Apparently Anderson Machado is out of options, and he is about the come off of the DL, so my guess (as well as the guess of some other Cincinnati Reds Bloggers) is we will see him up here soon.
So what do we have in Anderson Machado
Just looking at the raw OPS and other numbers reveals a pretty sad story, but if you drill down a little bit, there are some encouraging things.
* At age 17 he had 30 walks in 245 TPA’s which is a good rate
* At age 19 at Low A he had 54 walks in 461 TPA’s which is decent rate
* at age 22 in AA he had 108 walks in 531 TPA’s which is an awsome rate.
* at age 23 in AAA (last year) he had 50 walks in 345 TPA’s.
His batting average has been low at almost every level of the minors, and his OBA has been unimpressive, but his walk rate leads me to believe he would be a good gamble to some day learn how to hit the ball.
The reason I say that is he obviously doesn’t swing at a lot of bad pitches, and he has been young at each level, so it may take a year or two, but I could defintetly see him becoming another Ryan Freel type ML hitter.
If Mr. Machado becomes Ryan Freel II, let’s hope his health can hold out to where we can get some decent production from that slot….
That being said, DanO is thinking “savior” along with Josh Hancock…
It’s a lot easier to learn how to be patient at the plate, though that’s still not easy to teach, than it is to teach someone how to hit major league pitching.
Heath, I too was thinking Hancock could improve the club when he got back from the injury. Unfortunately, he’s not doing too well on this rehab. Hitters are killing him right now.
Chris, maybe I did buy into some of the hype on him.