Historical Comps: Andrew McCutchen

Last night I got into a debate with some on Twitter about an article on The Beaver County Times comparing Andrew McCutchen to Roberto Clemente. Pat Lackey made a post at FanHouse calling this unfair and said he didn't like all the "next" talk and let players be themselves. First we should look at the comparison made by Bob Hertzel.

I have to say the argument is not very clear and uses arguments like this instead of statistical comparisons.

He has already had a 12-game hitting streak, outrun baseballs hit far in the gap, stretched doubles into triples, shown some power and proven himself so well with runners in scoring position and the game on the line that they well may change his name to “McClutchen.”

When Bob did discuss numbers it was our old nemesis batting average:

McCutchen is 22 and in his first major league season. By the time Clemente was 22 he was playing his third major league season, including a sophomore season in which he gave a glimpse of his greatness by hitting .311, but that third season would produce his second year of hitting in the .250s.

Unfortunately Pat didn't just point this out and went at the assumption that Bob was looking to say McCutchen would be the presence or as Lackey put it:

Some players have the ability to capture the imagination of fans that transcends mere baseball; Clemente was one of those players.

So lets do the actual numbers and see if McCutchen has the skills to post similar numbers to Clemente.

Clemente had started in the majors more than 2 years before McCutchen made it at the same age. This puts him ahead in career numbers like hit totals. Looking at his first 5 seasons his power was not quite ready yet and didn't cross 10 homers until his 6th season. Looking at his K% and BB% he was fairly consistent throughout his career. He averaged 6.2% walk rate and a 13% strikeout rate. The walk rate wasn't much to look at, but a good strikeout rate.

He had several good seasons in BABIP around .400 several times and his final BABIP was .346, which helped his .317/.359/.475 career line. He only added 83 career steals and 240 homers.

So where does McCutchen project in this comparison? So far so good. He has had very good walk rates in the minors as high as 11.7% in Triple-A, but has been slightly more prone to the strikeout. He had shown a better rate in Triple-A so far this year at 11.9%, but is at 16.5% so far in the majors. This will limit his average unless he can hit more homers or hold a higher BABIP. So far in the majors he is at .366, but has been more around the same average as Clemente.

McCutchen has shown some signs of power breakout and could reach the same type of power numbers as Clemente. He has plenty of time to grow and develop his power. On the other hand McCutchen has a lot more speed on the base paths. McCutchen totaled 34 steals in Triple-A last year and currently holds a 7.0 Speed score according to FanGraphs. Clemente never totalled a Speed score over 6.5 in his career.

So they aren't really a good match overall, but McCutchen holds his own in a comparison. His speed seems to project him as a different type of player going forward, but it isn't an absurd comparison as long as you stick to the statistics.