Alexei Ramirez: Player Spotlight

About as simple as you can get:

* What is his approach at the plate?
Aggressive. Doesn’t take many pitches, but makes a lot of contact. Will foul off pitches out of the zone instead of taking them. * Does he thrive on certain pitches? certain counts/situations? Why?
It seems like he thrives with two strikes. I don’t have the data to back me up, but it seems like when he gets two strikes on him, he’ll foul off a number of pitches before finding a hole somewhere for a base hit. Again, I don’t have the data (too lazy), but that’s just what it seems like. * Is he vulnerable to certain pitches, and why?
High fastballs, like most major league hitters. He’s started to hit breaking and offspeed pitches better lately, but if you get him down 1-2, the best pitch may be a letter-high fastball if you want to get him to strike out. * What is he like on the basepaths?
Fast, but doesn’t have the stolen base instinct of a Scott Podsednik or Carl Crawford yet. As somebody who was playing in Cuba a year ago, that’s understandable. That hopefully will come in time as he gets adjusted to pitchers’ pickoff moves. * How is his defense? His arm?
He occasionally makes the easy play look difficult and the difficult play look easy. Very flashy, but most importantly, very athletic. Remember, he was a SS in Cuba his whole time there. He’s picked up second base extremely quickly and should have no problem moving back to short next year if it’s in the cards for him. Either way, he’s by far the most athletic player on the team. He has a fairly strong arm that we don’t get to see much of at second.

In his first few AB’s, he was swinging at every pitch. Now, it seems like he is taking more and more pitches and it obviously has something to do with his newfound success at the plate.

Plate approach, even though the swing and results are not at all the same, he reminds me of AJ up there more then anyone else on this team.
He’ll swing at some awful pitches, but at the same time doesn’t strike out nearly as much as you think he would. Gets a piece of the ball more often then not, breaks a lot of bats, lots of bloopers mixed in with his solidly hit balls. Also goes back to what UribeAuction said about hitting with two strikes, just like AJ, he might go for it with a hitters count, but if he gets down to an 0-2 count, he’ll be up there battling all day making the pitcher work until he can drop one in over the infielders head.

Also good with the fundamentals like AJ, can bunt (and even slash), gets the runner over.

Every day you see improvement, to the point that it’s pretty ridiculous. Just seems like a natural ball player, no way else to put it really.

He’s in a new league, playing a new position for a first place team and he doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. I assume playing for Cuba has something to do with it, but I just can’t see this guy losing confidence in a slump.

For me, the biggest surprise on this team. Q was supposed to be good at one time until he got hurt, and now he’s playing like he was expected to when he was drafted, so it’s not as surprising. Alexei just gets it done, great athlete, quick learner, good attitude, can’t ask for much more. Can’t wait to see him at short stop the next three years.

Approach at the plate is very aggressive and will swing at pitches out of the zone. Has ability though to foul off bad pitches and avoid striking out. Will work the occasional walk using this method but is not a disciplined hitter by any means—will get himself behind in the count when he should be ahead.

Suprising power for such a skinny frame, he must generate good bat speed.

Excellent all-around athlete with a great arm and seems capable of playing 2B, SS and CF at an average or better level.

One thing about Ramirez defensively—watch him the next time you go to a game. He stands with his hands on his knees, flat-footed while the pitcher is going through his signs, and doesn’t ready himself any more while the pitch is being thrown. Everybody else on the diamond moves but him.

I scheduled this to post yesterday afternoon, so it’s funny that Jim had a scouting-type note about Alexei in his latest post.

would be interesting to see a graph with just his hits/in play out to see if there is a pattern

and then maybe a second graph with swinging versus called strikes

hard to see with so many dots

Mark Gonzales wrote:

Mark Buehrle is in the second of two multiyear contracts with the Sox. And there’s a belief that switching agents could stabilize left-hander John Danks’ tenure in Chicago.

“I’m very comfortable here,” said Danks, who now is represented by Buehrle’s agent, Jeff Berry.

“I definitely love it here. I like management. I like the guys here. In a perfect world, you would spend a whole career here.”

Danks won’t be eligible for arbitration until after 2010, but the Sox have given some players security while buying out their arbitration years. Recent examples include Buehrle, Matt Thornton and since-departed Jon Garland.

“I really don’t know,” Danks said of exploring a multiyear deal. “That’s something for [general manager] Kenny Williams and guys to sit down and think about. That would make me very happy.”

1. Approach at the plate: Aggressive – though more selective than when he first came up, looking as if he was concerned he’d be deported if he didn’t perform.

2. Thriving in certain counts/situatrions: The numbers don’t bear me out, but like last night, on a 3-2 count with 2 outs in the top of the ninth, he found a way to flick one into left field to keep it going – i.e. he seems to be “clutch”. Just feels that way. When I saw him in Tampa he dropped a bunt (which I’ve now seen twice) in a completely meaningful situation (he ain’t just showin’ off). He has a knack for doing the right thing at the plate. High fastballs are a problem, and when he is pounded inside it looks like he has problems (likes to extend those pipecleaners he calls arms).

3. Instincts on the bases and in the field: This is the area of which I am the least sure of myself in rating him. I don’t see many games – when I have seen him he might eff up a play, but as vince states above, he doesn’t seem to make the same mistake twice. He seems very sure of himself in the field (which is perhaps why he rests as Jim points out – maybe the pace of the game is a lot slower in the US as opposed to Cuba, when you might have to duck machine gun fire). I like his approach to the game, and he seems quite intelligent in his approach. Probably like Ozzie himself – more of an instinctual player. I wonder if he looks at tendencies via written material, or if he remembers it by experiencing it.

4. Defense: Very pleasantly surprised at how quickly he’s picked up 2B, since he looked lost in CF. Good range, great arm, not shy about hanging in on the pivot. Wowed me in Tampa with his spinning throw running away from the field on a popup – barehanded catch on the bounce – all in one move.

To me (perhaps I sound like JRE liking the singles hitters) this is the steal of the season. Any guy who I outweigh that is tearing it up in the infield is a lightning rod for my attention. If he shifts as easily to short we’re in for a good few years. Dis keed, he a baseball player.

We’ve seen not-so-much a shorter swing from Alexei in the past week, but a more controlled swing. From my memory, he’s had only one of those falling on his ass swings that were so prevalent as he posted a sub-.200 OBP into May. Those swings were the main reason I wanted him sent back to AAA. I don’t know if it’s been coaching, or just an adjustment that Alexei’s made on his own, but he’s scaled back his swing a bit.

Which brings me to my real observation… He’s begun choking up on the bat a bit. He’s not David Eckstein or Placido Polanco in there, but he’s got some space (visible on TV) between his bottom hand and the knob of the bat. This may have something to do with the extended at-bats we’ve seen lately, and the astonishing K/BB ration over the last week (1:4).

Missle ranks behind only Vlad and Miguel Olivo (among those with at least 140 PAs) in percentage of pitches swung at outside the zone

He has a surprisingly small variance between his contact rate on pitches in the zone (83.4%) and out of the zone (75.6%).

very cool idea. can we end with a 7 skills/5 tools community vote a la Tango?

as for Alexei, I don’t feel qualified to say much because i’ve missed his hot streak almost entirely. I honestly didn’t think he had this in him having seen so many of those ugly ABs early in the season. The “fast learner” tag seems completely apt. I’d really like to see a pitches/pa graphed over time. Is he changing his approach or just adapting rapidly to major league pitching? Either way, it’s highly impressive. Hopefully whatever has gotten into Crede wrt his walk rate gets to Alexei, but it isnt nearly as necessary since he’s a future SS.

btw, how impressive is it that Kenny may have solved our issues up the middle with Beckham, Alexei and Swish? Add Q! to that and that’s a pretty nice future core.

OC, SS; AJ, C; Q, LF; Thome, DH; JD, RF; Crede, 3B; Swish, 1B; Alexi, 2B; BA, CF. Vazquez pitching.

Has quickly transformed himself from a deer-in-the-headlights, overmatched rookie with a sweeping, clueless swing to a poised batter with a quick/compact swing that can protect the plate and hit with pop.

He must be worshiping at “The Church of Q!”

but since I am convinced I thought of it independently beforehand, I’ll mention it anyway: I get an Ivan Calderon vibe from the Slashy Missle. He looks alternatively hopeless and wonderful from one at bat to the next (and even one swing within an at bat to the next). He is alternately infuriatingly awful and almost incredibly good in the field. He seems to have a knack for being involved in weird plays, which almost always turn out to be good for the Sox. He is somewhat odd looking (obviously in a completely different way than Ivan). He seems kind of raw, but almost always makes good decisions. Overall (at least so far), he is a good (not great) player who is just a fun to watch and root for.

Obviously, this “analysis” is beyond anecdotal (not to mention completely unresponsive to Cheat’s lists of questions), but thought I’d bring it up FWIW.

and a buttload of singles

“He has that look like he’s on a mission,” Walker said. “But if you look at him physically, being thin like he is, you don’t realize how strong he is, how quick he is. But his mechanics, when they’re good, they’re really good. When they’re bad, they can get very bad.

“But the thing I’ve noticed about him since spring training is that he’s very smart. He knows how to make adjustments. The first few weeks of spring training he was trying to impress us and trying to do too much. His swing was timing-based and very long. But you still could see the physical ability was there.”

The Sox saw Ramirez start to tinker with his leg kick and his stride, and the improvement was noticeable toward the end of spring training. He convinced the Sox’s staff to keep him on the Opening Day roster even though this is his first year playing organized baseball in the U.S. after leaving Cuba.