2011 SAL All-Stars: OF Brandon Jacobs

The South Atlantic League at the Low-A level features some exciting prospects and players who could be big league superstars within a few years. We continue the league’s All-Stars with the first of the team’s three starting outfielders, Brandon Jacobs.

Name: Brandon Jacobs
Height: 6’1″
Weight: 225 
Bats andThrows: R
Age: 21 
2011 Team: Greenville Drive (BOS)
Basic Batting Stats: .303/.376/.505, 32 doubles, 17 homers, 80 RBI, and 30 stolen bases (7 CS) in 115 games
Fielding Stats: 107 games in left field, .977 Fld%, 8 outfield assists 

Background: 

Jacobs shares a name with the running back for the New York Giants, and while he isn’t quite as big of a person, he was lined up to be a running back for the University of Auburn before the Red Sox drafted him in the 10th round in the 2009 MLB Draft. The Red Sox ponied up a $750,000 bonus to get Jacobs to sign.

General Thoughts:

Jacobs 2011 numbers were excellent as he hit for a very good amount of power and average while showing excellent speed. Jacobs is best known as a player and prospect for his legitimate plus power, a lot of which is to right-center. He generates great bat speed with nice lift in his swing. But the nice bat speed has also helped him hit for a nice average. Minor League Central shows that Jacobs combined a high line drive rate, 19.1% of his batted balls compared to the 16.4% league average, with an above-average amount of flyballs to the outfield, 39.8% of his batted balls compared to the 29.2% league average. Such a combination is hard to find. Jacobs’ BAbip on the season was a pretty crazy .381 compared to the .314 league average, but it doesn’t seem like Jacobs was so lucky at all. When you hit a lot of line drives, you generally hit for a high average. Most line drives end up in the outfield, and so did 86.5% of his flyballs compared to the league average of 80.2%. The data isn’t available for the Sally League, but for some perspective, major league hitters posted a .550 batting average with a .507 BAbip when they hit the ball to the outfield. But this is a case where you have to really examine the data in order to interpret what the .507 mark means.

We’re not worrying about groundball hits that end up in the outfield here, so let’s focus directly on the flyball and line drive data we have on the 2011 MLB season. Using a couple of resources, Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs, we are able to compute some interesting numbers. Fangraphs tells up us that 10.5% of the flyballs hit in the majors in 2011 were pop-ups on the infield. Even getting rid of that 10.5% of the outs he made (no pop-up on the infield was possibly a hit, even though some were errors), the league BA and BAbip on flyballs to the outfield were not too much higher than the general BA and BAbip on flyballs, which came in at .218 and .137 respectively. The BA on flyballs to the outfield registered at .237 while the BAbip came in at .155, certainly a significant difference given the large sample size (we’re talking about nearly 48,600 batted balls here), but still hitting flyballs to the outfield doesn’t ensure nearly as much success in terms of batting average and batting average on balls in play as hitting line drives does. The general BA and BAbip on line drives in 2011 were .722 and .713 respectively. We limit that to line drives to the outfield by taking the 14% percentage of flyballs on the infield that Baseball-Reference gives us here and subtracting the 10.5% mark that Fangraphs gives us (Baseball-Reference counts line drives has flyballs for the purpose of that calculation). By assuming that no line drive hit stayed on the infield (which is almost always true), we subtract the 3.5% of line drives that we estimate stayed on the infield from the total amount of line drives we hit and we end up with a .748 battting average on flyballs to the outfield with a .740 BAbip. That .740 mark is really the backbone of that .507 mark. We’re not denying that Jacobs has tons of power, but his .381 BAbip was clearly an aberration.

Line drives is in general the batted ball type that anchors BAbip, and Jacobs’ 19.1% line drive percentage towered over the league average of 16.4%. Yet even if you use proportion to see what 16.4/.314 (the league BAbip) is equal when you plug in 19.1, you get a mark that falls well short of .381: a .366 BAbip. But that proportion implies that the ratio of his groundballs to flyballs remained the same. But it didn’t. 42.8% of the league’s batted balls were groundballs and 36.4% were flyballs, with 80.2% of those flyballs going to the outfield. For Jacobs, just 33.0% of his batted balls were groundball, and 45.0% were flyballs, although 88.4% were on the outfield. That mark for flyballs to the outfield certainly was a result of Jacobs’ power, but we saw above that such a mark still doesn’t lead to a high BAbip. While groundballs don’t lead to very much power at all, by pure luck they’re a hit around a quarter of the time, and accordingly groundballs had a .237 BAbip (and BA) in the major leagues in 2011. But what takes some of the luck out  of groundballs is speed. Jacobs stole 30 bases in 37 tries in 2011, so we know he has some nice speed. Jacobs was traded batting average for power when he was hitting all those flyballs- or at least he should have been. Jacobs’ power was no fluke. But his .381 BAbip certainly was.

And despite the .381 BAbip, Jacobs hit just .305. That’s not something you want to see. He struck out 123 times on the season, 24.5% of his plate appearances compared to the league average of 20.1%, which isn’t really that alarming considering Jacobs’ power. But what is a sign for concern is the fact that Jacobs’ increase in strikeout rate was not accompanied by an increase in walk rate: his 7.6% unintentional walk rate was well below the league average of 8.3%. If you take out the 5 times he was unintentionally walked along with the 12 times he was hit by pitches, his OBP would have been just .355- not that his .376 OBP was impressive to begin with. Overly aggressive power hitters never seem to do well. His pitch identification really wasn’t lacking, but it wasn’t anything special as he swung at 21.4% of pitches outside the zone according to Minor League Central compared to the league average of 24.6% (I’m curious as to whether the intentional walks were included in that) and he was too aggressive within the zone, swinging at 90.7% of pitches within the zone compared to the league average of 89.4%. Jacobs’ pitch identification maybe wasn’t so lacking, but as a power hitter he has to take more pitches. We mentioned above that his .381 BAbip was a fluke. Jacobs hit an incredible 52 extra-base hits in 2011, but you have to think that some of those hits, particularly a few of his 32 doubles were not particularly hit so hard and he was lucky to get them. By waiting for his pitch, Jacobs would not only raise his OBP but also be able to get more legitimate extra-base hits to offset the luck turnaround he’s about to face. And don’t forget about his speed! If he could get on base more maybe Jacobs could steal a few more bases. Jacobs has a big frame and he doesn’t seem like the kind of player whose speed will stay with him as he ages, but at least in the short-term, Jacobs could steal 40 bases next year if he managed a .380 OBP. But while Jacobs is still young, I’m worried as I’m evaluating him that the improved plate discipline may never come.

Defensively, Jacobs can handle right field but deferred to fellow top prospect Bryce Brentz, who has an outstanding arm compared to Jacobs’ arm, which is simply plus. He showed very good range, but he made a few too many errors, something he’ll look to improve on. His defense isn’t really a concern going forward as he’ll be fine in left field and should be at least passable in right.

I know I just ripped apart Jacobs’ 2011 numbers, but he had a nice season, with his combination of power, line drives, and steals being something special.

Moving Forward: 

Jacobs is going to get in trouble as a “tweener” of a prospect. If he plays well enough he’ll play well enough to overcome that, but he will develop that label. I call Jacobs a tweener because he’s a player who especially as he ages will need to rely more and more on his power. BuI’m not so sure about any part of his game. He undeniably has some nice power, but it’s certainly not as elite as it was in 2011 and even so his 17 homers don’t jump off the stat sheet. He hits line drives, a good sign, but that’s offset by his strikeout rate and his below average plate discipline. And not only does his body seem like something that will limit his speed going forward, but his entire game plays against the speed part of his game by just hitting so many flyballs. Jacobs reminds me a lot of Delmon Yountg, although obviously he was never the caliber of prospect that Young was during his time with the Devil Rays. Jacobs probably has a little more power than Young has shown the past few seasons and for the time being, more speed, but the results could be very similar going forward especially because of their similar problems with plate discipline. Jacobs looks like a productive big leaguer to me, but even if he does better in upcoming seasons, he better not get hyped because he’s the type of player that seems primed to disappoint. Hopefully for his sake he’ll prove me wrong, but Jacobs is much more of a productive big leaguer than a potential All-Star in my book.

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