FanPost

Max Schrock, Kolten Wong, and the backup QB syndrome

Seriously, when was the last time Kolten Wong hit a ball this hard?

Just to get it out of the way, I am totally stealing the title concept of this post from a commenter in a recent thread...

"I fear Shrock has backup QB syndrome....everyone's favorite because he hasn't had a chance to fail, yet."

Paper Lions, indeed! But Schrock's hitting profile? But Cistulli's prediction? I was up in arms, I tell you. So I did what I always do, I headed straight to Fangraphs to scout the stat lines. Now I know scouting the stat lines, at least declaring that you have done so openly, is frowned upon in Sabermetric circles. But what is Sabermetrics, at least the results-driven data of the first wave of Sabermetrics, if not a deep dive into scouting the stat lines? As long as we don't take the following as any type of solid conclusion but rather as information that we can, in hindsight, remind ourselves affirmed the beliefs we may have already had after the results actually occur...in the future...well it makes me feel more knowledgeable anyway.

So I went to the stat lines in order to confirm what I thought I already knew and to really zing that darn Paper Lions guy. I looked at Wong's minor league stats from 2011-2013. Kolten became a mostly full-time big leaguer in 2014 so I excluded all of his (annual) minor league stats since that season. I compared those 2011-13 Wong stats with Schrock's minor league career numbers...

Wong:

280 Games - 1264 PA - 57 2B - 23 HR - 116 BB (8.9%) - 157 K (12.8%) - 50/75 SB (67%) - .301/.361/.446

Schrock:

287 Games - 1248 PA - 61 2B - 19 HR - 79 BB (6.4%) - 101 K (8.2%) - 31/40 SB (78%) - .325/.373/.440

Kinda similar right? Already a little down in the mouth after realizing these stats don't provide nearly the basis I was hoping for to counter the ever-more-reasonable-sounding comment from Paper Lions, I noticed another noteworthy stat.

Wong: Games at or above AA - 83%

Schrock: Games at or above AA - 41%

Ouch. Alright Paper Lions. You win this battle, but I'm not jumping off the Schrock fanboy bandwagon so quickly. It's true that Max has not had the opportunity to fail, thus making it easier to envision him replicating his Milb-level of offensive production, but there is an inverse to this idea as well. We have the equivalent of three full seasons of Kolten Wong producing at a considerably lower rate than his Milb-level of offensive production led us to believe he would. In that way, he is the starting QB who is kind of asking to be benched, is he not?

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If Wong continues to scuffle, and we have ample reason to think he will at this point, then Schrock will get a look at 2B this year. Some guys (we all hope Schrock) can carry their Milb production over into the bigs. They get it right. Others just keep getting it Wong.

(I apologize for that last line, I really can't help myself)