Never heard of Phipps? Even most prospect mavens haven’t heard of Denis Phipps, but after a .346/.397/.527 season in AA and AAA parts of the Cincinnati Reds organization, he’s put himself on the radar. And it is put himself on the radar. Phipps has never been on a Baseball America list, John Sickels didn’t even put him in his cache of C prospects for the Reds organization, and Baseball America didn’t list him in their Top 30 Reds prospects for 2011. So what’s going on with Phipps?
Signed out of the Dominican hotspot San Pedro de Macoris by the Reds, Phipps has played in the United States since 2006. In that time, he’s never OPS’d over .800, and he’s frequently been under .700. During his first professional season, he hit .290/.335/.410, and in his next season, he hit .240/.310/.340. It stayed around that production until 2010, where he added some pop and improved his on-base skills leading to a .250/.320/.410 line in mostly AA.
Then came this season. I’ve seen him several times this season, and I’ve been shocked every time. Phipps doesn’t have a lot of power (never seen him hit an extra-base hit, though he’s got 44 on the season), but his swing produces a lot of hard contact. He has some speed to add to that, but he’s not a good base stealer and the speed isn’t enough for him to play center and be good. Phipps is a tweener is just about every sense of the word. He can hit, but he won’t hit enough to start every day. He could play center, but he doesn’t need to be out there often. He might continue to mash AAA, but he won’t do the same to MLB pitching. In the end, that’s a recipe for a 4th outfielder, which is still quite impressive in the grand scheme of things.
But what about this .346/.397/.527 line? When we see huge improvements like this, we want to have reasons why. At age 26, the power bump can be explained by filling out and having experience. But nothing else has really changed (BB rate or K rate, which actually got worse) … except for his BABiP. It’s false to say that guys can’t have extreme BABiPs in the minors. If you’re simply much better than the competition (say Albert Pujols against AA pitching), you will have a BABiP higher than one might expect from a normal AA hitter. Phipps, however, isn’t that type of hitter, and his BABiPs of .425 and .487 are simply out of line regardless. They’ve significantly raised his production from what it “should be”, and while he has improved from his early days, it really isn’t as significant as it seems. Phipps is a possible 4th outfielder, and if he can improve his patience and contact rates a little, that would be more certain. But he still strikes out a lot and has gotten very lucky on balls in play. Sometimes, prospects make major gains in production, but there always have to be reasons for that. Phipps doesn’t have them.
