[h=1]Jose Abreu will be a star[/h][h=3]The Cuban slugger is a good bet to lead the league in home runs as a rookie[/h]By Jared Cross | ESPN Insider
Over the past three seasons in Cuba, Jose Abreu has put up the kind of numbers that would make any hitter not named Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth mighty jealous.In his final season in Serie Nacional, he hit 35 home runs in what would be a little more than half of a major league season. The year before that he hit .453/.597/.986, a batting line that has absolutely no peer in major league history and one that makes any superlatives you throw its way feel woefully inadequate.
What happens when a batter of "Ruthian" proportions in Cuba faces the best pitching in the world? Based on the numbers, we have reason to believe that Abreu is a good bet to lead the league in home runs, and what we're about to see may just be historic.
[h=3]Not just about stats[/h]
"Baseball Tonight" analyst Eduardo Perez -- who recently served as a coach for the Astros and Marlins -- managed against Abreu, then just 22 years old, in the 2009 World Cup, and he knew right away that he had seen something special. Perez describes Abreu as a "pure hitter who uses the entire field. Throw him something away, and he will go the other way ... with authority" and compares Abreu's opposite field power to that of Albert Pujols'.<OFFER></OFFER>
While some scouts have questioned Abreu's ability to hit top-tier pitching and, in particular, to handle fastballs inside, Perez noted that fastballs that paint the inside corners are tough on all hitters and that Abreu is going to hurt pitchers who try to go inside and miss, adding "If you're gonna hit, you're gonna hit."
This statement is, perhaps, a pithier way of stating what Bill James once wrote regarding minor league performances: "Baseball men generally believe that minor league batting statistics are not a reliable indicator of how a player will hit in the major league. After studying the issue extensively, I concluded that minor league batting statistics predict major league performances with the same accuracy as previous major league batting statistics."
Put another way, while MLB may play at a considerably higher level than Serie Nacional or the Florida State League, the same talents that lead to success at one level will lead to success at every other level.
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Star Stats[/h]The major league equivalencies for Jose Abreu's seasons in Cuba's Serie Nacional.
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<!-- end inline 1 -->This finding, which James called the most surprising discovery of his career, is the basis for major league equivalencies, a system for comparing performances across leagues. MLEs allow us to translate Abreu's tremendous Serie Nacional statistics into a hypothetical MLB line and, ultimately, to forecast how well he will hit as a member of the White Sox.
[h=3]Power to spare[/h]
To compare Serie Nacional performances to major league performances, we'll need to look at past players who have made the jump. While it would seem natural to look exclusively at players who played in both Cuba and the majors, this limits us to 12 players this decade. What's worse, it gives us a biased sample by eliminating players who never escaped the minor leagues. The promise implied by Yasiel Puig's breakout season should be balanced by the tale of Michel Abreu, who slugged .647 in his final year in Cuba yet never even cracked a big league roster.
To see the full range of possibilities, we must include the seven Cuban émigrés from the past decade who never played in the majors and translate both their Cuban numbers and their minor league numbers to MLEs.
In order to make a fairer and more telling comparison of league strength, we made three adjustments to each player's statistics. First, all batting lines were adjusted to be relative to the league run environment; Serie National has been higher scoring than MLB in recent years, and numbers were adjusted accordingly.
Second, both Cuban and major league stats were age-adjusted since players who defected when they were young would naturally be expected to improve and players who made the jump when they were older would be expected to decline.
Finally, we weighed seasons that were closer to the transition year more heavily since statistics from these years have the most power to discern the relative strengths of the two leagues.
Our analysis revealed that, on average, Cuban batters see a roughly 25 percent drop-off in their statistics (to be more specific, a 25 percent drop in their wOBA) when moving from Serie Nacional to the majors. This rather sizable decline is consistent with what we would see if the Cuban leagues were playing at a level somewhere in the range of Class A.
We may be underestimating the quality of Cuban baseball by ignoring the difficulties that come with adapting to a new culture, losing contact with family and friends and, in many cases, missing a season of baseball during the transition. These hardships are both considerable and beyond our scope. For the purpose of forecasting Abreu, we can simply say that treating Cuban baseball as somewhere between low Class A and high Class A would have given us the best predictions for the batters that came before him.
So what happens when we adjust Abreu's statistics to take into account MLB's lower offensive levels and then lop 25 percent off the top for good measure?
As you can see in the table above, Abreu's historic 2011 season holds up well in spite of the harsh league adjustment, with an equivalent slugging percentage that would have been the third highest in the majors last year.
Given what Abreu was able to do at a young age, we can reasonably project big things from him in his age-27 season, an age when hitters often reach their peak. Additionally, Abreu has the considerable benefit of playing his home games in the best home run park for right-handed batters in baseball. The Steamer projection system is accordingly bullish, projecting Abreu to have a .390 wOBA, the seventh-highest wOBA projection in baseball.
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]Instant impact[/h]Abreu's projected stats via the Steamer projection system.
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<!-- end inline 3 -->Based on his past performance and the fates of other Cuban batters, we can rule out the possibility that Abreu will be overmatched by major league pitching. If you're gonna hit, you're gonna hit. To go with that, we can't rule out the possibility that Abreu really is, in fact, the best hitter in the world right now.
While we're naturally reluctant to believe that a hitter from another part of the globe can dominate the big leagues no matter how strong his track record, we've been down this road before when Ichiro Suzuki arrived in 2001. We doubt Abreu at our own peril.
Over the past three seasons in Cuba, Jose Abreu has put up the kind of numbers that would make any hitter not named Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth mighty jealous.In his final season in Serie Nacional, he hit 35 home runs in what would be a little more than half of a major league season. The year before that he hit .453/.597/.986, a batting line that has absolutely no peer in major league history and one that makes any superlatives you throw its way feel woefully inadequate.
What happens when a batter of "Ruthian" proportions in Cuba faces the best pitching in the world? Based on the numbers, we have reason to believe that Abreu is a good bet to lead the league in home runs, and what we're about to see may just be historic.
[h=3]Not just about stats[/h]
"Baseball Tonight" analyst Eduardo Perez -- who recently served as a coach for the Astros and Marlins -- managed against Abreu, then just 22 years old, in the 2009 World Cup, and he knew right away that he had seen something special. Perez describes Abreu as a "pure hitter who uses the entire field. Throw him something away, and he will go the other way ... with authority" and compares Abreu's opposite field power to that of Albert Pujols'.<OFFER></OFFER>
While some scouts have questioned Abreu's ability to hit top-tier pitching and, in particular, to handle fastballs inside, Perez noted that fastballs that paint the inside corners are tough on all hitters and that Abreu is going to hurt pitchers who try to go inside and miss, adding "If you're gonna hit, you're gonna hit."
This statement is, perhaps, a pithier way of stating what Bill James once wrote regarding minor league performances: "Baseball men generally believe that minor league batting statistics are not a reliable indicator of how a player will hit in the major league. After studying the issue extensively, I concluded that minor league batting statistics predict major league performances with the same accuracy as previous major league batting statistics."
Put another way, while MLB may play at a considerably higher level than Serie Nacional or the Florida State League, the same talents that lead to success at one level will lead to success at every other level.
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Star Stats[/h]The major league equivalencies for Jose Abreu's seasons in Cuba's Serie Nacional.
| Year | PA | HR | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| '10 | 393 | 21 | .273 | .345 | .543 |
| '11 | 293 | 19 | .300 | .375 | .601 |
| '12 | 384 | 21 | .259 | .336 | .511 |
| '13 | 337* | 15 | .259 | .327 | .466 |
| *Includes Segunda Fase |
<THEAD>
</THEAD><TBODY>
</TBODY><TFOOT>
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<!-- end inline 1 -->This finding, which James called the most surprising discovery of his career, is the basis for major league equivalencies, a system for comparing performances across leagues. MLEs allow us to translate Abreu's tremendous Serie Nacional statistics into a hypothetical MLB line and, ultimately, to forecast how well he will hit as a member of the White Sox.
[h=3]Power to spare[/h]
To compare Serie Nacional performances to major league performances, we'll need to look at past players who have made the jump. While it would seem natural to look exclusively at players who played in both Cuba and the majors, this limits us to 12 players this decade. What's worse, it gives us a biased sample by eliminating players who never escaped the minor leagues. The promise implied by Yasiel Puig's breakout season should be balanced by the tale of Michel Abreu, who slugged .647 in his final year in Cuba yet never even cracked a big league roster.
To see the full range of possibilities, we must include the seven Cuban émigrés from the past decade who never played in the majors and translate both their Cuban numbers and their minor league numbers to MLEs.
In order to make a fairer and more telling comparison of league strength, we made three adjustments to each player's statistics. First, all batting lines were adjusted to be relative to the league run environment; Serie National has been higher scoring than MLB in recent years, and numbers were adjusted accordingly.
Second, both Cuban and major league stats were age-adjusted since players who defected when they were young would naturally be expected to improve and players who made the jump when they were older would be expected to decline.
Finally, we weighed seasons that were closer to the transition year more heavily since statistics from these years have the most power to discern the relative strengths of the two leagues.
Our analysis revealed that, on average, Cuban batters see a roughly 25 percent drop-off in their statistics (to be more specific, a 25 percent drop in their wOBA) when moving from Serie Nacional to the majors. This rather sizable decline is consistent with what we would see if the Cuban leagues were playing at a level somewhere in the range of Class A.
We may be underestimating the quality of Cuban baseball by ignoring the difficulties that come with adapting to a new culture, losing contact with family and friends and, in many cases, missing a season of baseball during the transition. These hardships are both considerable and beyond our scope. For the purpose of forecasting Abreu, we can simply say that treating Cuban baseball as somewhere between low Class A and high Class A would have given us the best predictions for the batters that came before him.
So what happens when we adjust Abreu's statistics to take into account MLB's lower offensive levels and then lop 25 percent off the top for good measure?
As you can see in the table above, Abreu's historic 2011 season holds up well in spite of the harsh league adjustment, with an equivalent slugging percentage that would have been the third highest in the majors last year.
Given what Abreu was able to do at a young age, we can reasonably project big things from him in his age-27 season, an age when hitters often reach their peak. Additionally, Abreu has the considerable benefit of playing his home games in the best home run park for right-handed batters in baseball. The Steamer projection system is accordingly bullish, projecting Abreu to have a .390 wOBA, the seventh-highest wOBA projection in baseball.
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]Instant impact[/h]Abreu's projected stats via the Steamer projection system.
| Season | Age | PA | HR | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 27 | 614 | 38 | .276 | .359 | .546 | .390 |
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</THEAD><TBODY>
</TBODY>
<!-- end inline 3 -->Based on his past performance and the fates of other Cuban batters, we can rule out the possibility that Abreu will be overmatched by major league pitching. If you're gonna hit, you're gonna hit. To go with that, we can't rule out the possibility that Abreu really is, in fact, the best hitter in the world right now.
While we're naturally reluctant to believe that a hitter from another part of the globe can dominate the big leagues no matter how strong his track record, we've been down this road before when Ichiro Suzuki arrived in 2001. We doubt Abreu at our own peril.
