Original POTD was 4/13/06.

LaHair was promoted to Tacoma a couple days ago (writing now in mid-June).  A Rainiers game now offers you … Asdrubal Cabrera, Adam Jones, Chris Snelling (sometimes), Rob Johnson, Francisco Cruceta (sometimes), Shin-Shoo Choo (who has 18 hits in the last two days), and … Bryan LaHair.

Why are you still here?  See you on $1 hot dog night… I can handle at least three of 'em.

 

Q:  Cliff's Notes first, D.

LaHair has the advantage of having a great body, great strength (and PROJECTABLE POWER), with great athleticism in the Conine/Tony Clark sense, and a LH swing.

He combines that with a super makeup, a lust for the RBI, and a fanatical desire to learn.

Like Conine and like Tony Clark, he is liable to look awkward in the early stages of his development. But he is by no means “behind the curve” on his career arc, and the best thing to do is to let him play through the upper minors.

It might be age 25 or age 27 when LaHair breaks out, or it might be never. But you can’t by any means rule out his becoming a MOTO bat. Conine did.

Just be sure that you give the “athletes” a little extra patience. They’re not going to look like “born players,” either now, or when they play in their age-30 All-Star game. But if they’re willing to learn, they usually find a way.

As of June 2006, LaHair ranks #8 to #15 in the M's system.  He's the one who's playing good.

Edit to add in Sept 06 … lately it dawned on me that Rafael Palmeiro is a tremendous MLB prototype.  See comment #72.

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Q:  Who is he?

A:  Underdog prospect, plays 1B, hits lefty, has "shocked" people by ripping up high-A last year and AA this year.

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Q:  Where did the M's get him?

A:  JfromSeattle points out that LaHair was a draft-and-follow, a guy who was drafted late and then had to go prove himself at a small college before getting even a minimal contract.

LaHair was drafted in the 39th round.  Note carefully this means that in the 37th and 38th rounds — at the time of pick #1000 –, nobody in the majors wanted him.

The fact that every scout in the country hated him, doesn't mean that LaHair can't play in the majors.  Piazza was drafted in the 62nd. 

Most major leaguers were drafted so late it would astound you.  Scouts are smart, but they do not have their arms around their process.  The job is too hard for them to be very successful at it.  It's not realistic to ask them to do what they are supposedly able to do.

So the fact that all 30 MLB scouting "combines" agreed that LaHair was NOT one of the 1,000 best amateurs in the country — means essentially zero.   Scouts can and do agree that a future MLB player is worthless at 21.  It happens all the time.

D-O-V doesn't argue that scouts aren't valuable.  D-O-V cautions you not to let scouts kid you that they are reliable.  They just aren't.  For scouts to look at Ichiro and declare him a backup OF is business-as-usual.  For scouts to look at Jose Lopez and say there is no way he'll ever be a star is business-as-usual.

Scouts are in their element with very young players, with 18-year-olds like ARod.  By the time a player has a good-sized track record, then performance analysis (sabermetrics) becomes more reliable than scouting. 

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Q.  What has he done since college?

A:  Remember, he was 20 out of college, apparently playing one season and then being drafted, to be watched during his 2nd college season… probably all his life he played against sub-par competition.

At 20, LaHair put up a Willie Bloomquist line in low-A ball.  That's your first taste of harcore baseball.  No tragedy there.

At 21, he returned to Everett and hit .440 for a week, and went right up to Wisconsin A.  He hit the league average at Wisconsin, with a 66/16 eye ratio.  Getting his legs under him.

 

At 22 (last year), LaHair went to high-A Inland Empire and hit .310/.373/.503.  His 113 RBI was #2 in all of the minor leagues.  Then he went to the IBAF World Cup and starred there.

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Q:  What's he doing in 2006?

A:  He's outhitting Jeff Clement — Clement is less than a year younger — LaHair is ripping along at .330/.417/.557.

LaHair has the #6 OPS in the Texas League, and lemme tell ya:  Nelson Wolff Stadium makes Safeco look like Fenway.  You might as well lead the league in OPS from the old Astrodome, as do what LaHair's done so far. 

Surprisingly, LaHair even has an eye ratio (25/14) that is much improved over *last* year, despite making the leap to the "high" minors.

It's just 31 games, of course (along with his great 2005 season).

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Q:  Have you seen LaHair?

A:  (Edit to add, we saw him after he got to Tacoma, and liked him better as a result… see the 7 Rainiers POTD in the POTD sidebars.)

D-O-V's thing is the chessplayer's way of analyzing a position:  When has this position been seen before?  And what happened?  How does this position differ?  Use your good judgment to decide which differences are important, and which aren't.

PECOTA uses height, weight, handedness, etc., in a very primitive way to draw matches.  D-O-V includes stats, body type, swing type, defensive agility, etc., to ask, "when have we seen Bryan LaHair before?"

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Q:  So when HAVE you seen LaHair before?

A: Edit to add, LaHair visually looks like a bigger version of Rafael Palmeiro — similar "presence," similar focus and approach in the box, similar swing, and similar career arc.

With Jeff Conine, from the other side, of course, in terms of the type of athlete he is.

Or Gerronimo Berroa.  Or John Jaha.  Or Matt Stairs.  Or Bucky Jacobsen.  Let's get to that in a second… 

Conine, though righty, is a similar late-developer, determined type, super athletic (Conine was a pro-class racquetball player), similar makeup. 

Conine isn't the perfect comp, but there are a lot of things about the two players that attach them in your head…

Tony Clark has similarities … tall, muscular LH body, raw approach with some holes in the strike zone, wasn't really ahead of LaHair in development arc.

There isn't a single prototype that comes to mind at the moment.  But the defining characteristic for LaHair is:  more athlete than ballplayer, great makeup, very determined to learn. 

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Q:  Is it too late for LaHair?  He's 23 in double-A.

A:  LOL!  Don't get too used to the Jose Lopez, Asdrubal Cabrera fast tracks.

Edit to add, another late-blooming jumbo-sized LH, Ryan Howard, became a dramatic 2006 confirmation of this D-O-V point.  See comments #72 forward.) 

Many, many quality MLB'ers were nowhere at 23.  Being way ahead of your age is the single best predictor of MLB success for hitters, but it's far from the only one. 

Many fast-track prospects wash out after starring in AAA at 21, and many slow-track prospects "come on" to hit #3 for MLB teams after being in the low minors at 22, 23, or even 24.  A few examples are given above, with Conine, Berroa, Jaha, Stairs, etc. 

DON'T get to assuming that you can just use age-and-level and call it a day.  You can't.  They'll make a liar out of ya.

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Q:  Jaha and Stairs weren't young hotshots?

A:  Matt Stairs flunked A ball at 21 … like, slugged .250 or something … and at 22 was terrible in AA.  All the way to age 25 he was struggling in the minors (repeated AAA at 25 and slugged .416).

At 27-28, Stairs started slugging .547 and .582 in the majors.

John Jaha at 21, 22, and 23 was behind where LaHair is now. 

Those two always had good eye ratios, and LaHair didn't, so take Gerronimo Berroa. 

Berroa had ups and downs, but always had a bad eye ratio, and didn't break into the bigs until six full years after his first trial there.  Pity that guy … first MLB trial in 1989, failed that, 1990, failed that, forgotten until 1993 … failed that!, then in 1995, Billy Beane gave him a REAL chance and got a 30-homer man for free.

It's all too easy to visualize LaHair doing exactly the same thing:  getting a 40-AB trial in Seattle once or twice, not impressing, and then hitting 30 bombs for Billy Beane when he's 29.  Heh.

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Q:  What do the tools scouts say?

A:  He's got the great frame — 6'5" almost Tony Clarkish, 220 lbs., very agile around the 1B bag with great hands.  (Saberdweebs would have assumed a good glove at 1B …why?  Because he's a converted LF'er.)

Henry Cotto — yes, that Henry Cotto — takes full credit for LaHair's development.  Excerpting:

 

 

The Inland Empire hitting coach has been working with Bryan LaHair for three-and-a-half months and the lessons taught on small fields in San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga and Lake Elsinore are beginning to pay off. Cotto, who spent six of his 10 seasons in the big leagues with Seattle, is helping groom the player who some believe will be the Mariners' first baseman of the future.

And if Cotto's work — he's been teaching patience and paying attention to the details involved with situational hitting — is any indication, there's little reason to believe that LaHair won't at least be on Seattle's radar before too long.

"I remember seeing him his first year and he wasn't the type of hitter he is now," Cotto said. "He wasn't as strong as he is now. He's very different now. He's a much better player offensively. He's learning to take pitches the other way. He goes with the pitch and he isn't greedy, trying to pull everything. When he's clicking and he does it and gets it, he'll get three or four hits a night and a couple of RBIs."

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The rap on LaHair — of course there will be a rap on him for the rest of his life; he was a 39th-round pick — is that he can't hit lefties.

D'oh.  He won't hit lefties for a while.  Few LH-on-LH have much luck until the last stages of their development. 

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=== Calleaguers.com ===

I like this amigo, a real young guy who aspires to a career in baseball and who has lots of value to add.

Just don't "panic" like you did after reading his report on Wlad Balentien — who, by the way (Wlad) has come on nicely over the last couple weeks.

The way that scouts impress other scouts is to find fault.  And there is an element of "watch how objective I am by seeing how tough I am" going on with these amigos.

We don't say that calleaguers.com isn't cool — it is.  But keep in perspective the more-objective-than-thou game that goes on.  Dave Cameron's top 40, for example, has Jeff Clement and Adam Jones as "potential regulars," not even potential stars.  And those are the only two players in the whole system who are "potential regulars."

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How can Dr. D comment on a scouting report when he hasn't seen LaHair play?  From having seen 1,000 such reports, and having an idea of what realities tend to drive the FKey scouting comments…

Here's the report, from last year:

 

Pro body with not enuf substance to game. Large build with lots of muscle. Built like Sean Casey. Open stance @ plate. Quiet swing. Poor balance at contact and finish. Swings around ball as arms get out away from body in back. Lots of holes.
SL BS. Very linear swing which makes it hard for him to sit back on offspd pitches.
Swings thru many cambios as result.
Can't hit lefties @ all and it will only get worse as he moves up ladder as he becomes an easy target for lefty specialists. Should handle inner 1/2 better as he cheats on every pitch.
Avg to plus raw power will be hard pressed to play.
Stiff mech. runner. Athletic defender who should be able to play mult. positions in order to help out at org. level. Moves confid. around bag and shows off solid hds to go along with good arm strength for position.
Bat isn't going to profile from a power or avg perspective-problems with lefties esp. concerning.
While a solid defender, he is most capable of playing premium offensive positions, corner INF and OF, rendering his bat WBA. Value is at org. level.

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First of all, bear in mind that right next to this scouting report, is another one that says Asdrubal Cabrera will be a poor MLB hitter whose glove, however, will carry him to a Juan Uribe career.

But we admire the reports.  We're just advising ya not to buy in as gospel.

OK, the same report with cornball D-O-V interpretation:

 

Pro body with not enuf substance to game. Large build with lots of muscle. Built like Sean Casey.

DOV translation:  "Looks great in a uniform, but it's a mirage.  In the batter's box, just doesn't have enough weapons to attack good pitching." 

DOV comment:  this reminds me of the infamous comment that Matt Tuiasosopo "could be fooled by a great breaking ball" — at 18.  …LaHair is learning.  Especially if he's a Tony Clark type, he probably does look "overmatched" at times, as Clark does even now at times.

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Open stance @ plate. Quiet swing. Poor balance at contact and finish. Swings around ball as arms
get out away from body in back. Lots of holes.

DOV comment:  classic lefty swings, like Vaughn's and Thome's, often leave the batter falling out over the plate — this also means their heads are on the ball exceptionally well.

Hasn't yet learned to tuck in the forearms, Edgar-style, on a jam pitch.

"Lots of holes," meaning many spots in the strike zone (including short and long as well as up-down and side-side) you can get him out … in other places, that's a common report-filler, "lots of holes," especially if the holes aren't specified.

But assuming Calleaguers is right, which I wouldn't doubt, then LaHair starts sounding more and more like Tony Clark and/or Jeff Conine. 

Anyway, LaHair brought his holes up to the Texas League and got much better, which suggests that it wasn't a "feast on pitchers with no command" scenario. 

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SL BS. Very linear swing which makes it hard for him to sit back on offspd pitches.

You've got to admire the detail in this scouting report.  And that he's willing to put it in writing.

LaHair might or might not have "slow batspeed" with which he is ripping up the Texas League … but along with this comment, it's tough to avoid being skeptical:

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Swings thru many cambios as result.

"Cambio," spanish for "change," of course.  Calleaguers asserts that as LaHair commits up through the batter's box, he can't handle changeups.

No offense again, but this usually means (in my own reports too) that the reporter saw LaHair swing and miss at three changeups over the course of two-three games.  I think I saw Raul Ibanez swing through three changeups yesterday…  Heh.

If LaHair, at 22, were able to keep his weight back Snelling-like, and "turn late" on offspeed stuff like Snelling or Rod Carew, that would be peachy.

Nobody in the Cal League hits like Rod Carew.  …Well, you fall in love with Troy Tulowitzki, and you notice the times he hits a change, and ignore the times he doesn't, and you take that as "the ability" to wait back.

LaHair waits on a change and gets RBI #113, you're not convinced.  We all do that.  Y'know?

Not saying that this report is even necessarily wrong.  We're just sayin' it's what's you hear a lot, both about guys that succeed and guys that fail. 

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Can't hit lefties @ all and it will only get worse as he moves up ladder as he becomes an easy target for lefty specialists.

LaHair might or might not be a platoon type, a Reggie Jefferson type, which would be fine with me.

Baseball people are hyper-sensitive to things like Jeremy Reed looking bad against lefties.  …lefties do need time, to hit LHP's.  No doubts there.

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Should handle inner 1/2 better as he cheats on every pitch.

Starts the bat too early, he means.  Despite that, he still can't get around on an inside pitch?  What did LaHair hit last year, .134?

No offense, but this scouting report starts out with "I don't like him" and then goes out and finds the reasons why.

The calleaguers.com Top 30 is littered with high draft picks — and the guys who aren't big names get panned.   It's a great temptation to buy into the name, and then find good things, or buy into the "org guy" label, and find things to fit that.

That's what happened with Johjima and Ichiro … scouts decided ahead of time who they were, and then went out and found the flaws.  On Jeff Clement, they go out and find the strengths.

My kingdom for a player without a label :-) 

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Avg to plus raw power will be hard pressed to play.

Translation:  LaHair can pulverize a ball, but won't be able to apply the power to actual good pitches.

LaHair has 130 RBI in his last 157 games. 

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Stiff mech. runner. Athletic defender who should be able to play mult. positions
in order to help out at org. level. Moves confid. around bag and shows off solid hds to go along
with good arm strength for position.

It's a source of good-natured amusement to Dr. D how baseball (not just calleaguers.com) focuses on athleticism-when-running.  Part of this stems from the fact that at "combine workouts," you might not see much else but running.  You have to make a lot of soup out of the running oyster. 

(1) What 1B's run with fluid, light, steps, like Ichiro?  (2) What does Billy Beane think about "mechanical runner"? 

==================== 

While a solid defender, he is most capable of
playing premium offensive positions, corner INF and OF, rendering his bat WBA. Value is at org.
level.

Translation:  Bat will be well below average to play 1B/LF.  He's a scrub who can help you avoid 31-98 records in class A.

 

Lots of interesting detail there, as always at calleaguers.

With Dr. D's typical obnoxious honesty … sigh … his advice is inevitable.

Forget the names, forget the labels, watch each player as if you didn't know who they were.

Watch Bryan LaHair as if he had been the 1st pick in the draft — that way you'll see his strengths and visualize his potential.  Watch Troy Tulowitzki as if he were a 39th-rounder — that way you'll see his deficiencies.  

For all that, Calleaguers.com is bursting with detail observations on Inland Empire players, and is one of my favorite websites. 

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Q:  So who is LaHair — is he Bucky Jacobsen or is he Jeff Conine?

A:  There is no way to tell.

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Q:  C'mon.

A:   No, really, that is the only way to handle LaHair:  to keep moving him up, and to see if he keeps blossoming.   Probably he won't — probably ALL minor leaguers will fail — but maybe LaHair *will* go up to Cheney and rake there, and maybe when you call him up to Safeco, he'll rake there too.

The minor leagues are to develop players … but sometimes they are also to find out what you have.

As LaHair plays over the next two years, the M's will truly being finding out what they have here.  LaHair could be a 30-homer, 100-RBI man in the majors, or he could be Tony Clark, or he could be anything.

Right now he has definitely become a player to watch.

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Q:  Where is he on the M's org prospect list, though?

A:  LOL.  Got me with that one.

Hm.  I don't see LaHair on USSM's top 40, do you?   Times 30 orgs, and with USSM viewing the M's as having a poor farm system, that implies that after LaHair's 113 RBI last year and World Cup stardom, they still had LaHair outside baseball's top 1,200 to 1,500 minor leaguers. 

Slap me silly.  That's a draft board 6x as deep as the roto draft board that covered your walls, and LaHair still wasn't there…

The M's, however, gave LaHair one of only two first base jobs they have in the upper minors. 

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Okay … here is Sickels' list:

1. Jeff Clement, C, Grade A-
2. Adam Jones, OF-SS, Grade B+
3. Asdrubal Cabrera, SS, B
4. Clint Nageotte, RHP, C+
5. Chris Snelling, OF, C+ (grade change from book)
6. Matt Tuiasosopo, SS, C+
7. Shin-Soo Choo, OF, C+
8. Yorman Bazardo, RHP, C+
9. Bobby Livingston, LHP, C+ (grade change from book)
10. Wladimir Balentien, OF, C+
11. Ryan Feierabend, LHP, C+
12. Luis Valbuena, 2B, C+
13. Michael Saunders, OF, C+
14. Michael Wilson, OF, C+
15. Sebastian Boucher, OF, C+
16. Osvaldo Navarro, SS, C+
17. Edgar Guaramato, RHP, C+
18. Cesar Jimenez, LHP, C
19. Anthony Vavaro, RHP, C
20. Craig James, RHP, C

I'd put LaHair anywhere from 8 to 16.  He's the one that's playing good.

Doesn't matter where you rank him.  Let him play and see what you have.

Enjoy,

Dr D