If Baseball Players Were Like Pokemon, Here’s How they Would Evolve
Baseball players go with Pokemon like white on rice. On Monday, I outlined why we’re doing Pokemon week here on Off The Bench, but truthfully, this idea has been simmering in my head for a few months. Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman, the two kids behind the Cespedes Family Barbeque really inspired this with their tweet from May:
if baseball players were like Pokémon then Enny Romero would evolve into Felipe Rivero and Felipe Rivero would evolve into Aroldis Chapman
— Cespedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) May 4, 2017
Those guys are great, having come to one of our Baseball-Sandwich club meetings back before they worked for the MLB straight out of college. I’m not stealing their idea so much as building upon it. In the original
In the original Pokemon, there are about 25 sets of Pokemon who evolve in three stages as the CespedesBBQ guys have outlined in the above tweet. I’m not going to go into depth of 75 different players (That madness is saved for Friday when I am assigning all 151 original Pokemon their baseball player partner) but will highlight a few more evolutions that are apparent across MLB.
MLB players evolve over the years, but players can be active evolutions of each other. Think of it like a single Pikachu can be level 10 or level 37. That’s how an individual player evolves. But different players are similar enough to other MLB players that I’ve considered them to be evolutions of each other. Don’t overthink it.
Seth Smith evolves into Brandon Belt evolves into Paul Goldschmidt
Back in 2014, I wrote an article about how Seth Smith was a very poor man’s Paul Goldschmidt. The article hasn’t aged very well, but the idea of Smith as a high-average, high-OBP, no steal, little power player still holds. We evolve that player? We probably get someone like Brandon Belt who maintains the high average and high OBP, but adds a touch more power. Evolving that profile lands us at Paul Goldschmidt, who excels at all of the skills that I have mentioned.
Yasmany Tomas evolves into Justin Upton evolves into Yoenis Cespedes
All three of these guys were billed as do-everything, hyper-athletic outfielders. Indeed, they are each blessed with a tremendous amount of natural talent. Tomas has proven that he’s pretty much only serviceable as an outfielder and that he can hit the ball very far. Meanwhile, Justin Upton is a bit more well-rounded but tends to be extremely streaky with some great months in a season mixed with dreadful ones. Cespedes, meanwhile, is the top dog on this evolutionary chain because of his recent evolution as the centerpiece of the Mets offense.
Derek Holland evolves into Wade Miley evolves into Dallas Keuchel
All three left handed starters average around 7.2 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 and since 2010 their win totals look like this: 59, 59, 61. Each was fairly highly regarded when they burst into the Big Leagues, lost some of their luster and have settled at different places as they play out their age-30 season. Holland never realized the potential he displayed in 2012 playoffs and was relegated to bullpen duty at times last year. Miley isn’t the most fun guy, but there’s something to be said for being consistently slightly below league average. And Dallas Keuchel is somewhere between a Cy Young winner (2015 Keuchel) and a 4.5 ERA guy (2016 Keuchel).
But what is fun about this evolution, is that the pitch velocities go down in each successive step. Some evolutions in Pokemon do the same; Blastoise is larger and slower than Squirtle, for instance.
Andrew Benintendi evolves into Christian Yellich evolves into Charlie Blackmon
These three outfielders all are solid left handed hitters with sweet and simple strokes. Benintendi is the youngest, so he gets the first stage of the evolution, but he might just have the most potential. Yellich and Blackmon seem to have settled into their roles as top of the lineup hitters with speed and surprising pop. Yellich is still discovering just how much power potential he has with the stick, but Blackmon knocked 29 home runs last year and currently leads the league in total bases.
Mike Foltynewicz evolves into Dylan Bundy evolves into Jake Arrieta
This is born out a comparison that Braves-GM laid on Folty about a year ago, when he compared his young right-hander to former Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta. It sounded silly at first, but it has made more sense as I have let it simmer. All three of these guys have tremendous stuff with the repertoire primarily hinging upon a powerful fastball and a quality slider, but with command sometimes lacking. Arrieta was able to make a big jump after about 5 years in the league and Foltynewicz and Bundy are at 3 and 4 respectively.
-Sean Morash
