Profile - Jay Bruce

The Cincinnati Reds selected high school outfielder Jay Bruce with the 12th pick of the 1st round of the 2005 First Year Player Draft. Justin Upton (1), Alex Gordon (2), Jeff Clement (3), Ryan Zimmerman (4), Ryan Braun (5) and Troy Tulowitzki (7) were those selected ahead of him who have already established themselves as starting players in the major leagues.

Coming out of high school, Bruce split his first season in 2005 between two rookie league teams, posting isolated power numbers over .200 at each. In 2006, at age 19, he spent the whole season with Dayton in A ball, and again showed good power with 42 doubles and 16 home runs. 2007 saw a climb across three levels, from Sarasota in High A to Chattanooga in AA to Louisville in AAA. He hit over .300 at each, combining for 46 doubles and 26 home runs. Hitting .364 with 10 HRs for AAA Louisville by late May 2008, Bruce got the call to join the Reds. He didn’t disappoint, reaching base in his first six plate appearances. After 16 games, Bruce is still hitting .382 with 4 HRs.

In looking at Bruce’s professional record so far, what type and how good of a player does he look to be?

In calculating Major League Equivalencies from minor league stats, adjustments must be made for park factors, the same as in the major leagues, but then also for the lesser competition at each level of the minors.

At each level, I have taken the batting totals for each player and normalized them for park factors. Then I grouped the players who played on more than one level, and summed the weighted means of the records on each level. The level factors are the ratios of each component stat (SI, DO, TR, HR, BB, SO) from one level to another.

Comparing the projected MLE to actual major league stats, the following root mean square errors were observed:

(ISO is Isolated Power, or SA-BA. BABIP is Batting Avg on Balls In Play, or H-HR divided by balls in play)

BA	OB	SA	ISO	BABIP	BB	SO
.017	.023	.031	.024	.024	.009	.034

70% of the time, the projection will be within this error margin of the “true” major league value that is being estimated. 95% of the projections should be with twice twice the error rates from the true values.

Actual	BA	OB	SA	AB	H	DO	TR	HR	HP	BB	SO	SB	CS	DP
2005 18 R	.270	.331	.500	122	33	9	2	5	0	10	31	4	6	2
2005 18 R	.257	.358	.457	70	18	2	0	4	0	11	22	2	2	2
2006 19 A	.291	.355	.516	444	129	42	5	16	0	40	106	19	9	7
2007 20 A+	.325	.372	.588	268	87	27	5	11	2	22	67	4	4	4
2007 20 AA	.333	.405	.652	68	22	7	1	4	0	8	20	2	1	0
2007 20 AAA	.305	.353	.567	187	57	12	2	11	1	14	48	2	2	1
2008 21 AAA	.364	.373	.630	184	67	9	5	10	4	12	45	8	1	4
2008 21 ML	.382	.468	.632	68	26	5	0	4	1	9	12	2	2	1

MLEs	BA	OB	SA	ISO	BABIP	BB%	SO%	AB	H	DO	TR	HR	HP	BB	SO
2006 19 A	.254	.309	.469	.215	.304	.071	.241	457	116	42	2	17	3	35	120
2007 20 A+	.298	.339	.563	.264	.366	.058	.264	279	83	25	5	13	2	17	79
2007 20 AA	.279	.353	.533	.255	.410	.103	.327	66	19	8	1	3	0	8	24
2007 20 AAA	.254	.301	.477	.223	.317	.061	.291	192	49	11	1	10	1	12	60
2008 21 AAA	.302	.319	.521	.219	.368	.035	.273	193	58	8	3	9	0	7	56
2008 21 ML	.382	.468	.632	.250	.423	.127	.152	68	26	5	0	4	1	10	12

Actual	BA	OB	SA	ISO	BABIP	BB%	SO%	AB	H	DO	TR	HR	HP	BB	SO
2006 19	.254	.309	.469	.215	.304	.071	.241	457	116	42	2	17	3	35	120
2007 20	.280	.327	.529	.248	.351	.064	.282	537	150	41	6	26	3	37	163
2008 21	.323	.360	.550	.227	.384	.060	.239	261	84	13	3	13	1	17	68

MLEs	BA	OB	SA	ISO	BABIP	BB%	SO%	AB	H	DO	TR	HR	HP	BB	SO
Cartwright	.275	.323	.507	.232	.330	.066	.258	553	152	42	5	25	3	39	155
Sickels	.280	.320	.475	.195	.339	.055	.238	559	157	37	4	22	3	33	143

Percentile Rank

74%

48%

96%

97%

97%

33%

1%

My projection line includes a regression to the league mean for the BABIP after all the lines were summed. For Bruce, this cost him 5 points of BA, SA and OB. John Sickles recently did a year-by-year career projection for Bruce. The line above represents the mean of Sickels’ 2009-2011 projections. Sickels projects a higher BABIP, but lower ISO, BB and SO rates than I do, but that does not make any major adjustments to the batting line. The totals for the various stats represent what Bruce would be expected to do over 600 plate appearances for each projection.

Bruce has shown very steady ISO, BB and SO rates, with all three easily with one standard deviation (SD) of his career total for the last three seasons. His BABIP has shown an increase each of the past three seasons, in amounts more than one SD, although through less than half a season for 2008, it is very likely that the rate will fall to near his three year mean. If Bruce can maintain a BABIP near .340 he can (the all-time career leaders are

Bruce has an unusual combination of stats. Ryan Howard and Wily Mo Pena are the only players to have as high a SO rate as Bruce’s projection while maintaining as high a career BABIP (through 2007). Very few players have been able to walk at a below average rate, strike out well above average, and still have well above average BABIP and ISO rates. I found six comparable players, although all have lower ISO, higher BB and lower SO rates than are projected for Bruce, which suggests that if he continues his high SO rate he will not maintain his high BABIP and ISO rates in the long run.

Career leaders in BABIP are Derek Jeter .361, Rod Carew .359, Ichiro Suzuki .357, Miguel Cabrera .354 and Matt Holliday .352.

Bruce’s most comparable batters:

Player	BA	OB	SA	ISO	BABIP	BB%	SO%
Jay Bruce	.275	.323	.507	.232	.330	.066	.258
Josh Phelps	.273	.341	.476	.204	.335	.072	.256
Geoff Jenkins	.277	.337	.496	.219	.324	.066	.230
Bill Hall	.264	.317	.467	.203	.321	.072	.246
Preston Wilson	.264	.326	.468	.205	.314	.076	.246
Curtis Granderson	.280	.342	.493	.214	.344	.083	.238
Craig Wilson	.262	.350	.474	.211	.335	.081	.280

This is a set of players with very similar batting results but a mixed bag of career paths. Geoff Jenkins is nearing the end of a solid but unspectacular career, while Curtis Granderson is a rising star. Bill Hall has alternately been brilliant and struggled, while Preston Wilson and Craig Wilson lost their starting jobs before the age of 30. Despite a fine minor league record and good results when he has played in majors, Josh Phelps has struggled to stay on a major league roster.

Jay Bruce has shown more power than any of this group, and that will be boosted another 10% by playing for Cincinnati in the National League Central division. Can Bruce maintain a high BABIP while striking out 25% of his plate appearances? By the end of 2009, he will still only be 22, but should have enough Major League playing time in the books to show us where he is headed.