Jeff Abbott Redux

As was mentioned here in a previous post,  Jeff Abbott was a minor league all star on more than one occasion, yet never more than a 4th outfielder in the big leagues.

In the minors, Abbott played alongside Magglio Ordonez in 1997 and was within two points of Mags’ batting average.  The year before, in 1996, Jeff lost the league batting title to Dmitri Young by a slender margin, just another pair of points.

With that in mind, we revisited Jeff Abbott’s peak normalized player projection, and substituted his 1997 AAA Nashville season for his final year in the bigs.  Instead of just a small handful of at bats with Florida, we will now include 400+ at bats adjusted from the context of the 1997 American Association into a standardized MLB context.

The transformation from AAA to MLB stats takes a good measure off the top of Abbott’s ’97 performance, leading to a .279, .328, .401 performance in terms of a standardized converted AVG, OBP, SLG stat line.

Including the ’97 season into Jeff’s peak calculation certainly makes him more durable, boosting his at-bats, and all of his counting statistics, as can be seen from the accompanying table.

But the altered transformation that includes Abbott’s best minor league performance doesn’t really improve his value much, if any, especially for a 4th or 5th outfielder on a draft league team.  The APBA baseball card accompanying this post isn’t any improvement on the prior peak card produced for Jeff, in fact it is a slightly weaker card due to diluted extra base hit power.

Three Year Peak Normalized (including MLE)

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SO	BB	IBB	SB	CS	SH	SF	HBP	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
85	294	38	80	18	1	7	35	40	14	1	4	3	2	3	2	5	.273	.311	.417	.728

Adding yet another minor league year, perhaps to replace Abbott’s 2000 MLB performance, might increase his batting average a bit, but would do so by diluting his power numbers once again.

I personally prefer the first peak normalized version of Jeff Abbott, and that’s what I’ll be reverting to in the draft league I’m creating . . .

Jeff Abbott

Bats Right
Throws Left
Height 6′ 2″
Weight 190 lb.
School University of Kentucky
High School Dunwoody High School
Debut June 10, 1997
Final Game September 29, 2001
Born August 17, 1972 in Atlanta, GA USA

Jeffrey William Abbott ((Jeff Abbott’s biography is copied from the Baseball Reference Bullpen, allowable under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License used by the BR Bullpen.  The Baseball Intelligencer isn’t interested in reinventing the wheel, so where a suitable biography is available under GNU or similar Creative Commons license, the focus here will be on creating a 3 year peak normalization and making comments on the resulting APBA Baseball card generated from those peak normalized statistics.))

Jeff Abbott had a five-year major league career and was part of the division-winning 2000 Chicago White Sox.

Abbott was born in Georgia and attended Dunwoody High School in Georgia. He went to the University of Kentucky and Cal State Fullerton for college. As a junior in 1994, he hit .445 with 23 homers and led the Southeastern Conference in batting average. He had the 4th-highest average in NCAA Division I, was 4th with 203 total bases, tied for 9th with 24 doubles, was 4th with 23 homers. He was drafted by the White Sox twice, first in the 32nd round in the 1993 amateur draft, and then in the 4th round in the 1994 amateur draft.

He never hit under .320 in the minors before coming up to the majors. At the Rookie Level, at Sarasota in the GCL, he only needed four games, posting a .467/.579/.733 line, to convince them he should be moved up. He also clearly outclassed the league at Hickory in the class A SAL, where he put up a line of .393/.481/.598.

The next year, 1995, found him at Prince William in the Carolina League, where he posted a .348/.410/.455 line. Moved up to Birmingham in the AA Southern League midway in the season, he posted a .320/~.383/.431 there.

In 1996, he spent the season at AAA Nashville in the American Association, hitting .325/.375/.486. He was second to Dmitri Young in the league’s batting race, made the AA All-Star team, was picked as the league’s #3 prospect by Baseball America and was also named the top batting prospect in the league. In spite of those numbers, he was slated to stay there another year. In 1997, at age 25, he put up almost exactly the same numbers, .327/.385/.486, and finally earned a shot at the bigs. He was error-free in the outfield, led the AA with 88 runs and again was second in average, two points behind teammate Magglio Ordonez. He was again named to the league’s All-Star team.

He appeared in 19 games with the 1997 White Sox, hitting .263/.263/.368 with 1 double and 1 home run. The White Sox that year went 80-81, down from the previous year, but still second in the division. Abbott’s performance was good enough that he stayed on the team in 1998.

In 1998, he hit .279/.298/.492 with 12 home runs in 244 at-bats. He was the fourth outfielder on the team, playing in center, right, and left fields. The White Sox went 80-82, almost the same as the previous year.

Starting slowly in 1999, with a .158 average in 17 games, he found himself back at AAA Charlotte in the International League. He showed that he was still too good for minor league pitching, putting up numbers of .318/.359/.509. He and Charlotte went to the Triple A World Series.

2000 was a good year for Abbott, as he was a contributor to the division winners. He put up a .274/.343/.395 line in 80 games, as he again served as the fourth outfielder. The team won 95 games. He had one post-season at-bat.

After the season, he was traded to the Florida Marlins. He was 28, with a couple of seasons under his belt as a fourth outfielder on a decent team, and it might have been expected that he would be a regular outfielder for several years with the Marlins. It was not to be.

Jeff started the season with knee problems, and was to bounce between various teams the whole season. He showed he still dominated AAA ball by posting .320/.347/.526 at Calgary in the PCL, and had seven dominant games in AA at Portland of the Eastern League with .462/.501/.731. He was also in single A Brevard County of the Florida State League for 3 games, hitting .250. Up in the majors, he appeared in 28 games, with results of .262/.326/.333. While the minor league performances were good, the Marlins let him go after the season.

The Boston Red Sox gave him a shot at AAA Pawtucket of the International League, and for once he was under .300: .283/.331/.447. He was there the entire season of 2002.

In 2003, he appeared in only 4 games at AAA Tacoma of the PCL, getting 2 hits in 15 at-bats, and he was done.

Primarily wore number 25.  Had eye surgery seeking to improve his vision.

Jeff Abbott – 3 Year Peak Normalized

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SO	BB	IBB	SB	CS	SH	SF	HBP	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
66	163	20	44	10	1	5	23	24	10	1	1	1	1	2	1	2	.266	.310	.424	.735

As stated in a prior footnote, the Jeff Abbott biography featured above was originally from the BR Bullpen.  We now return to Baseball Intelligencer commentary.

Abbott’s your basic (generic) spare outfielder who offers a bit of pop in his bat, and little more.

Not suitable for any kind of starting role, Jeff has enough power to be a useful role player off the bench for the right team.  In a deep draft league, Abbott might end up stashed on a farm team, waiting for an injury on the big club to open up some playing time.