When baseball fans, especially those with decades of viewing experience, discuss players they often use a shorthand approach to describe players. They use comps which is short for comparables. The more experienced the player is the easier it is to find someone comparable but for the newbies, rookies, and those who haven’t even arrived in the majors there is more of a blank slate.
Take for instance Dominic Smith the 11th pick of the 2013 draft by the Mets. Smith is scheduled to be the double-A Mets’ first baseman this season and will see major league action most likely in 2017 if things go well. Personally this writer has never seen the young man play but have often seen scouting reports about a nifty fielding first sacker who has a pretty but thus far not powerful stroke able to sting balls to the outfield gaps but only rarely reaching the fences.
Comps that come to mind on the low end of the scale are Mike Jorgensen and the recently released Tampa Bay Ray, James Loney. If that is all that Smith becomes we will not be very pleased. But there have been other good fielding players at that position who have had good to great careers while not displaying awesome power. Keith Hernandez and Mark Grace come to mind. Hopefully Smith develops into something like those guys rather than a Loney clone.
The annual Baseball Prospectus book lists the top three comps for pretty much every player it discusses. The incredible resource known as Baseball Reference shows comps in a different way using Similarity Scores and offering them up in several ways including matching the player to someone at the same age. So if a 22 year old player is showing a great similarity to Sammy Sosa one must remember that the 22 year old Sosa was not the steroid bloated homerun machine he became at age 26 in 1995.
Here is a table showing some comps and top similarity scores for some of the 2016 Mets. The one that blows me away was the Baseball Reference most similar player for Matt Harvey. Check that one out.
| player | Baseball Prospectus | Baseball Reference | others |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asdrubal Cabrera | Stephen Drew | Jhonny Peralta | |
| Yoenis Cespedes | Josh Hamilton | Kevin Mench | BP:Jason Bay |
| Travis d’Arnaud | Victor Martinez | Dick Brown (AL catcher ’57-’65) | BP:Buster Posey |
| Lucas Duda | David Ortiz | Jonny Gomes | BR: Dan Pasqua |
| Wilmer Flores | Jean Segura | Michael Barrett | BP:Asdrubal Cabrera |
| Curtis Granderson | Jayson Werth | Ron Gant | |
| Juan Lagares | Carlos Gomez | Hal Jeffcote (NL OFer ’48-’59) | BR: Endy Chavez |
| Neil Walker | Kelly Johnson | Marcus Giles | BR: Aaron Hill |
| David Wright | Carlos Guillen | Scott Rolen | BP: George Brett |
| Bartolo Colon | David Wells | Jamie Moyer | BR: David Wells |
| Jacob deGrom | Josh Collmenter | Tanner Roarke | |
| Matt Harvey | Kris Medlen | Old Hoss Radbourne (1881-1891) | |
| Hansel Robles | Jonathan Papelbon | none listed | |
| Noah Syndegaard | Brian Matusz | Gerritt Cole | BR: Yovani Gallardo |
| Zach Wheeler | Chris Archer | Vance Worley |
The Peralta/Asdrubal Cabrera comparison seems like a good one since both are below average defensive, above average offensive players.
Let us hope that Yoenis Cespedes is more productive than all those comps. If all the Mets get for their $25 million this year is Kevin Mench then yuck. Plus it was interesting to see Jason Bay in the Baseball Prospectus list. Probably it means the Pirate Bay not the Mets’ Bay otherwise yuck squared.
Even though I was a bit of a baseball fan in the late 50’s already the name Dick Brown escapes me. How much was he like Travis d’Arnaud? Anybody’s guess.
Interesting to see Asdrubal Cabrera listed in the BP comps for Wilmer Flores.
Another intriguing one was Carlos Gomez as the top comp for Juan Lagares. After all the proposed trade last year that got Wilmer Flores weeping on the field would have sent him and Lagares to Milwaukee for Gomez.
Skipping down to the pitchers we see that both sources see parallels between Bartolo Colon and David Wells. Perhaps the similar physiques factor in.
The comps for Jacob deGrom puzzle me a bit. While the media sometimes draws a parallel between deGrom and Greg Maddux personally I see a bit more of the early Tom Seaver in him. There’s a parallel where each have a blazing fastball and an ability to keep it away from the heart of the plate.
Then there’s Matt Harvey carrying a similarity score that is closest to 19th century pitching star Old Hoss Radbourne. Old Hoss, not to be confused with Hoss Cartwright of Bonanza fame, went 48-25 for the 1883 season and followed it up the next year with a 59-12 campaign. No Tommy John surgery for that guy!
To me the top comps for Harvey include folks like Don Drysdale, Ferguson Jenkins, or perhaps Bob Gibson. All three of those guys were intimidating righties with a mound presence that Harvey approximates.
For Noah Syndergaard the Gerrit Cole comparison fits. Had the top comp been Roger Clemens it would not have been all that surprising.
As for Zack Wheeler let us hope that he comes back way more like Chris Archer than Vance Worley.
Old Hoss Radbourn converted from an underhanded pitcher in the late 1800s. Something tells me he didn’t date as many models as Harvey. Though Hoss did have a handlebar mustache.
DeGrom could not be more different than Collementeer and Roarke,,,, they’re decent pitchers and all, but…………