What to expect from Travis Snider

Wednesday, September 13 2006 @ 09:00 AM EDT

Contributed by: Pistol

Travis Snider had a highly successful debut in professional baseball.  What does the future hold for him?

Well, that's what I've tried to find out.  So what I did was to take all of the high school positions players drafted in the top 15 picks of the draft going back to 1995 who played in the year they were drafted (holdouts eliminated a fair number of players).

Snider played in the Appalachian League this year.  The Appy league is similar to the Pioneer League, Gulf Coast League and Arizona League.  All players who played primarily in that league are included below.

Player

Year

Pick

Level

Ave

Obp 

Slg

OPS

Prince Fielder

2002

7

Pio 

0.390

0.531

0.678

1.209

Billy Butler

2004

14

Pio 

0.373

0.488

0.596

1.084

Joe Mauer

2001

1

Appy

0.400

0.490

0.491

0.981

Travis Snider

2006

14

Appy

0.325

0.412

0.567

0.979

Josh Hamilton

1999

1

Appy

0.347

0.385

0.593

0.978

Luis Montanez

2000

3

Ariz

0.344

0.438

0.531

0.969

Ian Stewart

2003

10

Pio 

0.317

0.401

0.558

0.959

Chris Nelson

2004

9

Pio 

0.347

0.432

0.510

0.942

Dave Krynzel

2000

11

Pio 

0.359

0.442

0.489

0.931

Brandon Synder

2005

13

Appy

0.271

0.380

0.493

0.873

Austin Kearns

1998

7

Pio 

0.315

0.433

0.426

0.859

Andrew McCutchen

2005

11

GCL

0.297

0.411

0.430

0.841

Chris Lubanski

2003

5

Ariz

0.326

0.382

0.452

0.834

Jay Bruce

2005

12

GCL

0.270

0.331

0.500

0.831

Scott Moore

2002

8

GCL

0.293

0.349

0.459

0.808

BJ Garbe

1999

5

Appy

0.316

0.391

0.415

0.806

Ryan Harvey

2003

6

Ariz

0.235

0.339

0.431

0.770

Ben Davis

1995

2

Pio 

0.279

0.341

0.426

0.767

Adrian Gonzalez

2000

1

GCL

0.295

0.397

0.358

0.755

Neil Walker

2004

11

GCL

0.271

0.313

0.427

0.740

Josh McKinley

1998

11

GCL

0.269

0.349

0.385

0.734

Corey Myers

1999

4

Pio 

0.276

0.333

0.393

0.726

Matt Holloran

1996

15

Ariz

0.261

0.317

0.373

0.690

Shaun Boyd

2000

13

Appy

0.263

0.315

0.362

0.677

JJ Davis

1997

8

GCL

0.255

0.318

0.358

0.676

Rob Stratton

1996

13

GCL

0.254

0.285

0.390

0.675

Jeremy Hermedia

2002

11

GCL

0.224

0.316

0.321

0.637

Lastings Milledge

2003

12

Appy

0.231

0.323

0.308

0.631

Reggie Taylor

1995

14

Appy

0.222

0.295

0.314

0.609

Rocco Baldelli

2000

6

Appy

0.216

0.269

0.310

0.579

Matt Bush

2004

1

Ariz

0.181

0.302

0.236

0.538

Snider slides in right after Fielder, Butler, and Mauer.  That's not bad company to be in.  Also consider that before his wrist injury that cut short his season Snider was still improving his rate numbers (his August OPS was 1.248 in 86 PAs).

Looking at Snider compared to the top three, all three players ahead of him had much higher batting averages.  Snider's power ranks in the middle with Fielder well ahead and Mauer well behind.

Most similar to Snider's batting line is Josh Hamilton, the #1 pick in 1999.  Hopefully, for Snider, the comparison ends there as Hamilton's career was derailed by personal issues.

After the first few players on the list it really becomes hit or miss (or inconclusive for some of the more recent picks).  Some players had strong debuts and it wasn't a sign of things to come.  Others had slow starts, but it didn't stop them from becoming top prospects.

Over the same time period there were also several players who played at a higher level than the rookie leagues.

Player Year Pick Level

Ave

Obp 

Slg

OPS

Ryan Christianson 1999 11 NW 0.280 0.367 0.570 0.937
Felipe Lopez 1998 8 NYP 0.373 0.399 0.518 0.917
Vernon Wells 1997 5 NYP 0.307 0.381 0.504 0.885
Chad Hermansen 1995 10 NYP 0.273 0.348 0.467 0.815
Jamie Jones 1995 6 NYP 0.284 0.340 0.474 0.814
Eric Chavez 1996 10 Calif 0.271 0.324 0.444 0.768

Interestingly, no one has played a majority of their games above rookie ball since Ryan Christianson in 1999.  The Jays were fairly aggressive with Lopez and Wells and both had great debuts.  The A's were exceptionally aggressive with Chavez - they threw him right into High A ball.  But like the other list above I don't think you can draw anything conclusive from this.  Wells and Chavez became All Star level players and the rest go from decent to washouts.

So based on this what can be expected of Travis Snider?  I'm not sure anything can be expected, but it's certainly a better sign to be at the top of the list than the bottom of the list.  Snider is off to a good start, but that doesn't guarantee anything.  But you already knew that.

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