 |
10 | Shane Selman | .202 |
Batting average is often derided as an irrelevant statistic in this age of analytics, but I do find it to be interesting in the sense that it reflects the intersection of BABIP and strikeout rate. As such, the hitters who are struggling the most to get hits might be weak in one or both of these areas (which I’ll examine separately later on in the series). Ricciardi and Buelvas have kept their strikeout rates pretty reasonable and primarily been undone by BABIP, while Greer, McColl, Pineda, and Brueser have BABIPs in a fairly normal realm but have struck out too frequently. Valenzuela, Uhl, Cross, and Selman have struggled in both areas.
Primarily, this list is comprised of hitters at the A-ball levels, with only Selman in Double-A, and several have yet to have significant offensive success at any level in pro ball. The majority are later-round draftees or undrafted free agent signings, though there are a few high-profile names that stand out. Pineda and Buelvas are two of the organization’s most-praised international prospects and were given aggressive assignments to Stockton and Lansing, respectively. Neither looked as overmatched as their batting averages or overall statlines might have you believe, with decent approaches and some feel for pitch recognition, but both struggled to finish at-bats off effectively, fouling off, rolling over, or missing too many hittable pitches in the zone. The other two players on this list who were picked in the top ten rounds are Greer (5th round, 2019) and McColl (10th round, 2019). Both have had trouble catching up to quality velocity this season.
On-Base Percentage
Next, let's move on to OBP. Again, we'll start with the organizational leaders in this category.
Rank | Player | OBP |
1 | Jonah Bride | .450 |
2 | Michael Guldberg | .438 |
3 | Brett Harris | .438 |
4 | Max Schuemann | .436 |
5 | Gabriel Maciel | .426 |
6 | Vince Fernandez | .420 |
7 | Denzel Clarke | .417 |
8 | Nate Mondou | .393 |
9 | Drew Swift | .392 |
10 | Kyle McCann | .390 |
The top seven hitters on this list were also in the top ten batting averages, which I suppose should be no surprise. Everyone on this list except Mondou has a walk rate of 10% or higher (Mondou is at 9%), and a number of them (Bride, Guldberg, Harris, Schuemann, Swift) have well-established good approaches. Again, the inclusion of both Clarke and Fernandez on this list is intriguing given their strikeout totals, but the most surprising inclusion is definitely McCann, who came into the 2022 season with a .285 career OBP in 148 career games. As we’ll see a bit later in the series, he’s had some particularly interesting plate discipline metrics.
The bottom ten list is perhaps a bit more surprising:
Rank | Player | OBP |
1 | Sahid Valenzuela | .213 |
2 | Jalen Greer | .224 |
3 | Matt Cross | .224 |
4 | Brayan Buelvas | .237 |
5 | Jhoan Paulino | .263 |
6 | Shane Selman | .268 |
7 | Joshwan Wright | .269 |
8 | Robert Puason | .273 |
9 | Tyler Soderstrom | .275 |
10 | Jeremy Eierman | .275 |
This is a notably more prospect-laden group than the batting average stragglers, and it actually doesn’t have a ton of overlap with the batting average list. You never want to see your organization’s preseason #1 prospect on this list, and yet there’s Tyler Soderstrom, who’s been visibly pressing at the plate for most of the season and has gotten himself in trouble with his tendency to chase high fastballs and outside changeups. Puason and Paulino are young Low-A hitters who are still in the early stages of figuring out pitch recognition and plate discipline. Valenzuela and Wright are line-drive hitters with small strike zones who really need to show more plate discipline to have offensive value. Both had decent walk numbers in Stockton last season, but Valenzuela has struggled with high fastballs in Lansing, and Wright has been quite overaggressive this year. Selman’s early-season struggles in Midland have been a disappointment after he controlled the zone well in Lansing last year; his bat path doesn’t keep the barrel in the zone for very long and has resulted in homer-or-bust output so far in the upper minors. Eierman, who has struggled with strikeouts for his whole pro career, has faced similar challenges.
Slugging Percentage & Home Runs
Now, let's turn to power output. Who's pacing the organization in slugging percentage?
Rank | Player | SLG |
1 | Jonah Bride | .617 |
2 | Brett Harris | .603 |
3 | Denzel Clarke | .567 |
4 | Jordan Diaz | .561 |
5 | Vince Fernandez | .553 |
6 | Kevin Richards | .541 |
7 | Shea Langeliers | .506 |
8 | Kyle McCann | .504 |
9 | Dermis Garcia | .500 |
10 | Max Schuemann | .491 |
I’m actually pretty surprised to see how much overlap there is here with the batting average and OBP lists, with only Shea Langeliers and Dermis Garcia emerging as additional names. I suppose that’s a testament to the well-roundedness of the system’s best hitters. It’s worth noting that here we see perhaps a more pronounced effect of home parks and leagues, with only Harris representing High-A Lansing and both of those new names coming from Las Vegas.
Still, this is an interesting mix of guys who are traditionally seen as one-tool power types (Garcia, McCann, Fernandez) and hit-first guys who have grown from previous gap-to-gap approaches into more over-the-fence pop this season (Bride, Harris, Schuemann, and to some extent Richards). The power of Langeliers, Diaz, and Clarke was also not in question, but all three entered the season with questions about either the consistency or quality of the contact they would make at their respective levels; it's a good sign that they’ve avoided those potential pitfalls thus far.
Here are the players who have most struggled to slug.
Rank | Player | SLG |
1 | Sahid Valenzuela | .159 |
2 | Jalen Greer | .160 |
3 | Mariano Ricciardi | .191 |
4 | Pat McColl | .229 |
5 | Joshwan Wright | .254 |
6 | Matt Cross | .254 |
7 | Shane McGuire | .255 |
8 | Christian Lopes | .269 |
9 | T.J. Schofield-Sam | .276 |
10 | Robert Puason | .283 |
It’s less surprising to see the overlap in this particular list, since a number of the batting average and OBP strugglers are lower-level guys who are still growing into their power. Christian Lopes slugged over .400 in four separate past Triple-A seasons, so his lack of thump in Las Vegas’ offensive paradise is quite surprising; perhaps it’ll turn around in the coming months. Schofield-Sam is also repeating a level at which he slugged .391 last year and has actually cut his strikeout rate to a strong 16%, so I’d have to think his placement on this list isn’t necessarily going to portend permanent woes. McColl and Cross are power-first guys–Cross actually had a multi-homer game in Great Lakes for his only two blasts of the season–so their appearances here are particularly troubling to see. Shane McGuire is a catcher with a terrific batting eye whose lack of power stems from a very conservative swing that doesn’t incorporate his lower half very much; perhaps there can be an adjustment made to help him hit the ball harder.
Let’s also, for fun, take a look at the home run leaders in the system (I’m not going to show you a strugglers list; eleven players are tied with zero home runs, and that only tells us so much).
Rank | Player | HR |
1 | Shea Langeliers | 11 |
T-2 | Max Muncy | 10 |
T-2 | Tyler Soderstrom | 10 |
T-4 | Jordan Diaz | 9 |
T-4 | Jeremy Eierman | 9 |
T-6 | Brett Harris | 8 |
T-6 | Austin Beck | 8 |
T-8 | Kevin Richards | 7 |
T-8 | Kyle McCann | 7 |
T-8 | Logan Davidson | 7 |
It’s incredible that Langeliers still leads the Oakland system with 11 longballs in spite of not homering since May 7. Soderstrom and Eierman’s issues getting on base haven’t mitigated their ability to drive the ball over the fence, and Richards, Beck, McCann, and Davidson are all impressing in this area after struggling to get to their power in games in previous seasons. Muncy’s appearance near the top of this list at just age 19 is a welcome sight. It’s worth noting that this isn’t really a list of Dermis Garcia-type corner guys, as Langeliers, Muncy, Eierman, Davidson, Beck, and Harris all bring significant defensive value, and Soderstrom and McCann are catchers; only Diaz and Richards are on the right tail of the defensive spectrum.*
*Unless the organization takes me up on my suggestion to move Diaz to catcher as well, of course!
Finally, let’s take a look at two commonly-cited overall metrics for hitting: wOBA and wRC+. They won’t really highlight many new names from the triple-slash lists, but will give us a sense of how the top and bottom hitters in the system have stacked up overall.
Weighted On-Base Average
These final two statistics give us windows into which players have put up the best overall offensive production in the Oakland system in 2022 so far. Here's how wOBA ranks them:
Rank | Player | wOBA |
1 | Jonah Bride | .460 |
2 | Brett Harris | .456 |
3 | Denzel Clarke | .442 |
4 | Vince Fernandez | .420 |
5 | Max Schuemann | .420 |
6 | Gabriel Maciel | .406 |
7 | Kyle McCann | .397 |
8 | Kevin Richards | .396 |
9 | MIchael Guldberg | .393 |
10 | Jordan Diaz | .392 |
Bride and Harris stand head and shoulders above the rest of the system this year. Bride’s success isn’t surprising, since he’s spent much of 2022 repeating a level he dominated last year (.381 wOBA) and then was finally promoted to the Vegas pinball machine, but he’s still managed to add some power while cutting his already-low strikeout rate. Harris’ breakout (discussed here) has been one of the system’s great stories, and it’s great to see him translating to the upper minors immediately. Clarke’s immediate transition to pro ball despite his high-risk amateur reputation has also been welcome, and he (4th round) and Harris (7th round) have joined top-two picks Max Muncy and Zack Gelof in providing very strong early returns on the A’s 2021 draft efforts. Fernandez, McCann, and Richards have seemingly come out of nowhere, as Schuemann did last season. It’s interesting that two 2022 minor league Rule 5 picks–Fernandez and Maciel–show up on this list, perhaps a reflection of canny scouting. We’ll have to see how Maciel and Guldberg fare going forward, as both have had fairly little playing time due to injuries.
And these are the hitters whom wOBA grades most harshly:
Rank | Player | wOBA |
1 | Sahid Valenzuela | .182 |
2 | Jalen Greer | .202 |
3 | Matt Cross | .228 |
4 | Joshwan Wright | .246 |
5 | Pat McColl | .249 |
6 | Mariano Ricciardi | .250 |
7 | Brayan Buelvas | .264 |
8 | Robert Puason | .266 |
9 | Christian Lopes | .269 |
10 | Euribiel Angeles | .276 |
We’ve gone over the challenges most of these players have faced already, though Euribiel Angeles is a new name here; the prize of the Sean Manaea deal has hit over .250 as a High-A teenager, but his extremely aggressive approach has compromised his ability to amass walks or extra-base hits this season. Several of these players are quite young for their assignments and still have significant bounceback possibilities.
Weighted Runs Created+
The wRC+ organizational leaderboard tells a similar but slightly different story to the wOBA one:
Rank | Player | wRC+ |
1 | Brett Harris | 182 |
2 | Jonah Bride | 168 |
3 | Denzel Clarke | 158 |
4 | Gabriel Maciel | 156 |
5 | Vince Fernandez | 145 |
6 | Max Schuemann | 142 |
7 | Lazaro Armenteros | 135 |
8 | Kevin Richards | 131 |
9 | Kyle McCann | 128 |
10 | Michael Guldberg | 126 |
We really see the park/league effects kick in here, with Lansing guys getting bumped up the list. Armenteros enters: the fact that he’s on here despite a 43% (!) strikeout rate is a testament to his ability to rack up walks and hit occasional tape-measure blasts. He, Muncy, and Soderstrom are the only three players in the system to average more than two bases per hit. The stat also kicks Harris into a decisive first place over Bride and bumps Maciel up to fourth.
Finally, here are the hitters with the lowest wRC+ marks in the system.
Rank | Player | wRC+ |
1 | Sahid Valenzuela | 10 |
2 | Jalen Greer | 13 |
3 | Matt Cross | 40 |
4 | Mariano Ricciardi | 42 |
5 | Christian Lopes | 49 |
6 | Joshwan Wright | 52 |
7 | Robert Puason | 52 |
8 | Pat McColl | 54 |
9 | T.J. Schofield-Sam | 62 |
10 | Shane Selman | 63 |
The more difficult league didn’t prevent Lansing hitters from remaining well-represented on this list, though Angeles and Buelvas did escape the bottom 10. Again, the theme here is lower-minors guys who mostly have yet to get established at the plate in their careers in general.
In the next part of the series, I’ll look at how the organization’s pitchers are faring on the triple-slash statistics, ERA, and some defense-independent metrics. After that, we’ll start getting into some more specific data in future installments.
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