Prospect Write Up: Joe Terdoslavich

The Braves selected Joey Terdoslavich in the 6^th round of the 2010 Rule IV draft out of Long Beach State University, and as a relatively polished hitter, he’s been moved aggressively through the system since day one. He acquitted himself well against professional pitching in his debut, slashing .302/.355/.410 in Danville and Low-A Rome, while splitting time between first and third base. At this point in his career, there are legitimate concerns about his defense playing in the majors, but it’s the Braves’ belief, as well as mine, that his bat is going to be what carries him up the organizational ladder. At 23 years old, Terdoslavich’s bat is going to be expected to be advanced for his level, as many of the college hitters you see have success in the majors are pushed through their respective organizations fairly quickly and manage to tread water, if not excel, at every stop. First round talents drafted out of college such as Ryan Zimmerman, Troy Tulowitzki, and Ryan Braun forced their way onto major league rosters by their second year in the organization. Even without that blue-chip pedigree, Terdoslavich finds himself in a position to see the majors in the next year. More after the jump.

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In 2011, Terdoslavich performed spectacularly in high-A, slashing .286/.341/.526, while hitting 20 homers and 52 doubles—which broke a 65 year old Carolina League record for doubles in a single season. Terdoslavich brings a decent eye to the plate, with a walk rate hovering around seven to eight percent, and his contact skills aren’t bad, as he’s struck out in approximately 20% of his plate appearances in the minors to date. These rates have remained relatively constant throughout his climb up the ladder, and should that hold his plate discipline should be about league average. Coming off a season in which he posted a .240 ISO, the Braves aggressively pushed him to AAA Gwinnett to start the year, which ended less than ideally. Terdoslavich slashed .180/.252/.263 in his stint in AAA, but it came with a silver lining. His walk rate jumped up near 9%, and his line drive rate jumped from 17-18% to 21.9%. His non-power peripherals improved fairly dramatically, and while some of that can be attributed to a small sample, Joey T. racked up over 200 plate appearances in AAA this year, and split-half correlation tests show that BB, K, and batted ball rates generally stabilize at or around 50 plate appearances. A sharp drop in FB %, HR/FB, and the usual culprit—BABIP—generally wrecked havoc on the first half of his season. Since a midseason demotion to AA, his LD% has increased and his BABIP is way on the other side of .300, but the FB% and HR/FB% continue to fall, resulting in a decent-but-not-2011 .160 ISO.

A switch-hitter, Terdoslavich is much stronger as a right-handed batter, with an .817 OPS against southpaws as opposed to a .752 OPS against righties He also K’s 10% more often from the left side of the plate. While his LD% is higher from the left side, he simply doesn’t have the power that he does from the right, with contrasting ISOs of  .205 and .180. Going to video can help explain these issues. Ignore the results of the video, as the real meat and bones of the analysis is in the mechanics.

Right-Handed Swing

Left-Handed Swing

While we only have the one swing from the right side in this video (many more are available online. Google it yourself.) what we see is a hitter with fairly solid mechanics. He’s slightly open, closes up in his trigger phase, and his hips stay closed and primed until his hands fire. His hands are a little higher than I would want to see out of a power hitter, since higher hands can lead to chopping at the ball and hitting them into the ground (see Heyward, Jason, pre-2012), but all-in-all it’s textbook rotational hitting.

From the left side we see the same general set-up, trigger, and fire, with one exception: his hips tend to bail early. Certainly, opening up early has its advantages in certain situations, and certain major league players who bail early from the left side come to mind, specifically Juan Francisco, Adam Dunn, and Jack Cust. These three guys have a few things in common. They all drop bombs, and they all strikeout. A lot. Joey T’s splits bear this out, as he’s homered six more times from the left side despite generally having more power from the right, and he’s struck out near a 25% rate. Even in watching him take the third pitch of the at bat in the video above, you can see his hips open up. This leaves him exposed and susceptible to pitches on the outer half and breaking balls in general. Even though he singles in the video, he opened up early and rolled over a ball on the outer half, which more times than not ends poorly.

Terdoslavich is a strong hitter, and one of the few bats in the upper minors that has the potential to play in the majors. In spite of his issues from the left side and the declining power rates, he’s still holding his own in AA, to the tune of an .809 OPS. If he can continue this production against the top prospects in the game, he could see himself in Atlanta in September. If he can iron out the few issues he has at the plate and settle down at third base, where he’s been playing all of 2012, he could find himself in contention for a starting spot next spring manning the same hot corner where another switch hitter earned his keep for the last two decades.

NEXT WEEK:

Prospect Write Up will return on August 10^th. There’s the whole trade deadline thing, a pitcher is due up in this series, and I’m not confident enough that anyone in this organization is safe. Not if we’re Dempster Diving with Delgado bait.