Quote:
Originally Posted by BigRapidsJackass
Aspire, we've seen -- at least in the case of the Rockies -- that what I labeled the HF ProspectBot does a remarkably good job of generating prospect ratings that are nearly identical to what the so-called experts come up with.
So there's really only two rational responses to this phenomenon:
1. All prospect ratings are pretty much crapshoots. They may be fun to look at, but ultimately they do not provide terribly useful information.
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Why do you think they are so close with many players? Do you think scouts or Baseball America ignores performance?? Of course not. The scouts are going to like the guys who put up the big numbers in the game too, right?
However, numbers often tell lies or very incomplete pictures. We can't pretend that all numbers mean the same things or that there are no associated factors that go along with the numbers. When you ignore that bit of common sense and just look at numbers exclusively that's where you can make massive errors with very incomplete information.
The best look at both. Scouts don't ignore a player's statistics, or in-game performance beyond the box score. They get the story behind the numbers, though, too.
I disagree that it's all a crap shoot or you don't get useful information. Sure, there are many players who don't live up to their hype, but it would be a fool who doesn't find such information about a player's talent or technique useful. You want to know what kind of bat speed a player has. What kind of pitches a young arm throws. There is a ton of useful information, but it doesn't always mean people with the most talent always succeed. Not in baseball, and not in life either in many respects. It's still much better to make educated opinions on players, though, with as much comprehensive information as possible and even (gasp!) beyond the numbers.
The truth I think is that players are grouped much more closely together than rankings allow. You'll have some that barely belong and are no-hoper's, as well as some players with elite talent that are beyond most everybody on the field. Most of the rest, though, deserve to be there and have as good a shot as anybody else in that group. Especially when most of the ones who "make it" become useful role players who might not have superstar ability but provide a needed service on a big league roster. For all the majority of players with enough talent to make it, it is the little things that determine who does and that involves constantly changing variables and opportunities that may or may not present themselves at the right time.
If you are ranked high enough, though, those opportunities present themselves to you much more frequently. Teams will go out of their way to give those highly rated guys a chance where they won't for others not measured as strongly. So rankings do matter (the team's own rankings more so internally than some outside service to them), and there is useful information in them about the player's abilities and how it might effect the opportunities given if more people think highly of them.