You rarely see very quick reversals of opinion in the prospect world, especially for very young players. Scouts their second-hand mouthpieces form opinions about young players after many repeat amateur visits. They only get a few glimpses of the play each time (five or six batted balls, a few at bats, maybe a pre-game workout), but are paid to take this information and judge a player’s talent for baseball. That judgment tends to linger with prospects, even after they have started playing in professional minor league baseball, where reliable quantitative performance measures are now introduced to the evaluation.
It makes sense for these types of initial assessments to stick around for some time. A lot of weird things can happen in small sample sizes at the quirky low minor league levels. But at the same time, it makes sense for people to turn around and admit they were wrong about a prospect’s ability sometimes.
Delmon Young has always been a prime example to me. As a young player, he was branded as having a high batting average, high power swing that scouts dream of. However, it became clear in the minor leagues that while he could hit the ball, he took almost no walks, and therefore wouldn’t end up an impact position player. Good prospect? Sure. But Young was rated a top-3 prospect by Baseball America for four straight years. Despite evidence to the contrary, everyone was too stubborn on Delmon Young, and refused to downgrade their expectations.
Dante Bichette Jr, on the other hand, went exactly the opposite way. At the draft, the Yankees were widely panned for reaching too far to get Bichette with their supplemental round pick. About three months later, Baseball America named Bichette the top prospect in the Gulf Coast League, and painted a profile of him that clearly resembled a top-30 pick, which is a very surprising turnaround.
I think this is an interesting debate, which I wrote extensively on in the magazine Yankees Yearly (which you can learn more about here) this month. An excerpt:
The Gulf Coast League normally serves as an introduction for recently drafted players to professional baseball. These players are often right out of high school (or are recently signed out of Latin America), playing with wooden bats for the first time, and physically underdeveloped. GCL teams are often poorly coached, as teams focus their resources on full-season leagues. Critics argue that Bichette Jr. got a strong head start from working with his father, but the skills he acquired as a boy are skills that most players will acquire while playing in the minor leagues. Bichette Jr.’s competitive advantage would erode as he advanced to the higher minor league levels, and eventually to the major leagues.
However, not all scouts are willing to decry Bichette Jr.’s success as temporary and fleeting. Many have revised their early pessimistic assumptions, and some even forecast a big future to the young hitter. Baseball America, after panning the Yankees decision to select Bichette Jr. as an ‘overdraft’, labeled him as a player with ‘plus plus power’ in their end-of-the-year scouting report, meaning that he has the potential to hit 35+ home runs in the major leagues, along with other glowing scouting reports on his bat.
I am curious to hear everyone else’s take on this. I’m a member of a fairly large group of prospect watchers who has jumped on board the Bichette bandwagon big time. I even considered, although ultimately decided against, rating him ahead of Dellin Betances as a top Yankee prospect. But are we jumping the gun on Bichette here? Is he in for a hard landing at Charleston this year, assuming he starts there? At one point should we buy into Bichette as a 1st round-caliber prospect?
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Scouting reports I’ve read said that he has an “advanced approach at the plate” which I’m assuming he got from training with his dad. I doubt the GCL involves high quality offspeed stuff, so his pitch recognition and general ability to hit offspeed hasn’t been tested. Gary Sanchez put up similar numbers in the GCL, only to see a big increase in K% and drop in batting average.
Personally I don’t pay much attention to numbers at the lower levels, preferring scouting reports. So we’ll have to wait until he hits in low A before we can justifiably judge him.
I think part of the turnaround in scouts/analyst’s opinion about Bichette is that everyone seemed to assume that he would have to move to 1B or corner OF and now most seem impressed with his defense at 3B and think he could probably stay there. That part is probably easier to judge today than how his offense will progress as he faces more advanced pitching.
I think you have him ranked about right at #5. Betances should be ranked ahead of him at this point.
Agree big time on the defense thing. That was where I saw the biggest turnaround in the scouting reports online. Most people didn’t question his bat TOO much when drafted (though no one was this high on it), but the biggest concern seemed to be his ability to stick at 3B. Now most people seem cautiously optimistic that he can handle it.
If he can do that then he’s a heck of a prospect, especially in our system where we have no clear heir to ARod when his defense begins to erode. This will be true even if his bat regresses somewhat.
This has definitely been a big part of it. My question is: should we believe it? Players can be streaky on defense as well as on offense. Bichette may have had a very good few months of defensive play, but that could evaporate away just as quickly as a pitcher who all of the sudden showed good control for a few months.
I’m still a Bichette believer, but these are the things that make me nervous.
Reaon to believe that the Defense is real is his history with tennis. Basically every skill he mastered as a top ranked Jr. player can be applied effectively to his game on 3rd base.
I’m with SDM, you aren’t a nationally ranked junior tennis player without agility, fast reaction time and lateral quickness; aka the essential components of third base. I haven’t seen any questions about his arm or comparisons to Eduardo Scissorhands, so I have no reason to believe that he can’t stick at third base long term.
Work ethic and physical tools are at the center of Dante’s success. He has just worked harder than others with similar talent and bio-mechanically his hip speed is as fast as any major leaguer ever. As he grows and gets stronger (only 19) the fast hips will help the transfer to world class bat speed. Pitch recognition is the big equalizer and it will be interesting to watch his growth as he starts in Charleston this year.