Jose Tabata’s route to Pittsburgh was not a short one. He’s only recently turned 22, but he’s played professional baseball in the US since 2005. Tabata played in the GCL as a 16-year old in 2005 and the Sally League as a 17-year old in 2006 and put up solid lines in both leagues for such a young player (.314/.382/.417 in the GCL, then .298/.377/.420 in the Sally League) and was Baseball America’s 27th ranked prospect before the 2007 season. His young age and his place in the Yankees’ system meant his name was coming up all over the place (I remember reading about him in 2007, maybe in that year’s Baseball Prospectus) by the time he was 18.
He started to fall out of favor in 2007, but he didn’t hit all that poorly for an 18-year old on the Florida State League. His power dipped a bit, but his other numbers stayed about the same. An injury early in 2008 got him off to an awful start with Trenton, and when the Pirates traded for him I was less than pleased. But he rehabbed the hamstring and came back and hit strongly for Altoona in 2008, earned a promotion to Indianapolis late in 2009, and hit well enough early in 2010 to make it to Pittsburgh by June. His line didn’t change much at any rung of the ladder. Over six years, his combined minor league line was .297/.365/.405. In his 102 games with the Pirates this year he hit .299/.346/.400. That’s some impressive consistency.
Pedro Alvarez’s rookie year was flashier and Neil Walker’s was both more surprising and well-rounded, but I think Tabata’s may have been the most encouraging. It’s easy to forget just how young Tabata is. According to Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, since 1901 2,927 players have been Tabata’s age or younger in their first Major League season. Of those players, only 66 got more than 440 plate appearances in their first big league season (Tabata had 441). Of, those 66, only 35 had an OPS+ of better than 100 (i.e. they were above average). Tabata is one of the 35. Production at a young age isn’t a guarantee of future success (directly below Tabata on the list sorted by OPS+ is Rick Manning), but plenty of players have had seasons similar to Tabata’s and gone on to great careers (directly above Tabata on the OPS+ sorted list is Barry Bonds). There are even players who had awful rookie years at Tabata’s age, but went on to great careers (well down the list is a 21-year old rookie that both Tabata and Pirate fans are well acquainted with: Roberto Clemente).
We could sit here and talk numbers all day (and that’s not to say there’s not value in that, but predicting the career of such a young player based one year in the big leagues and a minor league career that started at 16 and saw him play through each level young is an inexact science at best), but a big part of what impressed me about Tabata is harder to quantify. He entered 2009 coming off of an injury-filled year that forced him to repeat Double-A with a rep for being immature, and that year started off with his crazy 40-year old wife stealing a baby. That could derail some young players, but Tabata bore down, had a good season in 2009, lost a ton of weight over the winter after that season ended, and by the end of 2010 was a productive Major League player. His numbers don’t jump off the page, but he still had an impressive rookie season. I’m really, really looking forward to watching him and Andrew McCutchen mature together at the top of the Pirates’ lineup.
