Projecting the Yankees’ First Round Pick

The Yankees made a valiant run at the playoffs, which was arguably sparked by the ‘Baby Bombers’ who provided a sense of urgency that was lacking prior to their arrival. While we are starting to get a glimpse of the future of the Yankee organization, we’re surely not seeing the entire scope. There are other players in the pipeline – including Blake Rutherford – that will most certainly have a say in the Yankees’ destiny.

Blake Rutherford was the Yankees’ No. 1 pick in the June’s draft. He is a high school bat with tons of power potential. BP’s own Christopher Crawford saw Rutherford as the “best prep bat in this class.” This is high praise and it seems Rutherford is already living up to the expectations.

Before we get into the numbers I must acknowledge that trying to predict a kid’s future baseball success based on his rookie-ball stats is nearly impossible; like, 0-to-15 percent accurate depending on which statistical model you reference. One of the main reasons their predictability is so low is that rookie ball is only half of a season; you can’t accurately judge any player based on 100 at bats. That being said, there are specific data points we can concentrate on which can give us a better picture of how successful a player may become or at least what they may need to improve on if they are to become successful.

As you can see from Rutherford’s line, he had an amazing rookie-league campaign, especially his time with the Pulaski Yankees of the advanced Appalachian League. He ranked 32nd – among minor-league players with at least 100 at bats – with an OPS of .985. If you only included his time in advanced rookie ball (Appalachian League) – of which most of his plate appearances came from – he ranked eighth. However, despite his phenomenal first half-season there are some concerns which I will address below.

Most statistical models that try to forecast minor league players look at a narrow set of key variables. For those in rookie ball the number of significant data points becomes even more narrow. For instance, at Triple-A there may be 10 data points that can help in forecasting players, but at the rookie league level there may only be six that are significant.

For all models, age is a main variable. Rutherford is 19-years-old, which is older than your typical high school draftee. This actually hurts Rutherford’s outlook in most models. The reasoning is that since he is older he has less time until he reaches his prime years, which could mean he will not have as many prime years during his career. This is because there is an average max age where a player’s performance starts to drop off. I have not seen sufficient enough evidence to fully buy into this notion especially when it comes to a player like Blake Rutherford who seems could be already closing in on his prime years. Age is just one of the variables used in most models to predict minor league players.

Another variable that has been determined by sabermatricians to be somewhat significant in predicting whether a minor league player will reach the highest level is strikeout percentage (K%). Walk rate is not nearly as important when it comes to forecasting players in rookie ball as strikeout rate is. This intuitively makes sense. Pitchers in rookie ball don’t have the best control so a hitter exercising great patience could rack up a ton of walks. You don’t necessarily have to be a good hitter to do that. A player’s K% on the other hand is a little more telling. Rutherford’s total K% during his rookie league season was 23.1%. To put this in context, your average major-leaguer strikes out 20 percent of the time. It is not uncommon to see young hitters in the minor leagues with higher than normal strikeout rates. That being said it is a little troubling that Rutherford is not exercising patience at the plate. At least initially, it seems he has taken the approach to swing at everything knowing that a majority of the time the pitcher will be missing over the plate. While this may work at the rookie and even Single-A level, it becomes increasingly hard to maintain the higher one climbs.

ISO is a stat that measures a player’s raw power and power is another key predictor of big league performance. Rutherford showed a good amount of slugging ability this season, finishing the year with a total ISO of .219. The average ISO for your typical major league batter is .140. No one is doubting this kid’s ability to hit for extra bases. It also goes in line with what his strategy has been thus far, which is trying to hit everything as hard as he can at the risk of striking out. This power is a good sign for Rutherford as there has been some evidence that this skill could be transferable to the next level.

Most of us know that BABIP can be used to understand if a player could be due for regression. The higher the BABIP, the better chance the player has at experiencing negative regression in the future and vice versa. In Rutherford’s case, his limited plate appearances makes it hard to establish a proper baseline for BABIP. However, going by the fact the average hitter has a BABIP that hovers around .300, I would say Rutherford’s .446 could mean he has been over-performing a little. The level of regression is dependent on establishing an individual baseline, but needless to say I would not expect Rutherford to be able to sustain this type of ball-in-play success as he moves up the organization.

I think it is safe to say Rutherford is – if nothing else – surpassing expectations. The club definitely saw potential or they would not have drafted him, but it has been a pleasant surprise to see him break out of the gate so quickly. That being said, fans should temper their expectations when it comes to the Yankees fast tracking Rutherford to the big leagues. Even Mike Trout took 2 1/2 years to get to the show and Rutherford had a better rookie-ball season than Trout did. There…I did it. I somehow compared Rutherford to Mike Trout. The jinx is on.

If I had to project Rutherford right now based on what his limited Rookie league stats show us I would say he will follow a path similar to Javier Baez of the Cubs. Baez struck out a lot when they first called him up, but has been able to turn that around to an extent and has become a more complete hitter. If Rutherford remains content to keep striking out in order to increase his power he may find himself in the minors longer than anticipated.

Fun fact: Mike Trout’s strikeout rate hovered around 15-17% during his 2 1/2 years in the minor leagues at all levels.

Photo: Kim Klement / USA Today Sports