Phelps’ Power is Off the Charts

Thursday, January 23 2003 @ 11:19 AM EST

Contributed by: robertdudek

The newest Prospectus Cover Boy is the best power hitting prospect in the game today.

Most of us have seen Josh in action. Craig Burley and I attended a Yankees-Blue Jays tilt last year in which Roger Clemens started for the visitors. Phelps blasted two monstrous homeruns in that game, and after one of them I turned to Craig and mentioned the name that surely was on the mind of many Jays fans at that moment – Mark McGwire.

Is Josh Phelps going to be the new Mac? It would be wildly premature to speculate on that to be sure, but when did that ever stop any of us before? Phelps is the young hitter most likely to put up Mac-like power numbers.

After some tinkering some months ago, I settled on an estimate for power which was simple to understand and could be calculated for any hitter using only the basic offensive stats. There are actually two versions:

MANIFESTED POWER = (2B+3B+2*HR) / (AB-K+SF)

The other version drops the SF from the denominator. The formula estimates how hard a batter puts a ball in play on average. Outs in play and singles are counted as zero on the power scale, doubles and triples are a 1, and homeruns are a 2. While it is true that you can hit a ball hard and single or make an out, it is not possible to weed out the soft ones based on official stats. There are line drive singles (and outs for that matter), but many singles are of the infield hit variety or else sneak through the infield. Aside from the bloop doubles and triples and a rare inside-the-parker, extra base hits are hard hit balls. Triples are no harder hit than doubles: they are merely “speed” doubles.

In any case that’s the logic behind the formula. Let’s see what it tells us about 2002.

TOP 15 by Manifested Power (200+PA, non-Park Adjusted), 2002

                       MP        PA          Age(July1)
Jim Thome           0.360       613          31.85
Barry Bonds         0.349       612          37.94
Sammy Sosa          0.286       666          33.64
Alex Rodriguez      0.283       725          26.93
Erubiel Durazo      0.279       276          28.44
Josh Phelps         0.279       287          24.14
Brian Giles         0.276       644          31.45
Manny Ramirez       0.276       518          30.09
Mark Bellhorn       0.272       529          27.86
Russ Branyan        0.268       435          26.53
Carlos Delgado      0.264       628          30.02
Jared Sandberg      0.262       401          24.33
Pat Burrell         0.262       684          25.73
Rafael Palmeiro     0.261       663          37.77
Lance Berkman       0.261       692          26.39

The Giambi boys were 16th and 17th (Little G actually finishing ahead). Park adjusted numbers would show Barry moving ahead of Thome. Josh leads the youngsters, with Jared Sandberg and Pat Burrell next. Other young power hitters (under 26.0) include: Andruw Jones (.241 – 21st), Alfonso Soriano (.240, 23rd), Adam Dunn (.223, 30th), Eric Chavez (.218, 37th), Brad Wilkerson (.214, 40th) and Carlos Beltran (.214, 41st).

Let’s see how Josh stacked up against his AAA cohorts in his monster half-season in upstate New York.

Top 15 Manifested Power, AAA (under 26, 150+ PA), 2002

                     Org        MP        PA         Age(July1)
Phelps, Josh         TOR      0.394       295        24.14
Cust, Jack           COL      0.290       450        23.46
Petrick, Ben         COL      0.281       311        25.23
Stratton, Rob        NYM      0.274       282        24.73
Ludwick, Ryan        TEX      0.263       352        24.30
Restovich, Michael   MIN      0.261       580        23.49
Rivera, Mike         DET      0.256       305        25.81
Cuddyer, Michael     MIN      0.256       372        23.26
Borchard, Joe        CWS      0.256       493        23.60
Ryan, Mike           MIN      0.248       600        24.99
Pena, Carlos         OAK      0.240       206        24.12
Cash, Kevin          TOR      0.230       266        24.57
Chen, Chin-Feng      LA       0.229       576        24.68
Ross, Dave           LA       0.227       346        25.28
Munson, Eric         DET      0.221       569        24.74

No contest! It was an awesome display – Josh demonstrated that he was far too good for AAA pitching.

Phelps put up a .272 MP at AA Tennessee in 2001, a combined .295 MP in AA/A+(Dunedin) in 2000, and a .232 MP at Dunedin in 1999 (age 21.14). That suggests a fairly normal progression, as most hitters increase their power significantly between age 21 and age 24.

What’s in the cards for Phelps in 2003? To progress as a hitter, he’s got to work on his strikeout to walk ratio. Josh was one of the big whiffers in MLB in 2002:

Top 10 by Strikeouts per PA (minus intentional walks), 200+PA, 2002

                  Walk rate   Strikeout rate   PA     Age(July1)
Russ Branyan         0.112       0.350        435     26.53
Jared Sandberg       0.091       0.349        401     24.33
Jose Hernandez       0.082       0.326        582     32.96
Chad Hermansen       0.085       0.309        265     24.81
Jason LaRue          0.056       0.299        397     28.28
Felipe Lopez         0.072       0.292        309     22.14
George Lombard       0.073       0.290        270     26.80
Brandon Inge         0.069       0.288        351     25.12
Josh Phelps          0.067       0.286        287     24.14
Greg Vaughn          0.137       0.277        297     36.99

Josh put up similar rates in AAA (.092 walk rate; .287 strikeout rate) in 2002. I don’t expect him to cut his strikeout rate dramatically – but hopefully he’ll fall to somewhere between 15 and 20 on this list for the upcoming year. His walk rate is low. I expect it to rise a little, mostly because he’s going to get pitched around a bit more than last year (especially if he bats 6th). I’ll wager that his K/W ratio ends up in the neighbourhood of 3.5 to 1.

Expect Josh’s batting average to drop off significantly. His BIP average (batting average when the ball stays in the yard) was .399 last year (.340 in AAA). That was 2nd in the majors, bested only by the .406 BIP posted by the enigma that is Jose Hernandez. Phelps swings hard and hits line drives, so he should continue to post high BIP averages for years to come, but nobody maintains a .400 BIP average.

Overall, expect the drop in BAVG to offset the rise in walks and then some, causing the OBP to slide into the .340-.350 range. I think his slugging percentage will fall in proportion to his batting average. That would be a fine 2003, in which Josh consolidates the gains he made in 2002.

If Josh Phelps works diligently on his strike-zone judgement and pitch recognition, I expect that one day I will be able to call him the best hitter in baseball and not be ridiculed.

Get your tickets for Blue Jays V ’03, folks – it’s gonna be a great show.

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