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Jurickson Profar - A Rookie Card Review

12/2/2019

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by Phoenix Desertsong, Lifelong Sports Nut
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If you’ve been following Major League Baseball top prospects for even just a few years, you will know the name of Jurickson Profar. He was a highly touted prospect for a reason. On his 2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects card, you could see Jurickson simply oozing with talent. The smile on his face as he takes a practice swing in the photo screams a guy that just loves to play some baseball.

But, Profar didn’t get to play nearly as much baseball as he, the Rangers, baseball fans, and card collectors would’ve liked. Injury after injury kept eating into his playing time. When he would try to get a chance in the majors, he just couldn’t put things together before yet again losing a chunk of the season to some injury. Eventually, he finally got to play a full season, even if it took until 2018...

So, when he finally broke out with the Texas Rangers in 2018, it still felt like a disappointment. To hit .254 with 20 HR and 77 RBI - and stealing 10 bases WITHOUT being caught - would be a pretty nice season for most players. After years of getting hurt and not really establishing himself in his limited chances, 2018 was a nice break for Profar. He played all over the diamond, while mostly at third base and shortstop. Unfortunately, he didn’t rate well at any position on defense.


A Second Chance for Jurickson Profar?

The Rangers decided that they would sell high on Profar’s decent success with the bat and on the bases. They let him go to the Oakland A’s in a three team trade that netted them pitchers Kyle Bird and Brock Burke, as well as minor league infielder Eli White. Ironically, White is somewhat similar to what Profar has become - a guy without a position who’s useful enough with the bat and on the bases to have a role with some MLB team. Bird and Burke each had lousy MLB debuts, but both showed promise in the high minors.

The A’s were certainly disappointed in their return. They ended up trading Emilio Pagan and a competitive balance round draft pick to the Rays in the complex three team swap.  Profar hit only .218/.301/.410 and was "worth" minus 10 runs at second base. Meanwhile, Emilio Pagan was one of the best relievers in baseball for the Rays. The Rangers are probably thrilled that they got what they did.

There were some positives. Profar still hit 20 HR. He stole 9 bases and was only caught once. The switch-hitter murdered left handed pitching.  His batting average on balls in play was a piddly .218. Surely, you’d expect Profar to have a bit of positive regression, right?



A Third Chance for Profar with the Padres?

Being one of the most cost-conscious organizations in the league - to put it nicely - the A’s decided that they would cut bait on Profar. While a projection arbitration salary of $5.8 million is hardly awful for a guy who will likely perform closer to his 2018 than his 2019 results, the A’s decided to move on. They decided to swap their struggling infielder for catcher Austin Allen and a player to be named later. 


After their trade of Luis Urias to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Padres had a three-way fight for playing time at second. Ian Kinsler was terrible in 2019. Greg Garcia is a useful utility Infielder quite likely stretched in full time duty. Ty France had monster AAA numbers and was the guy with the most upside. But, you can't blame the Padres for wanting somebody with Profar's pedigree.

Padres GM A.J. Preller is quite familiar with Profar from his days in the Texas front office. While the familiarity is certainly a factor, it's not like there wasn't a use for him. His Steamer projection for 2020 alone makes him a clear starter at second base even with his fielding difficulties.

Steamer 2020 Projection (125 games): .250/.331/.431, 18 HR, 67 R, 64 RBI, 7 SB

Because of his propensity for injury, his projection accounts for at least some missed time. But even if that time, FanGraphs has him bring worth 2.2 WAR. That's a slightly above average player. Going into his age 27 season and being projected to earn $5.8 million through arbitration is fine for the Padres. The A's just wanted to move on.

What did the Padres give up? Austin Allen didn’t impress in his major league debut, but scouts project him to grow into more of his raw power. He could be a nice find for the A’s, for sure, even if he’s just their third catcher at the moment. He’s not nothing, although a very underwhelming return considering what a star Profar was expected to be.


The good news for Profar is that he definitely has a starting job with the Padres. If he can get his throwing issues under control, he could be at least a passable defensive second baseman. As even a slightly below average fielder, his bat and speed are still good enough tools to make him a 3 WAR player. It would be good to see him hit the ball harder with more consistency. But, in just 2019, his expected wOBA was .323 VS his actual .301 wOBA was enough of a gap to show he was unlucky.

Will Profar reemerge in the baseball card hobby? Right now, it doesn’t seem like he will. It's highly unlikely he suddenly becomes a 30 HR & 100 RBI stud out of nowhere. Could he finally have some good batted ball luck and put together a really nice year, though? There may be some untapped potential there yet. In any case, it’s easy to like this trade for the Padres.


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Ty France: A Rookie Card Review

11/6/2019

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by    Phoenix Desertsong,  Sports Nut
In the baseball off-season, one of my favorite activities is checking out the various player projections for 2020. One of my new favorites which started in the past couple of years was Steamer/600 at FanGraphs. It takes the existing Steamer projections and prorates them to 600 Plate Appearances for hitters (425 PA for catchers). For pitchers, it prorates to 200 innings for starters and 65 innings for relievers. 

When I was checking the projections for each position, I saw some names that stood out to me with projections as league average hitters. Those names will warrant future features on the Rookie Card Review. When it comes to the Hobby, league average is the cutoff if you're looking for cardboard gold. In some of my Rookie Card Reviews, you will see me mention these Steamer projections. While obviously most may not get the playing time in the near future to rack up the projected counting stats in MLB, many of them are knocking on the door.

Today, we take a look at a Padres Infielder who has possessed an above average bat. But, it hasn't yet broken out at the MLB level. The projections seen to believe 2020 holds good things for this young ballplayer.

A Nice Diamond in the Rough Infielder: Ty France

When I was looking at those 2020 projections for second basemen, I found that nestled in between Asdrubal Cabrera and Brian Dozier for a projected 100 wRC+ is Ty France. No longer really considered a prospect, the 25 year old France has seen some major league action for his hometown San Diego Padres. It hasn't really been that glorious for the infielder, whose natural position of third base is currently occupied by $300 million man Manny Machado. Because he can also play second decently enough and is a bat-first player anyway, France is intriguing from a hobby perspective, regardless of where the Padres find a place to stick his bat.

Ty France Has Hit in the Minor Leagues

It's not like this projection for France comes out of nowhere. He's been a well above-average player in the minor leagues, with an incredible explosion in AAA - thanks in part to the "rabbit ball" - in 2019. France posted a video game slash line of .399/.477/.770 that led to a ridiculous wRC+ mark of 196 - or 96 percent above league average.

While that absurd unsustainable power surge does inform that projection, France has been a 20 to 30 percent above league average hitter in his career. But in his first major league action, France mustered just a .234/.294/.402 slash line. His walk rate slipped to 4.5 percent and his strikeout rate jumped to 24.4 percent as he chased some bad pitches (30% outside swing rate).

Of course, there were good signs from his 69 game stint. He did hit 7 home runs in 201 plate appearances. His hard hit percentage was 41.9 percent, well above the league average of 34.5. But, StatCast didn't show anything else encouraging in his profile other than he is doing what he can to lift the ball - 15.1 degree average launch angle. Interestingly, France actually hit breaking balls much better than fastballs. It's possible that he just hadn't yet adjusted to major league fastballs. If he can, watch out…

That brings us to our Ty France rookie card review. 

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Ty France Rookie Cards Offer Few Choices But Significant Upside

As of this writing, there are only two rookie autos for Ty France. The bad news is that they are both Panini - whose lack of full MLB licensing despite high quality cards greatly hurts their appeal. But, Panini did see fit to include France as low number autos in both the high-end National Treasures and Chronicles sets.

The National Treasures is the better card of the two, having both a patch and an autograph. There are two versions of the card, one numbered to 99, and the other - a gold parallel - numbered to 49. The Chronicles autograph, part of the Obsidian Autographs subset, is limited to several colored parallels, each numbered to 99 copies, 50 copies, 25 copies, 10 copies, 5 copies, and a one-of-one. But relic auto combos win. Understandably, these two cards haven't yet sold for much, but they do have interest.

For our exercise, though, we'll focus on his "true" rookie card, the 2019 Topps Update #US129 - his first ever Topps card. It's sold on eBay for around $0.75. however, the parallels have fared much better. In particular the Walgreens Exclusive Yellow, Gold, Black #'d to /67, Vintage Stock #'d to /99, and Independence Day #'d to /76 have all been selling. The Independence Day card sold for as much as $13 in early November 2019. So, there's a demand for this guy's true rookie.


Will Ty France Get Consistent At-Bats in 2020?

The real issue for France is his path to playing time. On the official Padres depth chart, he's behind Machado at third base and is buried behind Luis Urias, Greg Garcia, and Ian Kinsler at second base. However, he's also listed as Eric Hosmer's backup at first base. 

Of course, Eric Hosmer's projection is quite similar to France. In fact, were it not for his albatross of a contract, it wouldn't be hard to see France replace him at first. Their Steamer 600 projections are so remarkably similar. But the Padres are paying Hosmer $18 million a year to be a replacement level player without much upside in sight.

For Ty France to gain much more hobby relevance, he needs to find a route to playing time. But, if he does and hits consistently enough, his Topps Update card could get interesting in a hurry. Because it's his only true rookie card, it will have a large amount of demand if he delivers on that projection.


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