The WGOM

Denard Span Challenges All Comers

February 4th, 2008 by ubelmann

The Twins Territory blog has recently posted an interview with Denard Span where he is nothing if not chock full of confidence.

Denard Span felt he was ready to step up and play centerfield last season for the Twins. That viewpoint has not changed with the New Year, and Span says he is still ready to step in and fill the hole.

"I'm definitely ready; I thought I was ready after spring training last year. I felt like I had proven to others and especially to the Twins organization that I was ready for the next level and now one year later everyone is writing me off because of one bad half of baseball in Rochester."

Yes Denard, your fearsome career .348 OBP and .348 SLG indicate that you are absolutely ready to be a starter for a major league ballclub. Mr. Span's second half last year is becoming the thing of legend in some parts of the blogosphere, but I see a good August and not much else.

I mean, I'm happy that Denard is so confident in his ability to play baseball. If he thought he sucked, he'd probably be even worse than he is already. I just don't think he's ready for a role with the Twins just yet. (Of course, I don't really think that Pridie or Gomez are especially ready for a role with the Twins yet, either, but someone's gotta run around in CF.)

The PECOTA forecasts for 2008 were recently released, and there was some interesting stuff regarding center field. The first thing that stood out to me was the UPSIDE scores of our 3 4 hell, let's make it 5 would-be centerfielders of the future. (UPSIDE is one way to look at a player's long-term value by looking at whether or not comparable players became above-average major leaguers.)

58.4 -- Ben Revere (4th-highest UPSIDE of all 20-year-olds)
42.4 -- Joe Benson
27.1 -- Denard Span
6.1 -- Jason Pridie
5.7 -- Carlos Gomez

Having looked up and down UPSIDE scores for the last day or so, I think they're fairly imperfect for long-term prospect evaluation. For instance, Revere's 58.4 is pretty off-the-charts, because on average, the UPSIDE scores for 20-year-olds are lower than for, say, 23-year-olds, even though there's no real a priori reason to expect that more/better baseball babies were born in 1985 than 1988. But, keeping in mind that it's a rough guide, it gives us someplace to start the conversation.

Anyway, I was surprised to see Span so high up that list. I gave his numbers another look, and I'll give him this: while he hasn't been particularly young for his level, he hasn't stuck around any one level for a long time. When looking at some of the super young prospects like Delmon Young and Fernando Martinez this off-season--guys who were pushed pretty hard--I kind of noticed a trend where even if guys weren't very spectacular in the minors but were pushed along anyway, and didn't totally fall off, they managed to make the majors and not totally fail there. Perhaps we should call it the Rivas effect.

Span's been plugging his way through the minors, basically hitting .280/.350/.350 with some variation around that. Superficially, his .267/.323/.355 line last year looks worse than his career line, but add just a few singles to that line (as a career .283 hitter he could've been a bit unlucky) and you've got about a .283/.339/.371 line. A bit of a dent in the OBP, but a bit of a boost to his power.

Now, there was nothing special about Luis Rivas and I don't think there will be anything special about Denard Span, but if Rivas was the utility infielder, capable of playing multiple positions, I don't think we would've seen too many complaints about him. I tend to think that Span can eventually be a replacement level hitter in the majors. If he can play good defense, then for the minimum, that's a decent 4th outfielder. It's not what you really want out of a #1 draft pick, but that's what we've got on our hands. I don't like his chances of becoming a league average player as much as PECOTA, but I guess that possibility lingers.

Bonus: Denard Span's #1 PECOTA comparable hit .289/.337/.389 in his rookie season at the age of 22 in 1982. Name that player.

This entry was posted by ubelmann on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Guest Writers, MLB, Minnesota Twins, On the Farm, ubelmann. It is one of 749 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.