Tyler Austin hasn’t hit a home run in his last 10 games. Instead, he’s just hit a pedestrian .452/.540/.595, raising his average all the way to .323. His walk rate has significantly increased in the month of May, even as his strikeouts have remained elevated. He’s even chipped in on the bases with 7 stolen bases without being caught over his last 10 games.
The dude’s on fire, and has been for a long time now. Austin is now sitting at .336/.408/.618 in 98 career minor league games. If he were drafted in the 1st round instead of the the 13th, we would probably be talking about in as a top-10 prospect in all of baseball this year. He wasn’t drafted in the 1st round for good reason, but the longer Austin continues to destroy pitchers who are on average older and much more experienced than he is, the more he starts to look like that prospect, even if he profiles as a 1st baseman long term.
At some point, Austin will be promoted to High-A Tampa. As far as I can tell, there are three possibilities for the timing of his promotion:
Promote him after the All-Star Break – The South Atlantic League will play its All Star game on June 19th. The festivities will be pretty cool, and includes a home run derby on the USS Yorktown. Austin will no doubt take part in that event. The Yankees love to promote players around this time, and the break would provide a good opportunity to make a move.
The logic behind a quicker promotion is all about challenging Tyler Austin. He’s hitting as well as he possibly could hit in Low-A, and doesn’t seem to have much to learn there. Players who aren’t challenged can develop bad habits. Furthermore, a quicker development path means that Austin will progress to the major leagues sooner. An early promotion holds open the possibility of a 2013 season that starts in Double-A, at just 21 years old. He could even end up in the Arizona Fall League, if they are ambitious.
The con to this approach is that Austin may be rushed. He’s still just 20 years old, and young for his level. He is hot now, but you’d like to see Austin struggle for a little bit, make adjustments, and then be able to recover and gain his confidence back. When you rush a prospect, you face the possibility of that prospect not successfully making adjustments, and in the best case losing confidence in his abilities, and in the worst case straining and risking injury or changing their approach in an unproductive way. Obviously, whether or not this is a problem is a call that only the Yankee staff can make.
Promote him in late mid-t0-late July - The Yankees also have tended to push rising prospects to a higher level with about 40-50 games remaining in the minor league season. They gain a significant amount of experience at the higher level, but not enough to complete that level and move up after the offseason. This accelerates a player’s progression somewhat, but not nearly as much as an early promotion would.
I don’t think there’s too much to say about the pros and cons of this kind of promotion. It offers a balance between the above and below options.
Promote him after the season - The Yankees would stay very patient, and keep Austin at Low-A no matter how well he hits. They’d probably do what they did with Montero and flat-out tell him that no matter how well he hits, he isn’t getting promoted. This would conceivably help him to focus on development instead of trying too hard to move up.
Beyond that, I can think of two big reasons why the Yankees might wait a full season. First off, if you view Austin as a future 1st baseman, the Yankees may not have a good spot for him for some time. Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez are under contract for a long time, and likely will block Austin at the position. Given that the non-prospect Reymond Nunez has been the Riverdogs’ primary 1st baseman, I don’t doubt that the Yankees are playing Austin mostly in right field in order to try and work around this problem. However, despite his strong baseball IQ, scouts have made it clear that Austin’s speed isn’t going to cut it much in the outfield long term. Given the logjam at 1st, the Yankees have an incentive to take their time in promoting Austin.
The second reason why they may wait is more of a hunch. We’ve heard a lot of quotes about how the 2011 short-season Yankee prospect crew really bonded as a group of highly-talented prospects. This group includes Angelo Gumbs, Mason Williams, Cito Culver, Dante Bichette and Ben Gamel. The Yankees may want to, for the most part, keep the unit together. I can see value in that kind of camaraderie among highly talented prospects. I don’t put Gary Sanchez in this group, but I might add in Bryan Mitchell and Jose Campos. The unit won’t stay together forever, but the Yankees may see benefit in moving them in some kind of tandem. Unfortunately, none of them have started out as hot as Austin, and everyone in the group other than Williams has struggled, clearly not ready for promotion. The response to this argument is that Gumbs, Culver, and Bichette, the group that is struggling most, are all 19 year-olds, while Williams, Sanchez (19, but been around longer), and Austin are more experienced.
Personally, I lean toward the more aggressive side of things. Austin isn’t an 18 year old kid signed a year ago out of the Dominican Republic, like Montero was at Low-A. He’s old enough that physical development is less of an issue than experience. If he’s not getting the experience he needs, you have the opportunity cost of lost development time.
I’m going to be ranking Tyler Austin very high in my pre-draft prospect rankings. On top of that, you can be sure that if he’s hitting .336/.410/.620 at the end of the season, Austin all of the sudden be one of the very best prospects in all of baseball. He’s not there, yet, but he is a lot closer than he was at the start of the season.
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Wait, am I reading this wrong, or did you mean to say that Austin looks like a top ten prospect?
I’m sorry if I was unclear – not that he looks like a top 10 prospect, but that he’s hitting like one.
FWIW, The Trentonian’s Josh Norris said in chat yesterday about the Yankees minor league system that he expects Tyler Austin and Mason Williams to spend the full season at Charlotte. I don’t know how much that is just his guess or whether it is based on conversations with Newman, et al. He said he did think Gary Sanchez would get promoted post all star break.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong but I’d never heard anyone say that Tyler Austin couldn’t stick as a corner outfielder. I thought that the general scouting report was that he wasn’t fast but made up for it with good instincts and intelligence.
I think it was Callis to made the point, although I may have seen Goldstein make it too. Basically, he’s slow. A very smart baseball player, but slow.
From the Baseball America Hot Sheet in April:
“He also may have found a home defensively. Last year, Austin, a high school catcher, tried to adjust to playing third base, but it didn’t go well, as he made 11 errors in fewer than 30 games. Austin is now playing right field where his speed and arm fit, while his less than ideal footwork is not as much of a problem.”
Mike Newman of Fangraphs rated his speed as 35/40 on the 20/80 scale which is below average but that noted that his instincts were so good that he was able to steal 27 bases out of 28 attempts over the last year +.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting all this but do you think Swisher rates much higher than a 35/40 on speed? Regardless of how good instincts you might give them, I couldn’t see an Ibanez/Thames type stealing 27/28 bases. Count me as more optimistic than you about his sticking in the OF.
To quote Newman, “On social media, I’ve received many questions about Austin playing third base as he has made a rather precipitous drop down the defensive spectrum from his days as a high school catcher. For those out there with fingers crossed the hot corner is in Austin’s future, there’s really no need to keep hope alive. His stolen base success has prospect followers under the impression Austin is more athletic than he actually is. If anything, Austin will slide down the spectrum further before all is said and done. This obviously means his bat will have to carry him to the Bronx.”
Yeah I read that too…I just don’t see that as contradicting anything I posted. No one is arguing defense is going to be his strength at any position. I read the “If anything..” part as putting to rest the idea of him going back to 3B and not saying that he can’t remain in the OF. More that he is just saying 1B is more likely than 3B.
Very timely post.
I would think Austin would have been promoted already by many organizations. See no reason to keep him down at this point. And he did already have a slump that brought his BA down to around .285. Has really bounced back with successful adjustments and — as you point out — has increased BB rate.
“He is hot now, but you’d like to see Austin struggle for a little bit, make adjustments, and then be able to recover and gain his confidence back.”
He started off the season on a tear, and was batting over .400 for quite a while. Then, as Bottom line points out, he had a slump that brought him down to .285. Now he’s figured it out and is raking again. I agree that post all-star break is a perfect time. Let him make the all-star team, enjoy the festivities, and then promote him.
He’s too good for this level and he’s not so young that taking our time with him will be important. The power has come a long way from last year, and it’s only a matter of time before more balls start leaving the yard again.
As for the assertion that he won’t be able to stick in RF, I also disagree based on what I have read. I agree with the above poster that no matter how good Nick Swisher’s instincts were, he would not be able to steal 30 bases at any level, yet he plays a solid RF. I think somehow scouts are underestimating his speed. Outfield is also the position he played most in high school, so he has actually adapted really well to the change.
I may be wrong about his speed, but given his level of comfort in RF I suspect he will stick there, at the very least in the same way that Montero stuck at catcher (aka doesn’t really belong there but can fake it long enough in the minors to get good trade value)
Mason Williams is most definitely in the grip of a slump. He’ll find his way out soon enough, but the numbers look more “real”. Austin went into a mini slump in early May but nothing extended as evident in the still stellar triple slash.
Austin has earned the right to play in Tampa as soon as possible.
Williams keeps getting hit w/balls in ways that is leading to him missing time; leading to a funk.
I think Austin and Sanchez get promoted around the ASB, Williams much later do to the log jam that the High A outfield will have once Heathecott returns.
Bichette and Culver will get late season “cup of cofee” promotions.
Being that Cito Culver is still 19, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him repeat Charleston for a little bit next season. He’s done some things well (Defensive reports, walk/strikeout rates), but is getting killed at the plate still.
Bichette is the same age, and struggling, but I can’t help but feel like he’s further along. The Yankees pushed him pretty aggressively, so they might not give him another big push with a cup of coffee.
Williams is still a raw kid, still developing power and still figuring things out. He probably needs a full year at Charleston. Montero was kept at the level in part because of his bat, in part because of his age (he was 18 – Austin is 20), but moreover because his glove needed serious work if he was going to reach the majors as a catcher. Austin is a corner OF, not a difficult position to master. His bat is ready to go, but more important he has walked 9 times in 7 games versus no HR; even with a very good Gary Sanchez behind him teams are becoming reluctant to pitch to him. He will not progress as quickly if pitchers don’t pitch to him.