Robbie Grossman is on pace to have a pretty unique season in high A for the Pirates. He’s on pace to finish the year with 100 walks and 100 runs, which would make him the first player to do that since Nick Swisher did it in AAA for the A’s.
There’s been a lot of talk about Grossman’s resurgence this season and what it means for his prospect status. The general consensus is that he’s not a top prospect, but that his plate discipline this year has made him an intriguing prospect to watch anyway. He’s not too shabby in other areas either, as he’s hitting .286/.418/.427 this year.
One thing is for sure: it’s unusual to see a 21 year old with the kind of plate patience that Grossman has. Usually players in high A are guys with tools that need to work out things like discipline.
That’s not to say that Grossman doesn’t have tools. He’s got speed, can play the field well (CF in Bradenton, but he’d likely be a corner outfielder in the Majors), and has a pretty good arm.
So why isn’t he a top prospect?
Well, firstly, he’s repeating a level, and that’s always enough to bring a player down a peg.
Secondly, he hasn’t shown much ability outside of getting on base. He’s had problems making contact in his minor league career so far, posting low batting averages and high strikeout rates. Although he’s brought down his k-rate every year, it’s still not at a very comfortable level.
Furthermore, Grossman was seen as a guy coming out of high school that could develop power. That has yet to happen, making him a pretty one-dimensional player that can walk and hit a little bit, but can’t do much else. Those guys typically don’t make it past AA (Jeremy Brown of Moneyball fame being the most famous example.)
However, there’s hope for Grossman.
He’s been better at making contact and avoiding the strikeout this year, an encouraging trend if it continues. He’s still only 21 and was considered a very raw player out of the draft, so it’s quite possible that the trend could continue as this is the year he’s started to put it together in pro ball.
But what about that power?
That’s where I see people looking at Grossman the wrong way. Talking about him kind of reminds me of the way people talked about Jose Tabata coming up through the minors – he was a guy that was supposed to develop power, but never really did, and that was disappointing…until people realized he was great at getting on base, playing defense, and stealing bases. All of those things are areas that Grossman performs well in too.
Now, I’m not suggesting Grossman is as good a prospect as Tabata was. At Grossman’s age of 21, Tabata was in the midst of his rookie year in the Majors. Grossman is in high A. A lot of that has to do with Tabata being a Latin American prospect and starting to play professionally at 16 years old, but a lot of it also has to do with Tabata performing better than Grossman. However, the focus has been the same. People had been so down on Tabata’s lack of power that nobody really noticed that he put up eye-popping OBP numbers and could steal bases efficiently until he was knocking on the door of the Majors in AAA putting up a .373 OBP with 25 steals.
Maybe Grossman will never be a guy that mashes 30 homers and walks a lot. But if he can continue his level of play, he can still provide a lot of value as a guy who can get on base and perform as a good leadoff hitter. There’s a lot of value in that, especially for a sixth round pick out of high school.