Seattle Mariners: Scouting Report on 1B Prospect Dan Vogelbach
The Seattle Mariners acquired 1B prospect Dan Vogelbach from the Chicago Cubs in a July trade. What kind of player is he?
Who Is He?
Vogelbach was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2011 draft by the Cubs out of high school in Florida. They started him initially at their Arizona Rookie League team, and he hit .292/.370/.542 over six games, which did raise some eyebrows, but it was not unexpected from a big slugger.
For his first full season the Cubs started him back in the ARL, and he absolutely destroyed the ball. After 115 plate appearances, they moved him up to Boise in the short-season A-ball Northwest League, and even that didn’t slow him down. Overall on the season, he had a combined .322/.410/.641 line with 17 home runs and 21 doubles over 283 plate appearances. Suddenly, he was getting a lot of buzz, and while he didn’t make top 100 lists for the “big 3”, he was making them on other sources, ranking #98 with John Sickels.
In 2013, Vogelbach continued to hit well, playing most of his season for Kane County in the Midwest League as a 20-year-old. He was called up to Daytona in the Florida State League and High-A ball for 17 games to close out the season, and he actually had a better OPS in that call up than his full season numbers. Vogelbach for the season hit .284/.375/.449 with 19 home runs and 23 doubles, and he continued to show excellent plate discipline for a power hitter with a 73/89 BB/K ratio.
Vogelbach spent the entire 2014 season with Daytona, and he seemed to “stall”, though he still put up solid numbers. Many were expecting a monster power season based on Vogelbach’s size and swing, so a .268/.357/.429 season really didn’t blow anyone away. The Cubs sent him to the Arizona Fall League to play with some of the best prospects in the game, and he struggled in power, but he did display his excellent strike zone judgement, hitting .261/.398/.319.
2015 brought a bit of an injury bug that sapped Vogelbach’s power and cost him nearly half of his season. He played at AA Tennessee, and he hit .272/.403/.425 with seven home runs and 16 doubles over 313 plate appearances.
With All-Star Anthony Rizzo in place in Chicago, his near-ready bat and defensive limitations to first base made Vogelbach expendable, and he was traded for lefty Mike Montgomery in the midst of of a very solid season with a 2016 line of .296/.413/.507 with 18 home runs and 20 doubles and a 71/82 BB/K.
Next: Vogelbach's scouting report
Scouting Report
Body/Basics
Vogelbach is a big, big guy, but he stands only about 6’0″ tall, and that could be stretching it. He’s listed at 250 pounds, and that’s not all good weight as he does carry some around the middle. No one has really ever made a major issue about it as he still has solid movement around the bag at first. In fact, he’s kept at first right now while fellow prospect D.J. Peterson is playing DH due to defensive limitations. He is a lefty hitter, but throws right-handed.
Hitting
Vogelbach has an open stance, and he starts from the back of the batter’s box. I honestly believe that he has that approach due to the surprising length of his arms in spite of his height, which allows him to cover the entire plate in spite of being back in the box. In the games I viewed, he actually went the opposite way multiple times, but he was shifted frequently, so I checked out his page over at MLBfarm.com (a great resource, by the way, for those who are interested), and it does make sense in that viewing to shift the infield and play straight away in the outfield, as his heat map is strong to pull side on the infield but pretty evenly distributed throughout the outfield.
Vogelbach has a very good eye, as his stats make obvious, and he has both very good zone and pitch recognition. In his swing, I can see where there could be some concerns about the viability of power on the big league level, however, as he doesn’t have the body length to generate the kind of angle you’d like with his longer swing, but his long arms allow him to get there, and taking the intentional viewing of a home run, it’s easy to see him extend his arms for maximum power leverage.
Base Running/Fielding
This is where people will be surprised with Vogelbach. While he’s never going to be a guy to swipe double-digit bases, he’s smart on the bases, and he notices when a pitcher is simply not looking over at all and takes a few steals when he’s not being checked. He also showed smarts on the bases in the games I saw, stretching himself to third on a single to center when he was on first base and got a good jump on the ball, not something you’d typically see from a guy at his size.
Vogelbach’s fielding is surprisingly sharp, and honestly, it will have to be to overcome the general bias against right-handed first basemen. He’s not going to win any Gold Gloves as his range isn’t anything to write home about, but he has very good movement around the bag, and he made excellent plays for his infielders to ensure they didn’t lose a ball for an error.
Video
Next: Future outlook
Future Outlook
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When I see Vogelbach, I see a lot of Carlos Delgado in his play. Delgado was listed on B-Ref as 6’3″ and 215 pounds, though he likely was 20-30 pounds more than that in his career, but the way they both handle the bat and the position at first base seem very similar to me. Interestingly, Delgado was a lefty hitter and righty thrower as well.
Delgado got very little regard for his defense, but modern review of his defense has shown him to have been very good at preventing errors by his defenders, which is a very good skill for first basemen, and that’s absolutely what I saw out of Vogelbach in the games I watched.
Delgado got his first full-time job at 24 (Vogelbach’s age in 2017), and he had an incredible big league career. I think the Mariners would do back flips if they just acquired a guy who hit .280/.383/.546 over his entire career with 473 career home runs (yet somehow was off the Hall of Fame ballot with less than 5 percent on the first ballot). Vogelbach has similar leverage in his swing, and while Vogelbach hasn’t struck out 100 times in a season yet in his minor league career and Delgado did strike out 100+ times every full season of his career, he also had a good eye in that he walked plenty, so there are similarities in that respect as well.
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The first base position in Seattle is wide open for 2017 with Adam Lind an impending free agent and 34 year-old rookie Dae-ho Lee not exactly the future of the position at his advanced age, so Vogelbach certainly could come into the position as soon as next season. He’s definitely a much better defender than Lee, but the Mariners may ease Vogelbach into the role by platooning he and Lee or some role share like that.