Bill James projections for Hamilton
.372/.375 (OBP/SLG), 105 stolen bases

A little high, no?

The Reds would be ecstatic if he hit that projection. I doubt he's close to it, though. With his lack of power and lack of contact, he will have to improve a lot to put up a decent OBP. Now, with his off the charts baserunning, a poor projection might still leave him as an above average offensive player.

Yeah, a little.

The Bill James Handbook projections that are built primarily from minor league track records are basically useless. In comparison to projections from in-depth systems (Zips, Steamer, Cairo, Oliver, Pecota, etc), it's obvious that they assume very little penalty in the MiLB to MLB transition. The other systems, while having their variations, have a decent level of agreement with each other showing significantly lower performances for minor leaguers. They simply have much more severe MLE factors.

Bill James projections for Hamilton
.372/.375 (OBP/SLG), 105 stolen bases

Bill James projections for filihok:

242/315/378 with 37 steals

so what are you doing here son? :-)

If you have a few minutes you can never get back and enjoy getting angry a bad writing.

The sentences were longer than what most sportswriters put out, but I don't see what was wrong with that article.

Hamilton struck out 113 times in 132 games in 2012 in the minor leagues.

That sounds like a lot of strikeouts for a non-power hitter, but it's really not that bad. Hamilton averaged a K every 4.5 ABs (or if you prefer he made contact in 77.9% of ABs); my rough rule of thumb is that as long as the K rate is better than 1/4 (or contact in at least 75% of ABs) it's acceptable. And while the rate deteriorated in AA, it was still tolerable (1 K/4.09 AB, contact rate of 75.5%). Stubbs, by contrast, had 123 Ks in 470 ABs at three levels in 2008 (one per 3.82 ABs, contact rate of 73.8%) and he was below 75% throughout his minor league career.

I think Hamilton's inability to drive the ball is a more serious concern.

-- MWE

Hamilton's numbers as a 21 year old are very similar to Vince Coleman's (with a little more power). Coleman was a mediocre hitter and fielder, but was a useful player because of his speed. If Hamilton can turn himself into an average to above average CF and hit like Coleman (90ish OPS+), he'll be a valuable player.

#3 "useless" is an overbid. The specific issue that he used to have is that the competition quality adjustment for AA was a bit too low. Not sure now. Honestly, since good projections have been freely available online I haven't spent a great deal of time looking at the James/STATS projections.

The last time I checked in any great detail was early days of BP. And the James/STATS projections had a noticeably smaller standard error (which prompted BP to change their methodology)

It'd be interesting to track the standard error of the various systems when it comes specifically to rookies. I don't know that anybody's ever looked at that.

One of the problems in projecting Hamilton is that a high portion of his value lies in his walk rate and walk rate is the least stable part of any minor to major transition.

That sounds like a lot of strikeouts for a non-power hitter, but it's really not that bad. Hamilton averaged a K every 4.5 ABs (or if you prefer he made contact in 77.9% of ABs); my rough rule of thumb is that as long as the K rate is better than 1/4 (or contact in at least 75% of ABs) it's acceptable. And while the rate deteriorated in AA, it was still tolerable (1 K/4.09 AB, contact rate of 75.5%). Stubbs, by contrast, had 123 Ks in 470 ABs at three levels in 2008 (one per 3.82 ABs, contact rate of 73.8%) and he was below 75% throughout his minor league career.

I think Hamilton's inability to drive the ball is a more serious concern.

Well, those two problems kind of compund each other, don't they? I mean if you can drive the ball, then swing hard, even if you K. But if you can't, you should be adjusting your hitting style to optimize your speed.

Hamilton should be choking up and pounding the ball into the ground and legging them out, or bunting. He should be watching video of Phil Rizzuto and adjusting accordingly.

#3 "useless" is an overbid. The specific issue that he used to have is that the competition quality adjustment for AA was a bit too low. Not sure now. Honestly, since good projections have been freely available online I haven't spent a great deal of time looking at the James/STATS projections.

Maybe an overbid, but not by much. IIRC correctly, they have different run environments for offense and defense, i.e. they project MLB to collectively score far more runs than it allows. That kind of basic error moves you pretty close to useless in my book.

Hamilton should be choking up and pounding the ball into the ground and legging them out, or bunting

"Every time I see you hit one in the air, you owe me twenty pushups."

"Every time I see you hit one in the air, you owe me twenty pushups."

I was thinking of Willie Mays Hayes when I wrote that :-) As an added bonus, enough pushups and he might gain the strenght to actually drive the ball.