Jordan Brown - Outfielder
Born: 12/18/1983 - Height: 6'0" - Weight: 205 - Bats: Left - Throws: Left
| Year | Age | Team | Lvl | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | Avg | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 2005 | 21 | Mahoning | A- | 19 | 75 | 15 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 2 | .253 | .291 | .387 | .678 |
| 2006 | 22 | Kinston | A+ | 125 | 473 | 71 | 137 | 26 | 7 | 15 | 87 | 51 | 59 | 4 | .290 | .362 | .469 | .831 |
| 2007 | 23 | Akron | AA | 127 | 483 | 85 | 161 | 36 | 2 | 11 | 76 | 63 | 56 | 11 | .333 | .421 | .484 | .905 |
| 2008 | 24 | Buffalo | AAA | 109 | 420 | 52 | 118 | 30 | 3 | 7 | 51 | 35 | 67 | 3 | .281 | .337 | .417 | .754 |
| 2009 | 25 | Columbus | AAA | 111 | 417 | 65 | 140 | 35 | 1 | 15 | 67 | 30 | 64 | 2 | .336 | .381 | .532 | .913 |
| Totals | 491 | 1868 | 288 | 575 | 128 | 13 | 51 | 288 | 182 | 253 | 22 | .308 | .374 | .472 | .846 |
Strengths & Opportunities: Brown is a persistent, pure hitter with incredible hand-eye coordination and a passion for hitting. He is a tough out as he has an exhausting approach at the plate that wears a pitcher down because he battles on every pitch and is one of the best hitters in minor league baseball at bat-to-ball ability and making hard, consistent contact. He is very disciplined and gets on-base at a very good clip, and is a consistent performer with few long hot/cold streaks. He has good gap power and piles up doubles at a good rate to where it is believed that he should be a .300+ hitter that can hit 15-20 home runs a year in the big leagues. While he only has average speed, he is an intelligent, heady runner on the bases. He is as strong-willed as they come and extremely mentally tough. He is one of the hardest workers in the system as he is not gifted with great physical abilities, but his outstanding work ethic and intelligence help make up for it.
Adopting an approach at the plate like Brown has is very rare as few players have the ability to put the bat on the ball at a consistent rate like he does. He actually came into the Indians system sort of as a hacker, and it wasn't until after his first year in the system he understood the value of getting good pitches to hit. He understands that he can not do damage early in the count with marginal pitches, and he has developed into one of the best strike zone managers in baseball. His one substandard year was his 2008 season at Buffalo, but a lot of that was the result of a poor first half where he hit .267 with a .710 OPS because he was dealing with a knee injury, but in the second half of that season he hit .311 with an .848 OPS. Aside from that so-so first half performance to open the 2008 season in Buffalo, he has been a model of consistency over his entire five year professional career hitting around or above .300 and piling up lots of doubles.
Brown's sweet swing and approach at the plate makes him a major league ready bat right now, and he has been compared to players like Sean Casey, Mark Grace, and John Olerud because of the good gap power, sweet swing, and ability to hit for high average. While he may hit like Casey, Grace, and Olerud, the biggest difference is all three of those players were above average or better defensive first basemen while Brown is not. In fact, depending on who you talk to he is viewed by many as a below average to average first baseman. For this reason alone it is why he has yet to appear in a big league game. The Indians have moved him off of first base and have committed to him as a full time outfielder. There is always the possibility he could go back to first base down the road and he could play there from time to time to make him versatile to the big league team, but they seem convinced his future with the team as an everyday player is in the outfield. He came into the system with little experience as an outfielder, but played the entire 2006 season at High-A Kinston in the outfield and spent most of last season at Triple-A Columbus out there and also played every game in winter ball this past offseason in the outfield. He has worked hard to become a fringe average defender in left field which is a testament to his strong work ethic and athleticism. He has made a lot of strides, but he still has a long way to go and needs to tighten up his defense out there.
In addition to his issues defensively, the other thing that holds Brown back is as a corner player he does not possess the big bat teams typically like to see play at first base or left field. For a player like Brown who hits for a high average and just average power, teams require the player to be an impact defender at one of those two positions, which obviously he is not. For him to have any chance at an everyday job he needs to continue working on his outfield defense with his route running and jumps he gets on balls. He has also had some injury problems throughout his professional career, which is a red flag. He suffered a hand injury in 2005 which limited him to only 19 games at short-season Single-A Mahoning Valley, he had scar tissue and bone chips in his knee which led to arthroscopic surgery after his 2007 season at Akron, he suffered from patellar tendonitis to his left knee in 2008 at Buffalo which affected him for most of the first half of the season there, and last year he had a shoulder injury in August which sidelined him for three weeks. While there are few if any things he needs work on as a hitter, he does need to continue working on putting up consistent at bats and get better at learning to understand and identify the way opposing pitchers are pitching to him.
Outlook: Brown was seemingly left for dead by national pundits and the fans after a so-so 2008 season which resulted in him not getting rostered that offseason or any team selecting him in the Rule 5 Draft. However, he came back with a chip on his shoulder last year and proved all the doubters wrong that he could hit Triple-A pitching and is one of the best hitters in the minors. He plays a position where the Indians have some depth and where the industry has some depth, so it is a hard position to crack into the major leagues. Even still, his ability to make consistent contact is something that should get him to Cleveland at some time in 2010, but at present he is more a depth option because Matt LaPorta is expected to be the opening day first baseman and Michael Brantley the opening day left fielder. LaPorta had offseason surgery to his toe and hip, so he could be slow to return, and if that happens perhaps Brown could open the year in Cleveland. However, if there are no injuries in spring training, he should open the season at Triple-A Columbus. He could also be an attractive trading chip for the Indians to use in a package to acquire a need elsewhere on the team.
Photo courtesy of Tony Lastoria
Jordan Brown MinorLeagueBaseball.com page
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7 comments:
I am of the opinion that Jordan Brown is being a bit overrated by Indians fans, at least in the sense that there isn't a need to start him in Cleveland, no matter where he plays, even before the Branyan signing.
He'll certainly has value, and will get his cuts this year through the natural selection of trades and injury, but he's hardly the prospect that deserves to be on the opening day roster.
Just my 2 cents. Again, good stuff Tony
-Clay
Free Jordan Brown!
I remember reading a Baseball Prospectus PECOTA card a few years back:
From www.baseballprospectus.com:
Holy Moley, that was sweet, not that many noticed. The guy slugs nearly .600 and was one of the five most productive hitters in the American League. This nets him two points in the MVP voting, and he finishes behind Erubiel Durazo, tied with Lew Ford, Chone Figgins, and Billy Boyd, so memorable as Pippin the Hobbit in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. [He] has his flaws. As a first baseman he's a good DH, and he doesn't have the same magic against lefties that he does against righties (though his OBP against southpaws, .364, meant that he needn't be yanked out of the game if a LOOGY reared its ugly head). That's what makes Mark Shapiro's acquisition of him so beautiful: He was there for the taking, if one was only willing to see what he could do instead of what he couldn't.
This was written about Travis Hafner following his first monster season with the Tribe. Now, Brown will never slug .600 or even close to it, but he is unappreciated for what he is and last year he was arguably the best hitter in the International League. That last sentence is worth noting: "if one was only willing to see what he could do instead of what he couldn't."
Jordan Brown can go out and hit Major League pitching right now, nobody seems to question this; he can probably sniff .300 this season and given the AB's, he can accumulate 15 HRs while getting on-base at or above a .360 clip. Jordan Brown hits for average, hits with average power, doesn't clog the bases and can play two non-premium positions adequately enough.
My biggest problem with the thought process on Brown is that he is a young player who could put up a pretty good triple slash, he will have cheap service-time for the forseeable future and a healthy season from him is a valuable one. Basically, he is Ryan Garko, with more arb years, that can actually play the OF. The Indians got a respectable prospect for Garko last season, so why did we spend $2million to have his offensive inverse, but complete equal, start at First and presumably sail away like our Garko's and Perez's of years past?
The thing is gotribe, I think that right now the Indians major league lineup could use someone like Jordan Brown. One of the biggest problems with the offense is they strike out a ton, and they don't really have any consistent performers, other than possibly Cabrera. Peralta obviously is the biggest hot-cold offender, with his .678 career April OPS and his .848 career May OPS, the guy has alternating awful and great months, but Sizemore's also always been streaky, Choo power-wise has been very streaky--Victor, Shoppach and Garko always rivaled Peralta, either red hot or ice cold. After Hafner's decline, the Indians haven't had a single consistent performer in the lineup. Now they got Branyan, who takes streaky to a whole new level--the guy's either pounding HRs, or hitting .180 and striking out every other at bat. In the Indians hot-cold lineup, how much better would it be to have someone like Jordan Brown in there, if week-to-week and month-to-month he could hit around .300 and end up with 15-20 HRs? (not to say he definitely would produce at that level, but he could) I'd take that over Branyan any day.
Brown's issue is that his defense and power (or lack thereof) has kept him back. There is no doubt that he likely could hit at the major league level, but without a steady position to get those extra at-bats as a utility guy to break into the league, it makes it tough. Branyan comes in with a positive 1.6 career UZR/150 rating at first base according to fangraphs.com. This suggests that Branyan is just a tick over average as a 1B defender. And if there was no Branyan, you still have LaPorta in the lineup and it is down to Brantley/Kearns/Brown for LF. And I believe the dynamics of Brantley would win out there over Brown. And Kearns would fit in better as a veteran guy who is utility over a 26-year-old hitter who profiles as a DH.
Though, this argument I guarantee will be silly after we look back during the season. Brown WILL find his way on the roster. Things happen: injuries, trades, slumps, you name it. The roster we see opening day never sticks. We of all fans should understand that, and I'm sure Brown will get a couple hundred plate appearances somehow in the majors. I'd just rather have him playing everyday in AAA than used as a pinch-hitter at the big league level where those aren't used very often now days. If we were in the NL, he would be up! His time will come.
First off, you are absolutely correct in saying that Brown will get ML AB’s this year; regardless of whether Branyan is dealt or not and LaPorta is healthy or not. The only argument I was trying to make is that if Brown translates his tick below average defense at LF/1B and offensive skill set from AA/AAA into the Majors, then you have at least as valuable a player as Branyan. Not only do you have some upside (everyone knows what Branyan is because he has played for [nearly] every team, but there is a precedent for players getting “bored” at lower levels as they are passed up for promotions and increasing production after their promotion), but you have him under contract for longer and you don’t have to pay him a couple million to boot. In an organization rife with bad defensive, potentially good offensive OF/1B, why do you pay a lot to add one into the mix instead of sorting through your options? Brown is the first in line of the slew of guys that fit this profile and I feel he should be given a full shot.
Marte, Laporta, Brown, Brantley, Kearns and Duncan…these players, with minor-league contracts and varying degrees of risk, easily comprise any skill set Branyan can bring to the table. I just don’t see the train of thought that led to “we have these young guys that all have the potential to be Russell Branyan, which isn’t wholly desirable in itself, but we should sign Russell Branyan just to make sure.”
We always complained that Marte, Phillips and others never got a legit shot at making an impact and here we are again, passing up a multi-league MVP to give a contract to a career journeyman who happened to get hot last year and launch 20 home runs before his production and back reverted to their career norms: broken. The argument that Brown is better served playing in AAA is true, but only after the signing of Branyan. My argument is that Branyan never should have been on board to begin with, thus necessitating Brown’s move to AAA to get the consistent playing time. Clearly the front-office is not seriously considering competing this year due to the fact that they are willing to let their barrage of fringe starters duke it out for “least worst”. Why couldn’t we let Brown have the same luxury to start the year and see if we have something worthwhile, rather than assuming we don’t and never bothering to find out?
It's the Jordan Effect. He's just a guy people have rallied behind because of his outstanding numbers in the minors and who seems to be getting the short end of the stick by the Indians. Some of that may be true, but I think part of the problem is most fans aren't looking at the entire picture.
The thing is, unfortunately for Brown he plays a position where the top two players (and better players) acquired in the CC deal are ahead of him on the depth chart. LaPorta and Brantley look to be the LF/1B on this team for the forseeable future, which leaves Brown as the odd man out. Brown had an excellent chance to be a part of the team now considering the need at 1B, but he just doesn't cut it there. The fact that they have completely abandoned him there when they have such a huge need to me speaks volumes of their view of his defense there and not that they are just jerking him around.
I think he has a role on this team, but it has not been created or figured out yet. It may be he just has to break in as a part-time role player, though with his lack of versatility I am having trouble figuring out how. If the Indians were not tied to Hafner's contract then DH and occassional LF play would suit him perfectly. I think right now he is merely insurance for Brantley/LaPorta in LF and for Hafner at DH where if one goes down with injury he will play there. But in time he could be traded because of the lack of an opening for him though there is no rush since he does have three option years remaining.
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