The returns on the experiment were encouraging immediately with a 38/7 K/BB ratio in his first 39 IP between short season A and Low-A in 2006. Last year in his first go around in AAA, Jason struck out a ridiculous 110 batters in 66.2 AAA IP as he held opponents to a 3.24 ERA in 63 appearances and a .254 OBA. (That .254 was bloated by a .426 BHIP% by the way. With any luck he could have repeated his 2007 AA OBA of .207, accomplished with a less-than-favorable .305 BHIP%)
His velocity is obvious. Jason averaged 96.6 mph on his fastball in the majors in '08 and so far in '09 he's averaged 96.4. Last year he threw 89.4% fastballs and 8.8% of his pitches were a rudimentary slider. So far this year (and all of his MLB experience is a small sample, keep in mind) he's thrown his slider 17.2% of the time and even mixed in an occasional change. Jason's ability to develop and integrate secondary pitches will be a lynch pin for his career. He can get some misses with velocity but major league hitters can hit a bullet if they know it's coming.
Watching him this week two things become readily apparent. Jason's command and control is raw at best, which you'd expect from a guy who has only pitched seriously for three seasons. More disturbing perhaps is that his fastball, while definitely fast, has little to no life. It's a laser, and major league hitters have been squaring it up to the tune of a .615 OBA (that's not a typo) through his first 11 batters faced this season, although, granted, with a .685 BHIP%.
I'm not quite ready to give up here. Jason throws first pitch strikes and while his life and in-zone command isn't great yet, he doesn't walk batters at deal-breaking rate ... and 69% of the balls hit off of him aren't going to drop forever. That having been said, Chris Perez will be pressing for save opps, Dennys Reyes already casts a shadow, and the cracks in La Russa's faith in Motte are already showing.
There may be an effective reliever here but most signs point towards a 7th or 8th inning role. And while it's too early to make this call, if you paid in your draft for a closer in Motte, you may get stung here.
Long Term Fantasy Grade - C+
Seas Lvl W L ERA SV IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 AVG WHIP 2006 A- 1 2 3.08 8 26.1 8.5 1.4 0.3 .288 1.29 2006 A- 1 1 4.97 0 12.2 9.2 2.1 0.7 .309 1.50 2007 A+ 1 0 0.90 3 10.0 5.4 0.9 0.0 .199 0.80 2007 AA 3 3 2.20 8 49.0 11.6 4.0 0.6 .207 1.18 2008 AAA 4 3 3.24 9 66.2 14.9 3.5 0.8 .254 1.35 2008 MLB 0 0 0.82 1 11.0 13.1 2.5 0.0 .139 0.73 2009 MLB 0 1 15.43 0 2.1 11.6 0.0 0.0 .515 3.00 Tot 0 1 3.38 1 13.1 12.8 2.0 0.0 .242 1.13
Travis Ishikawa At 25 years old Travis Ishikawa isn't your model prospect, but as the starting first baseman for a major league team he does deserve some attention. Travis currently holds down the 1B job for the Giants and while he will sit against a few left-handers, Bruce Bochy insists that Travis is not the left side of a platoon.
In his first year in AAA last season Travis hit .310 in 171 ABs with a .311 BHIP%, this, after hitting .291 in his second tour of AA (234 ABs) to start the season. He finished the season with the big club hitting .274 in 104 ABs albeit with a favorable .354 BHIP%
In his first look at MLB pitching Travis fanned 28.4% of the time while walking 8.7%, a reasonable and expected level-jump drop from his AAA rates of 21.1% and 13.0%. That 2008 AAA BB rate is an outlier in his career, but if Travis can boost his MLB BB rate nearer to 10% and bring his K rate back into the lower 20s, he could be an effective hitter.
Power is a whole 'nother issue. Travis did hit 16 HRs in his 171 AAA ABs last year and slugged .737 but that was a huge jump over his .396 SLG% in 3 AA seasons. In his 132 MLB ABs through Friday Travis has slugged .447 which is marginal overall and only acceptable at 1B.
Travis projects to hit .280/20/85 based on what he has shown so far and that doesn't cut it if he's slotted as your first baseman. He does bring ABs to the table right now, and in deeper leagues, if he plays a corner or DH for you you don't lose too much ground. However it doesn't appear right now that Travis will develop into an above-the-curve first baseman.
Long Term Fantasy Grade - C
Seas Lvl AB XBH HR SB AVG BB% K% OBP SLG 2006 AA 298 27 10 0 .232 10.5 29.5 .316 .403 2006 MLB 24 4 0 0 .292 4.0 25.0 .320 .500 2007 A+ 198 29 13 0 .268 8.8 39.4 .342 .551 2007 AA 173 7 3 0 .214 8.9 27.7 .292 .295 2008 AA 234 24 8 10 .291 13.0 19.2 .382 .462 2008 AAA 171 38 16 0 .310 7.6 21.1 .370 .737 2008 MLB 95 9 3 1 .274 8.7 28.4 .337 .432 2009 MLB 16 1 0 0 .250 0.0 25.0 .250 .375 Tot 135 14 3 1 .274 6.9 27.4 .324 .437
This is a sample of Insiderbaseball.com's weekly Prospect Central column featuring in-depth analysis of over 120 prospects each season. Please visit Insiderbaseball.com or click the "Home" tab at the top of the page to see all the great insights and features available to our subscribers every day!
