2008 Prospect Rankings

Heltonfan · 01-11-2008, 02:18 AM

One of the things that's always bothered me about what I do is that, while sabermetric methods do a wonderful job of evaluating past performance and projecting future performance, they can't seem to yield reasonable top prospect lists. Part of it is the inherent problem that the overwhelming majority of prospects have to blow away the standard development curve in order to become good big leaguers. Part of it is the difficulty of rating players with very small samples of professional performance. Another issue, I think, is that for whatever reason, the way that we instinctively balance a player's potential and his likelihood of living up to that potential is very difficult to replicate mathematically. And another issue is that there is almost certainly some very bad sabermetrics being done by the other people who try to produce the kind of lists I'm talking about. But whatever the case, I have yet to see a purely statistical list that yields results that pass the smell test.

As an example of the failures of previous attempts, here's the 2007 prospect list from Baseball Notebook. Note how many complete no-names are on this list. Mike Carp as the #8 prospect in all of baseball? Alex Gordon at only #36? Ouch. Robert Mosebach is ranked well ahead of Homer Bailey. Who is Robert Mosebach, you ask? Exactly. PECOTA's 2007 list is better than the Notebook's, but it too had more than its share of completely inexplicable stuff. Alexi Casilla was ranked ahead of Delmon Young. A young lefty named Brent Fisher checked in at #30 on the list thanks to a great 68 innings in the Arizona League. And the list is littered with young hitters who put up solid, but non-spectacular, lines in short-season ball (Wilmer Pino, Adrian Cardenas, Thomas Hickman, Jason Place, D'Arby Myers... the list goes on). Now, I don't mean to overly disparage the work done by Nate Silver and David Luciani - in both the Notebook list and the PECOTA list, there are some gems that other methods had not uncovered - but I think it goes without saying that the results, all things considered, are not acceptable.

I set out to do better. In the same spirit as with my projections, I tried to produce a satisfying system using very limited data, i.e. no scouting information and none of the bells and whistles of PECOTA. Or, to be more explicit:
What My System Knows: Age, FIP, ERC, ABR, IP, PA, expected MLB position/pitching role
What My System Doesn't Know: Everything else. Specifically:
- Any and all scouting information relating to pitching or hitting. The only input into the ratings which is at all subjective is the "expected MLB position", which is determined by looking at what position the player has actually played and moving him down the defensive spectrum if Goldstein, Sickels, etc. expect such a move. I forecast only what position the player will play, not how well he will play it.
- Any and all information relating to comparable players.
- Any and all information relating to durability/injury history.
- Basic demographic stuff (height, weight, draft position, college/high school/international signing, etc).
- The details of the players' stat lines. This is a big one. The most glaring example is, for pitchers, the system doesn't know/care whether their success was obtained via command (i.e. low walk rate, and probably little room for improvement) or stuff (high walk rate, more room for improvement). All it knows are the summary statistics (FIP and ERC).
What My System Tries to Do: Produce rankings that look more or less like the rankings of "experts." That is to say, these are indeed prospect rankings, not measures of expected value. Because the expected value for most prospects is so minimal.

So it should be clear now that what follows is in no way an attempted be-all and end-all of prospect rankings. What it is is simply an attempt to read the numbers better than anyone else has, and thereby provide a baseline for more sophisticated rankings. That is, because my system uses age as the one and only proxy for a player's potential to improve, you can start with these rankings and say, "Player X is 25 years old, so the system sees him as already pretty close to his ceiling, but I think he has more room for growth than a typical 25-year-old, so I'll bump him up a little. But I'm not sure that he can actually stick at 2B, so I'll bump him back down a ways to account for the chance that he has to move to the outfield." And so on.

First, here's what the system has to say about the top 30 Rockies prospects (the Purple Row prospect poll is what got me motivated to develop the system, actually):

1. Franklin Morales
2. Greg Reynolds
3. Ian Stewart
4. Dexter Fowler
5. Chris Nelson
6. Hector Gomez
7. Brandon Hynick
8. Eric Young
9. Chaz Roe
10. Michael McKenry
11. Shane Lindsay
12. Daniel Mayora
13. Xavier Cedeno
14. Aneury Rodriguez
15. Darin Holcomb
16. Helder Velazquez
17. Everth Cabrera
18. Seth Smith
19. Jonathan Herrera
20. Joe Koshansky
21. Will Harris
22. Brian Rike
23. Jhoulys Chacin
24. Pedro Strop
25. Samuel Deduno
26. Jeff Kindel
27. Alan Johnson
28. Esmil Rogers
29. Michael Paulk
30. Corey Wimberly

Looks pretty good, no? It's very comforting that the system nails the consensus top six or seven guys. Obviously, no Casey Weathers on the list, because when your entire professional career consists of 15 innings, and you walked 9 guys in those 15 innings, you're not going to rate very highly. But the point is that there is no possible way to engineer a reasonable statistical system in which Weathers will rate highly; to the extent that this is a flaw, then, it's an unavoidable one.

Now, the top 100 MLB prospect list. Note, of course, that I can't rank guys with no professional experience (Price, Wieters, Porcello, Parker) and that I've deemed Fukudome ineligible.

1. Joba Chamberlain, SP, NYY
2. Jay Bruce, CF, CIN
3. Ian Kennedy, SP, NYY
4. Geovany Soto, C, CHC
5. Cameron Maybin, CF, FLA
6. Colby Rasmus, CF, STL
7. Justin Upton, CF, ARI
8. Homer Bailey, SP, CIN
9. Evan Longoria, 3B, TB
10. Clay Buchholz, SP, BOS
11. Brandon Wood, 3B, LAA
12. Andy LaRoche, 3B, LAD
13. Chase Headley, 3B, SD
14. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF, BOS
15. Kevin Mulvey, SP, NYM
16. Jair Jurrjens, SP, ATL
17. Daric Barton, 1B, OAK
18. Reid Brignac, SS, TB
19. Aaron Laffey, SP, CLE
20. Ryan Kalish, RF, BOS
21. Matt Antonelli, 2B, SD
22. William Inman, SP, SD
23. Adam Miller, SP, CLE
24. Austin Jackson, CF, NYY
25. Angel Salome, C, MIL
26. Franklin Morales, SP, COL
27. Chris Lubanski, CF, KC
28. Andrew McCutchen, CF, PIT
29. Greg Reynolds, SP, COL
30. Jed Lowrie, 2B, BOS
31. Fernando Martinez, CF, NYM
32. Travis Snider, 1B, TOR
33. Johnny Cueto, SP, CIN
34. Javier Brito, 2B, ARI
35. Jose Tabata, RF, NYY
36. Christopher Davis, LF, TEX
37. Ryan Sweeney, RF, OAK
38. Elvis Andrus, SS, TEX
39. Cedric Hunter, CF, SD
40. Jordan Schafer, CF, ATL
41. Taylor Teagarden, C, TEX
42. Ian Stewart, 3B, COL
43. Michael Bowden, SP, BOS
44. Deolis Guerra, SP, NYM
45. Ryan Royster, LF, TB
46. Bryan Anderson, C, STL
47. Chin-Lung Hu, SS, LAD
48. Sean Rodriguez, 2B, LAA
49. Steve Pearce, RF, PIT
50. Justin Masterson, SP, BOS
51. Aaron Cunningham, RF, OAK
52. Barry Enright, SP, ARI
53. Yusmeiro Petit, SP, ARI
54. Hank Conger, C, LAA
55. Jacob McGee, SP, TB
56. Trevor Cahill, SP, OAK
57. Carlos Gomez, CF, NYM
58. Nick Adenhart, SP, LAA
59. Nate Schierholtz, LF, SF
60. Jared Goedert, 3B, CLE
61. Lou Marson, C, PHI
62. Joey Votto, 1B, CIN
63. Wladimir Balentien, RF, SEA
64. Max Scherzer, SP, ARI
65. John Whittleman, 3B, TEX
66. Gorkys Hernandez, CF, ATL
67. Michael Brantley, RF, MIL
68. Brandon Erbe, SP, BAL
69. Gaby Hernandez, SP, FLA
70. Joshua Donaldson, C, CHC
71. Gregor Blanco, CF, ATL
72. J.R. Towles, C, HOU
73. Gio Gonzalez, SP, OAK
74. Brent Lillibridge, SS, ATL
75. Sean Gallagher, SP, CHC
76. Kyle Blanks, 1B, SD
77. Desmond Jennings, CF, TB
78. Trevor Plouffe, SS, MIN
79. Matt LaPorta, 1B, MIL
80. Brett Anderson, SP, OAK
81. Chad Huffman, LF, SD
82. Chuck Lofgren, SP, CLE
83. Jose Garcia, SP, OAK
84. Ivan De Jesus, 2B, LAD
85. Fautino De Los Santos, SP, OAK
86. Cody Johnson, LF, ATL
87. Troy Patton, SP, BAL
88. Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD
89. Christopher Marrero, LF, WSH
90. Jaime Garcia, SP, STL
91. Tyler Clippard, SP, WSH
92. Justin Ruggiano, RF, TB
93. Jeff Clement, C, SEA
94. Marcus Lemon, SS, TEX
95. Cole Rohrbough, SP, ATL
96. David Freese, 3B, STL
97. Tony Thomas, 2B, CHC
98. Collin Balester, SP, WSH
99. Chris Tillman, SP, SEA
100. Dexter Fowler, CF, COL

There are some head-scratchers in there, to be sure, but I don't think there's anything absolutely indefensible. I don't know whether I've done a better job of identifying sleepers than PECOTA does, but I do know that I've done a better job of avoiding absurdity, and that counts for a lot. Obviously, it will be very interesting to compare this list with the '08 Sickels, Goldstein, BA, and PECOTA lists a year from now. If my list turns out to be even close to the quality of the others, I'll consider it a huge victory, given the simplicity of this system.

hiaspire · 01-11-2008, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heltonfan

One of the things that's always bothered me about what I do is that, while sabermetric methods do a wonderful job of evaluating past performance and projecting future performance, they can't seem to yield reasonable top prospect lists.

Wonderful isn't the same word I'd use with some of the off-season conclusions in recent years where so many common sense risk factors are totally ignored and result in poor numeric recommendations. Stats certainly need to be part of the evaluation process along with so many other tools, though, so long as there is some realism also about their LIMITATIONS. I wouldn't let it bother me so much that those methods can't provide all the answers. Numbers simply cannot see pure talent and potential alone, especially in cases where tremendous talent is still being refined and technique improved. They never could and never will. And there is nothing wrong with that, nor does it mean there isn't value in looking at them as part of the process for a comprehensive approach to player evaluation with less blind spots. Turning a raw teenager into a big league player has a lot more to do with other things than the stats he puts up in the early stages along the way while learning. A statistical system could never see some of those developmental steps, nor should it need to as it serves a different purpose. Numbers also can't see x-rays on a player's arm, or how they are progressing in rehab or learning a new pitch or skill. Stats can't see attitude or work ethic which separates some prospects from others who make it. Numbers can never have all the answers, and will always just be one piece of information that is incomplete like all others unless considered collectively amongst all inputs.

The Rockies have ridden some young players to new heights recently, and we've had many youngsters come up and contribute. Certainly there is some reason for optimism there in some prospects still on the farm, but it also wouldn't surprise me if the organization didn't hit a dry spell upcoming in that regard. I'm not terribly impressed with our list now that so many have graduated to the big club.

If you want the team to continue its efforts to get back into the playoffs with their existing strategies, guys like Morales and Stewart probably need to reach their hyped potential to keep adding talent to the squad. Beyond that, though, I don't know if there are many difference makers remaining as so many have come up in recent years. Hopefully there will be some critical role player types that can be found in the remaining batch to provide some help at some point when needed, but that might be about it.

HoyaRoxFan · 01-12-2008, 07:30 AM

Good stuff here. Just to draw out some further thoughts on the matter, if you compare HF's list and PuRPs results, the vast majority overlap. What's more, the four names in HF's top 30 that do not appear on the PuRPs top 30 are in their supplemental list, so someone voted for them. Apropos, there are 7 names in the PuRPs list that do not appear in HF's list.

HF, you've already explained Weathers, but I wonder if you have thoughts on the other six guys, particularly given that, of the seven, four have a very real shot at making the big-league club sometime this year. Hiaspire, given your skepticism, your thoughts on these names might also be interesting.

HF's Folks not on PuRPs:
13. Xavier Cedeno
17. Everth Cabrera*
27. Alan Johnson*
28. Michael Paulk
29. Corey Wimberly
30. Brandon Durden

PuRPs folks not on HF's list (emphasis mine):
Casey Weathers 275
Juan Morillo 174 (12)
Keith Weiser 142 (12)
Helder Velazquez 103 (9)
Jayson Nix 95 (12)
Jeff Kindel 56 (7)*
Joshua Newman 53 (6)

*Oops, sorry HF.

Heltonfan · 01-12-2008, 12:01 PM

First, a couple corrections to your lists above: Kindel is indeed on my list, and there are two more guys who made my list but not the PR list: Everth Cabrera and Alan Johnson. Cabrera's appeal is obvious: a middle infielder with an OBP over .400 in the pitching-friendly Northwest League. Johnson I don't feel strongly about, since he was only #26 on my list.

I'll take a mulligan on Velazquez: I completely forgot that he existed. He comes in at #16. That ranking feels high to me, but the whole point of this system is to see how well one can do without making such judgments, so I'll leave it as is.

By way of explanation, though, the rankings are more or less a combination of two factors: 1) how good the player is now and 2) how much development time he has left. Velazquez, obviously, fares worse on the first criterion than anyone else on the list, but he's so young that his chances of developing into a real difference-maker are much, much greater. And if you look at the Top 100 list, I don't think that Velazquez types (guys with youth on their side, but performance not) are overrepresented, so on the whole, the system seems to handle such players well enough.

Morillo didn't crack my top 30 because a) he's not particularly young anymore and b) he's a reliever, and because of their general lack of value, it's very difficult for relief prospects to rank highly. That said, Morillo's projection, and therefore his prospect ranking, is being dragged down a lot by his '05 and '06 seasons (when he was a starter), so it's possible I'm selling him short. And from a scouting perspective, obviously, he's got some real upside.

Newman didn't make my list because he's not young, he's not good, and he's a reliever. I think that about covers it. When your upside is mediocre LOOGY, you're not a prospect.

I've discussed Nix before, but the key points are the following:
1) Within the Purple Row community, he seems to be getting a huge boost for supposedly being a wizard with the glove. I'll believe it when I see it (not because of any doubts about Nix specifically, but because of doubts about the accuracy of such reports in general).
2) He's an absolutely atrocious hitter. His '07 was subpar by AAA standards. His '05 and '06 were replacement-level by AA standards.
3) He's already 25 years old.
I don't see much potential here, and I see a guy who could conceivably single-handedly wreck our offense like Barmes did in '06.

Keith Weiser is another Purple Row favorite who I just see no reason to like. When you're that hittable in A-ball, despite being at least a year too old for the level, you don't have a future. I suppose if everything breaks right, he can be Carlos Silva, but that's not exactly a compliment. Alternatively, we can look at it this way:
Player A: 6.5 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9
Player B: 9.1 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9
Now, if I tell you that these two were members of the same rotation, and that they are the same age, which one do you take? I thought so. The guy with upside.
Player A is Weiser, #17 on the PR list. Player B is Andy Graham, who wasn't named on a single ballot.

Xavier Cedeno is an interesting one. I would imagine that the reason he failed to crack the Purple Row list is that his 2007 season, superficially, just doesn't look very good. 5.09 ERA? 83/61 K/BB? Blech. But he did a tremendous job of keeping the ball in the park (which he did the year before as well)... putting it all together, his Cal League ERC was 3.89. An above-average season in High-A at age 21? That's a real prospect. I'm not confident enough in these rankings to say that he's a slam-dunk top 20 guy, but he definitely shouldn't have been left off the list. To hammer home a previous point, Cedeno's translated statistics are better than Weiser's, and he's two years younger.

HoyaRoxFan · 01-12-2008, 01:59 PM

Thanks, HF. And sorry for my omissions and inaccuracies; it was early yet.

And I definitely see the value in what you're shooting for: Arguing with one's self and weighing gut instincts over whether a particular guy is the Rockies' best prospect makes some sense; doing the same to parse between a 26th vs. 27th best prospect, however, gets a bit silly. And PR's poll, as with so many others, only takes that proposition and expands it, making it look more quantitative en masse, without anything behind it.

I wonder though if there is still a way to incorporate Aspire's concerns into a project like this. Aspire notes that among quantitative folks, "common sense risk factors are totally ignored." And yet, there is an entire industry in this country that quantifies all sorts of strange risk factors, mitigating against risk for profit. If insurance companies can do it, is there a way to do so in a list like this?

I'm thinking, for example, of indicators that might tell you something, such as how long a player spends at a particular minor-league level. Hypothetically, it might be true that over the past 20 years, 40% of players who repeated AA never have a Major League impact, whereas repeating high-A might not be as significant. (There's a lot of reasons a guy might repeat a level, yet that would appear to only mitigate against more of Aspire's suggested risk factors.) Having that or other data sets present and weaving them into your equation might be very powerful in indicating just how valuable a player's "potential" is.

You note all this in your earlier post. Is such a thing possible? (No doubt it is, but the work involved in compiling such percentages... yikes.) Are there other indicators that might be quantifiable and prove equally fruitful? It seems a prospect list armed with such things would be leaps and bounds ahead of most lists out there.

bedir than average · 01-12-2008, 02:02 PM

HeltonFan, how did you determine who is a "prospect" or not? Rookie qualification, youth?

Heltonfan · 01-12-2008, 04:24 PM

Quote:

HeltonFan, how did you determine who is a "prospect" or not? Rookie qualification, youth?

Rookie qualification, although I may have made a few mistakes here and there in identifying who has and has not passed that threshold.

Quote:

Arguing with one's self and weighing gut instincts over whether a particular guy is the Rockies' best prospect makes some sense; doing the same to parse between a 26th vs. 27th best prospect, however, gets a bit silly.

To be fair, of course, using my rankings to claim with any degree of confidence that #26 is better than #27 would be ridiculous. All you can say is, "this system gives a slight edge to so-and-so, and with no compelling evidence to the contrary, I'll go along with it." In other words, the appeal of this system is not that it's more exact, it's that it has a methodological consistency that no human brain can possibly match. That consistency doesn't mean a thing if the results are garbage, of course, but if they're good - and I think that they are - it's pretty cool.

Quote:

Are there other indicators that might be quantifiable and prove equally fruitful?

A couple obvious ones: draft position (or, better, signing bonuses, to account for the Dexter Fowlers) and age relative to league. And I think you're right that experience at a level would be useful information.

Going meta again, there are three different questions in play here:
1) What is the best way to interpret player statistics when doing prospect rankings?
2) Is it possible to generate purely statistical prospect rankings that are, on the whole, as good as or better than any other prospect rankings currently in existence, and if so, how detailed does the input data have to be in order to do it?
3) How does one create the best possible set of prospect rankings?

Questions 1 and 2 are what this little project was designed to explore.

The last question is an essential, inevitable one, but in theory, fairly easy. For all the crap I give PECOTA, its basic philosophy is outstanding; basically, it says "let's look at all the variables we can think of, figure how important each one is, figure out the interaction between every possible combination of those variables, and weight them accordingly." Same principle here. Start by getting everything you can out of the player's stat line itself. Then add in demographic info. Then add in all the scouting info you can find (obviously, converted to numbers in some regular fashion). Then add in all the health history you can find. And voila, the pennant is yours.

Pay me enough, and I'll do the above. But given that I'm just doing this for a hobby, selfishly, I need to hit on the right combination of accuracy and simplicity, and I think everyone reading this is in the same boat. Hence question #2.

Rox Girl · 01-12-2008, 07:50 PM

Just a minor correction, you say that the Giants picked up Denker off waivers when he was actually the PTBNL from the Dodgers in the Mark Sweeney trade last summer.

This is interesting work, it sort of meshes guys who scouts feel are really good with a lot who they think are merely role players. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in four or five years. If you've come on something that is a lot more accurate, then I suspect somebody will be willing to pay you enough to filter in the other stuff.

I really think I flubbed it by not including Cedeno at least somewhere on my own list, but can't really go back and change it until the next go round. Weiser, on the other hand will be an interesting test, I think you make a convincing argument that we've overrated him, but we'll see.

Heltonfan · 01-13-2008, 02:03 AM

Quote:

If you've come on something that is a lot more accurate, then I suspect somebody will be willing to pay you enough to filter in the other stuff.

I suppose. But the ironic part is that, in doing so, they'd be neglecting the overarching theme of all my work, which is that anyone with a spreadsheet and a basic grasp of player evaluation can do this. It took me maybe half an hour to arrive at the formula that led to the above lists.

Thanks for the correction on Denker.

HoyaRoxFan · 01-13-2008, 12:58 PM

That would be ironic... and yet true of so many truffle-hunting expeditions in academia and media. Good stuff though.

BigRapidsJackass · 01-16-2008, 03:09 PM

HF's list:

1. Franklin Morales
2. Greg Reynolds
3. Ian Stewart
4. Dexter Fowler
5. Chris Nelson
6. Hector Gomez
7. Brandon Hynick
8. Eric Young
9. Chaz Roe
10. Michael McKenry
11. Shane Lindsay
12. Daniel Mayora
13. Xavier Cedeno
14. Aneury Rodriguez
15. Darin Holcomb
16. Helder Velazquez
17. Everth Cabrera
18. Seth Smith
19. Jonathan Herrera
20. Joe Koshansky
21. Will Harris
22. Brian Rike
23. Jhoulys Chacin
24. Pedro Strop
25. Samuel Deduno
26. Jeff Kindel
27. Alan Johnson
28. Esmil Rogers
29. Michael Paulk
30. Corey Wimberly

Sickels' list is now out (www.minorleagueball.com):

1.Franklin Morales, LHP, Grade A- (Heltonfan's #1)
2.Casey Weathers, RHP, Grade B+ (HF not ranked)
3.Ian Stewart, 3B, Grade B (HF 3)
4.Hector Gomez, SS, Grade B (HF 6)
5.Christopher Nelson, SS, Grade B (HF 5)
6.Dexter Fowler, OF, Grade B- (HF 4)
7.Greg Reynolds, RHP, Grade B- (HF 2)
8.Juan Morillo, RHP, Grade B- (HF not ranked)
9.Brandon Hynick, RHP, Grade B- (HF 7)
10.Seth Smith, OF, Grade B- (HF 18)
11.Eric Young Jr, 2B, Grade B- (HF 8)
12.Dan Mayora, INF, Grade B- (HF 12)
13.Brian Rike, OF, Grade B- (HF 22)
14.Pedro Strop, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 24)
15.Chaz Roe, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 9)
16.Joe Koshansky, 1B, Grade C+ (HF 20)
17.Will Harris, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 21)
18.Aneury Rodriguez, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 14)
19.Connor Graham, RHP, Grade C+ (HF not ranked)
20.Jhoulys Chacin, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 23)

I think HF's point here is that one can mechanically generate prospect lists (through a simple minor-league stats formula) that are roughly as useful as the "serious" prospect lists.

And I think he's proven that. The level of agreement between Sickels and HF is pretty amazing, given that these prospect lists are typically the product of: (1) statistical analysis (whether an actual formula such as HF's quick-and-dirty prospect list generator) or a kind of "seat of the pants" feel for the stats; (2) scouting, whether live/in person, video, or based on the reports of others; (3) other factors, such as body frame, etc (will a Dexter Fowler "fill out" and start to show some power?).

Of course, Sickels' -- by his nature and no doubt because of his limited financial wherewithal -- is always considered more "stat-based" than the others. Baseball America is the opposite, and they draw on a network of writers in the field, who in turn draw on personal observations and their conversations with scouts, who in turn draw on the Empty Hat of Tracy [couldn't resist.] So it will be more interesting to see how much agreement there is between the Heltonfan ProspectBot and the BA "Scouting" Reports.

[That's not to say that scouting is irrelevant; all the players on these lists are in their respective organizations because some scout somewhere actually watched them play.]

Heltonfan · 01-17-2008, 12:55 AM

Quote:

So it will be more interesting to see how much agreement there is between the Heltonfan ProspectBot and the BA "Scouting" Reports.

ProspectBot? Nice. I think I'll use that.

Here's the BA (Ringolsby) list:
1. Franklin Morales (my #1)
2. Ian Stewart (#3)
3. Dexter Fowler (#4)
4. Hector Gomez (#6)
5. Greg Reynolds (#2)
6. Casey Weathers (NR)
7. Chris Nelson (#5)
8. Brandon Hynick (#7)
9. Pedro Strop (NR)
10. Chaz Roe (#9)

Aside from the nutty overrating of relievers, there's not a dime's worth of difference (and I mean that literally, for those of you subscribing to BA

) between the two lists.

I'm going to go through more BA top 10s to see how closely the lists match.

BigRapidsJackass · 01-17-2008, 02:22 PM

HF, the success of the ProspectBot says something interesting about the old "scouts vs. stats" debate, namely:

1. Scouting is important in the drafting of players.
2. Once a player is drafted and signed -- and has at least a bit a year of minor league experience -- "scouting" in the traditional sense becomes essentially irrelevant to projecting future performance.

Now, I'm not sure this is 100% correct. One could argue that both the mechanical stats-based formula of the PropectBot and the "stats + overall scouting impressions" input of the BA crowd undervalue young guys with exceptional raw tools who struggle mightily in the initial stages of their pro careers (David Christensen, anyone?). It seems that no one, not even the biggest scouting purist, has the guts to rank guys with miserable minor league stats highly on their prospect lists. So it would be interesting to see if some of those prospects -- the ones with tools, but who never make it onto the Top 20 lists -- do emerge as big leaguers. I'm guessing that while some do, it's a very small percentage, and there's absolutely no way to predict which ones do succeed. Hence, the tendency of everyone (Ringolsby included) to avoid putting these guys on their lists.

wolf213 · 01-17-2008, 02:35 PM

So it would be interesting to see if some of those prospects -- the ones with tools, but who never make it onto the Top 20 lists -- do emerge as big leaguers.

----

I belive we have one of these types of guys playing LF for us right now? Correct me if I am wrong, but Holliday had always had tools, but due to crappy minor league seasons, he was never highly rated.

Could Jason Nix be another one of these types?

BigRapidsJackass · 01-18-2008, 11:21 AM

Wolf, you are correct that Nix and Holliday show some similarities. Both showed great promise as 19 year olds in Low A ball (Asheville), and followed that up with reasonably promising showings as 20 year olds in High A. Then both of them tanked big time. Holliday then had shoulder trouble, forcing the move from 3B to the OF. When he recovered, he had a couple really uninspiring seasons at AA, putting up an OPS numbers of 766 and 708 at ages 22/23. I can't remember what the prospect rankers were saying about him at the time, but that's probably because he was viewed as essentially a non-prospect by then. I don't think there was any good reason to believe (based on performance) that he'd get more than a cup of coffee, at best, in MLB. And then Dustan Mohr hurt his leg celebrating an opening day victory, Holliday got called up from the Springs, and, well, he never looked back.

Nix's 19/20 year old seasons were very, very promising in Low A/Hi A. But as we all know, he followed that up with 3 truly putrid years in -- 2 in AA, one in AAA. (OPS: 628, 644, 630). I had no idea why they protected him on the 40-man roster after that final ('06) performance. But, hey, maybe Schmidt/Geivett and the boys know something that I don't know. He didn't exactly dominate last year (793 OPS), but his leap back to respectability was totally unexpected. And if you take away the slow start, you can construct an argument (not that convincing an argument, but still) that he's taken a great leap forward.

So there's some similarity there. Will the Rox catch lightning in a bottle twice? Pretty unlikely. (One big difference: Holliday is huge, Nix is 5'11" on his tiptoes). But given the other 2B options, the new focus on Nix doesn't strike me as a bad idea. Certainly better than throwing Barmes out there again.

01-11-2008, 02:18 AM	#1 (permalink)
Heltonfan Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Yerevan, Armenia Posts: 842	2008 Prospect Rankings One of the things that's always bothered me about what I do is that, while sabermetric methods do a wonderful job of evaluating past performance and projecting future performance, they can't seem to yield reasonable top prospect lists. Part of it is the inherent problem that the overwhelming majority of prospects have to blow away the standard development curve in order to become good big leaguers. Part of it is the difficulty of rating players with very small samples of professional performance. Another issue, I think, is that for whatever reason, the way that we instinctively balance a player's potential and his likelihood of living up to that potential is very difficult to replicate mathematically. And another issue is that there is almost certainly some very bad sabermetrics being done by the other people who try to produce the kind of lists I'm talking about. But whatever the case, I have yet to see a purely statistical list that yields results that pass the smell test. As an example of the failures of previous attempts, here's the 2007 prospect list from Baseball Notebook. Note how many complete no-names are on this list. Mike Carp as the #8 prospect in all of baseball? Alex Gordon at only #36? Ouch. Robert Mosebach is ranked well ahead of Homer Bailey. Who is Robert Mosebach, you ask? Exactly. PECOTA's 2007 list is better than the Notebook's, but it too had more than its share of completely inexplicable stuff. Alexi Casilla was ranked ahead of Delmon Young. A young lefty named Brent Fisher checked in at #30 on the list thanks to a great 68 innings in the Arizona League. And the list is littered with young hitters who put up solid, but non-spectacular, lines in short-season ball (Wilmer Pino, Adrian Cardenas, Thomas Hickman, Jason Place, D'Arby Myers... the list goes on). Now, I don't mean to overly disparage the work done by Nate Silver and David Luciani - in both the Notebook list and the PECOTA list, there are some gems that other methods had not uncovered - but I think it goes without saying that the results, all things considered, are not acceptable. I set out to do better. In the same spirit as with my projections, I tried to produce a satisfying system using very limited data, i.e. no scouting information and none of the bells and whistles of PECOTA. Or, to be more explicit: What My System Knows: Age, FIP, ERC, ABR, IP, PA, expected MLB position/pitching role What My System Doesn't Know: Everything else. Specifically: - Any and all scouting information relating to pitching or hitting. The only input into the ratings which is at all subjective is the "expected MLB position", which is determined by looking at what position the player has actually played and moving him down the defensive spectrum if Goldstein, Sickels, etc. expect such a move. I forecast only what position the player will play, not how well he will play it. - Any and all information relating to comparable players. - Any and all information relating to durability/injury history. - Basic demographic stuff (height, weight, draft position, college/high school/international signing, etc). - The details of the players' stat lines. This is a big one. The most glaring example is, for pitchers, the system doesn't know/care whether their success was obtained via command (i.e. low walk rate, and probably little room for improvement) or stuff (high walk rate, more room for improvement). All it knows are the summary statistics (FIP and ERC). What My System Tries to Do: Produce rankings that look more or less like the rankings of "experts." That is to say, these are indeed prospect rankings, not measures of expected value. Because the expected value for most prospects is so minimal. So it should be clear now that what follows is in no way an attempted be-all and end-all of prospect rankings. What it is is simply an attempt to read the numbers better than anyone else has, and thereby provide a baseline for more sophisticated rankings. That is, because my system uses age as the one and only proxy for a player's potential to improve, you can start with these rankings and say, "Player X is 25 years old, so the system sees him as already pretty close to his ceiling, but I think he has more room for growth than a typical 25-year-old, so I'll bump him up a little. But I'm not sure that he can actually stick at 2B, so I'll bump him back down a ways to account for the chance that he has to move to the outfield." And so on. First, here's what the system has to say about the top 30 Rockies prospects (the Purple Row prospect poll is what got me motivated to develop the system, actually): 1. Franklin Morales 2. Greg Reynolds 3. Ian Stewart 4. Dexter Fowler 5. Chris Nelson 6. Hector Gomez 7. Brandon Hynick 8. Eric Young 9. Chaz Roe 10. Michael McKenry 11. Shane Lindsay 12. Daniel Mayora 13. Xavier Cedeno 14. Aneury Rodriguez 15. Darin Holcomb 16. Helder Velazquez 17. Everth Cabrera 18. Seth Smith 19. Jonathan Herrera 20. Joe Koshansky 21. Will Harris 22. Brian Rike 23. Jhoulys Chacin 24. Pedro Strop 25. Samuel Deduno 26. Jeff Kindel 27. Alan Johnson 28. Esmil Rogers 29. Michael Paulk 30. Corey Wimberly Looks pretty good, no? It's very comforting that the system nails the consensus top six or seven guys. Obviously, no Casey Weathers on the list, because when your entire professional career consists of 15 innings, and you walked 9 guys in those 15 innings, you're not going to rate very highly. But the point is that there is no possible way to engineer a reasonable statistical system in which Weathers will rate highly; to the extent that this is a flaw, then, it's an unavoidable one. Now, the top 100 MLB prospect list. Note, of course, that I can't rank guys with no professional experience (Price, Wieters, Porcello, Parker) and that I've deemed Fukudome ineligible. 1. Joba Chamberlain, SP, NYY 2. Jay Bruce, CF, CIN 3. Ian Kennedy, SP, NYY 4. Geovany Soto, C, CHC 5. Cameron Maybin, CF, FLA 6. Colby Rasmus, CF, STL 7. Justin Upton, CF, ARI 8. Homer Bailey, SP, CIN 9. Evan Longoria, 3B, TB 10. Clay Buchholz, SP, BOS 11. Brandon Wood, 3B, LAA 12. Andy LaRoche, 3B, LAD 13. Chase Headley, 3B, SD 14. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF, BOS 15. Kevin Mulvey, SP, NYM 16. Jair Jurrjens, SP, ATL 17. Daric Barton, 1B, OAK 18. Reid Brignac, SS, TB 19. Aaron Laffey, SP, CLE 20. Ryan Kalish, RF, BOS 21. Matt Antonelli, 2B, SD 22. William Inman, SP, SD 23. Adam Miller, SP, CLE 24. Austin Jackson, CF, NYY 25. Angel Salome, C, MIL 26. Franklin Morales, SP, COL 27. Chris Lubanski, CF, KC 28. Andrew McCutchen, CF, PIT 29. Greg Reynolds, SP, COL 30. Jed Lowrie, 2B, BOS 31. Fernando Martinez, CF, NYM 32. Travis Snider, 1B, TOR 33. Johnny Cueto, SP, CIN 34. Javier Brito, 2B, ARI 35. Jose Tabata, RF, NYY 36. Christopher Davis, LF, TEX 37. Ryan Sweeney, RF, OAK 38. Elvis Andrus, SS, TEX 39. Cedric Hunter, CF, SD 40. Jordan Schafer, CF, ATL 41. Taylor Teagarden, C, TEX 42. Ian Stewart, 3B, COL 43. Michael Bowden, SP, BOS 44. Deolis Guerra, SP, NYM 45. Ryan Royster, LF, TB 46. Bryan Anderson, C, STL 47. Chin-Lung Hu, SS, LAD 48. Sean Rodriguez, 2B, LAA 49. Steve Pearce, RF, PIT 50. Justin Masterson, SP, BOS 51. Aaron Cunningham, RF, OAK 52. Barry Enright, SP, ARI 53. Yusmeiro Petit, SP, ARI 54. Hank Conger, C, LAA 55. Jacob McGee, SP, TB 56. Trevor Cahill, SP, OAK 57. Carlos Gomez, CF, NYM 58. Nick Adenhart, SP, LAA 59. Nate Schierholtz, LF, SF 60. Jared Goedert, 3B, CLE 61. Lou Marson, C, PHI 62. Joey Votto, 1B, CIN 63. Wladimir Balentien, RF, SEA 64. Max Scherzer, SP, ARI 65. John Whittleman, 3B, TEX 66. Gorkys Hernandez, CF, ATL 67. Michael Brantley, RF, MIL 68. Brandon Erbe, SP, BAL 69. Gaby Hernandez, SP, FLA 70. Joshua Donaldson, C, CHC 71. Gregor Blanco, CF, ATL 72. J.R. Towles, C, HOU 73. Gio Gonzalez, SP, OAK 74. Brent Lillibridge, SS, ATL 75. Sean Gallagher, SP, CHC 76. Kyle Blanks, 1B, SD 77. Desmond Jennings, CF, TB 78. Trevor Plouffe, SS, MIN 79. Matt LaPorta, 1B, MIL 80. Brett Anderson, SP, OAK 81. Chad Huffman, LF, SD 82. Chuck Lofgren, SP, CLE 83. Jose Garcia, SP, OAK 84. Ivan De Jesus, 2B, LAD 85. Fautino De Los Santos, SP, OAK 86. Cody Johnson, LF, ATL 87. Troy Patton, SP, BAL 88. Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD 89. Christopher Marrero, LF, WSH 90. Jaime Garcia, SP, STL 91. Tyler Clippard, SP, WSH 92. Justin Ruggiano, RF, TB 93. Jeff Clement, C, SEA 94. Marcus Lemon, SS, TEX 95. Cole Rohrbough, SP, ATL 96. David Freese, 3B, STL 97. Tony Thomas, 2B, CHC 98. Collin Balester, SP, WSH 99. Chris Tillman, SP, SEA 100. Dexter Fowler, CF, COL There are some head-scratchers in there, to be sure, but I don't think there's anything absolutely indefensible. I don't know whether I've done a better job of identifying sleepers than PECOTA does, but I do know that I've done a better job of avoiding absurdity, and that counts for a lot. Obviously, it will be very interesting to compare this list with the '08 Sickels, Goldstein, BA, and PECOTA lists a year from now. If my list turns out to be even close to the quality of the others, I'll consider it a huge victory, given the simplicity of this system. Last edited by Heltonfan; 01-26-2008 at 12:32 PM.

01-12-2008, 07:30 AM	#3 (permalink)
HoyaRoxFan Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 276	Good stuff here. Just to draw out some further thoughts on the matter, if you compare HF's list and PuRPs results, the vast majority overlap. What's more, the four names in HF's top 30 that do not appear on the PuRPs top 30 are in their supplemental list, so someone voted for them. Apropos, there are 7 names in the PuRPs list that do not appear in HF's list. HF, you've already explained Weathers, but I wonder if you have thoughts on the other six guys, particularly given that, of the seven, four have a very real shot at making the big-league club sometime this year. Hiaspire, given your skepticism, your thoughts on these names might also be interesting. HF's Folks not on PuRPs: 13. Xavier Cedeno 17. Everth Cabrera* 27. Alan Johnson* 28. Michael Paulk 29. Corey Wimberly 30. Brandon Durden PuRPs folks not on HF's list (emphasis mine): Casey Weathers 275 Juan Morillo 174 (12) Keith Weiser 142 (12) Helder Velazquez 103 (9) Jayson Nix 95 (12) Jeff Kindel 56 (7)* Joshua Newman 53 (6) Oops, sorry HF. Last edited by HoyaRoxFan; 01-12-2008 at 01:28 PM. Reason: It was early on a Saturday morning =)*

01-12-2008, 01:59 PM	#5 (permalink)
HoyaRoxFan Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 276	Thanks, HF. And sorry for my omissions and inaccuracies; it was early yet. And I definitely see the value in what you're shooting for: Arguing with one's self and weighing gut instincts over whether a particular guy is the Rockies' best prospect makes some sense; doing the same to parse between a 26th vs. 27th best prospect, however, gets a bit silly. And PR's poll, as with so many others, only takes that proposition and expands it, making it look more quantitative en masse, without anything behind it. I wonder though if there is still a way to incorporate Aspire's concerns into a project like this. Aspire notes that among quantitative folks, "common sense risk factors are totally ignored." And yet, there is an entire industry in this country that quantifies all sorts of strange risk factors, mitigating against risk for profit. If insurance companies can do it, is there a way to do so in a list like this? I'm thinking, for example, of indicators that might tell you something, such as how long a player spends at a particular minor-league level. Hypothetically, it might be true that over the past 20 years, 40% of players who repeated AA never have a Major League impact, whereas repeating high-A might not be as significant. (There's a lot of reasons a guy might repeat a level, yet that would appear to only mitigate against more of Aspire's suggested risk factors.) Having that or other data sets present and weaving them into your equation might be very powerful in indicating just how valuable a player's "potential" is. You note all this in your earlier post. Is such a thing possible? (No doubt it is, but the work involved in compiling such percentages... yikes.) Are there other indicators that might be quantifiable and prove equally fruitful? It seems a prospect list armed with such things would be leaps and bounds ahead of most lists out there. Last edited by HoyaRoxFan; 01-12-2008 at 02:01 PM.

01-12-2008, 02:02 PM	#6 (permalink)
bedir than average Administrator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Starbucks Posts: 8,256	HeltonFan, how did you determine who is a "prospect" or not? Rookie qualification, youth? __________________ US Men's National Team World Cup Qualifying \| Democracy in Sports Meets My First Campaign "You're only so sure you're right because they're so sure you're wrong." Orson Scott Card in Xenocide

01-12-2008, 07:50 PM	#8 (permalink)
Rox Girl Rookie Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 11	Just a minor correction, you say that the Giants picked up Denker off waivers when he was actually the PTBNL from the Dodgers in the Mark Sweeney trade last summer. This is interesting work, it sort of meshes guys who scouts feel are really good with a lot who they think are merely role players. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in four or five years. If you've come on something that is a lot more accurate, then I suspect somebody will be willing to pay you enough to filter in the other stuff. I really think I flubbed it by not including Cedeno at least somewhere on my own list, but can't really go back and change it until the next go round. Weiser, on the other hand will be an interesting test, I think you make a convincing argument that we've overrated him, but we'll see. __________________ Strikeouts are boring - besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls. More democratic.

01-12-2008, 12:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
Heltonfan Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Yerevan, Armenia Posts: 842	First, a couple corrections to your lists above: Kindel is indeed on my list, and there are two more guys who made my list but not the PR list: Everth Cabrera and Alan Johnson. Cabrera's appeal is obvious: a middle infielder with an OBP over .400 in the pitching-friendly Northwest League. Johnson I don't feel strongly about, since he was only #26 on my list. I'll take a mulligan on Velazquez: I completely forgot that he existed. He comes in at #16. That ranking feels high to me, but the whole point of this system is to see how well one can do without making such judgments, so I'll leave it as is. By way of explanation, though, the rankings are more or less a combination of two factors: 1) how good the player is now and 2) how much development time he has left. Velazquez, obviously, fares worse on the first criterion than anyone else on the list, but he's so young that his chances of developing into a real difference-maker are much, much greater. And if you look at the Top 100 list, I don't think that Velazquez types (guys with youth on their side, but performance not) are overrepresented, so on the whole, the system seems to handle such players well enough. Morillo didn't crack my top 30 because a) he's not particularly young anymore and b) he's a reliever, and because of their general lack of value, it's very difficult for relief prospects to rank highly. That said, Morillo's projection, and therefore his prospect ranking, is being dragged down a lot by his '05 and '06 seasons (when he was a starter), so it's possible I'm selling him short. And from a scouting perspective, obviously, he's got some real upside. Newman didn't make my list because he's not young, he's not good, and he's a reliever. I think that about covers it. When your upside is mediocre LOOGY, you're not a prospect. I've discussed Nix before, but the key points are the following: 1) Within the Purple Row community, he seems to be getting a huge boost for supposedly being a wizard with the glove. I'll believe it when I see it (not because of any doubts about Nix specifically, but because of doubts about the accuracy of such reports in general). 2) He's an absolutely atrocious hitter. His '07 was subpar by AAA standards. His '05 and '06 were replacement-level by AA standards. 3) He's already 25 years old. I don't see much potential here, and I see a guy who could conceivably single-handedly wreck our offense like Barmes did in '06. Keith Weiser is another Purple Row favorite who I just see no reason to like. When you're that hittable in A-ball, despite being at least a year too old for the level, you don't have a future. I suppose if everything breaks right, he can be Carlos Silva, but that's not exactly a compliment. Alternatively, we can look at it this way: Player A: 6.5 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9 Player B: 9.1 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9 Now, if I tell you that these two were members of the same rotation, and that they are the same age, which one do you take? I thought so. The guy with upside. Player A is Weiser, #17 on the PR list. Player B is Andy Graham, who wasn't named on a single ballot. Xavier Cedeno is an interesting one. I would imagine that the reason he failed to crack the Purple Row list is that his 2007 season, superficially, just doesn't look very good. 5.09 ERA? 83/61 K/BB? Blech. But he did a tremendous job of keeping the ball in the park (which he did the year before as well)... putting it all together, his Cal League ERC was 3.89. An above-average season in High-A at age 21? That's a real prospect. I'm not confident enough in these rankings to say that he's a slam-dunk top 20 guy, but he definitely shouldn't have been left off the list. To hammer home a previous point, Cedeno's translated statistics are better than Weiser's, and he's two years younger.

01-13-2008, 12:58 PM	#10 (permalink)
HoyaRoxFan Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 276	That would be ironic... and yet true of so many truffle-hunting expeditions in academia and media. Good stuff though.

01-16-2008, 03:09 PM	#11 (permalink)
BigRapidsJackass Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 1,086	HF's list: 1. Franklin Morales 2. Greg Reynolds 3. Ian Stewart 4. Dexter Fowler 5. Chris Nelson 6. Hector Gomez 7. Brandon Hynick 8. Eric Young 9. Chaz Roe 10. Michael McKenry 11. Shane Lindsay 12. Daniel Mayora 13. Xavier Cedeno 14. Aneury Rodriguez 15. Darin Holcomb 16. Helder Velazquez 17. Everth Cabrera 18. Seth Smith 19. Jonathan Herrera 20. Joe Koshansky 21. Will Harris 22. Brian Rike 23. Jhoulys Chacin 24. Pedro Strop 25. Samuel Deduno 26. Jeff Kindel 27. Alan Johnson 28. Esmil Rogers 29. Michael Paulk 30. Corey Wimberly Sickels' list is now out (www.minorleagueball.com): 1.Franklin Morales, LHP, Grade A- (Heltonfan's #1) 2.Casey Weathers, RHP, Grade B+ (HF not ranked) 3.Ian Stewart, 3B, Grade B (HF 3) 4.Hector Gomez, SS, Grade B (HF 6) 5.Christopher Nelson, SS, Grade B (HF 5) 6.Dexter Fowler, OF, Grade B- (HF 4) 7.Greg Reynolds, RHP, Grade B- (HF 2) 8.Juan Morillo, RHP, Grade B- (HF not ranked) 9.Brandon Hynick, RHP, Grade B- (HF 7) 10.Seth Smith, OF, Grade B- (HF 18) 11.Eric Young Jr, 2B, Grade B- (HF 8) 12.Dan Mayora, INF, Grade B- (HF 12) 13.Brian Rike, OF, Grade B- (HF 22) 14.Pedro Strop, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 24) 15.Chaz Roe, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 9) 16.Joe Koshansky, 1B, Grade C+ (HF 20) 17.Will Harris, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 21) 18.Aneury Rodriguez, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 14) 19.Connor Graham, RHP, Grade C+ (HF not ranked) 20.Jhoulys Chacin, RHP, Grade C+ (HF 23) I think HF's point here is that one can mechanically generate prospect lists (through a simple minor-league stats formula) that are roughly as useful as the "serious" prospect lists. And I think he's proven that. The level of agreement between Sickels and HF is pretty amazing, given that these prospect lists are typically the product of: (1) statistical analysis (whether an actual formula such as HF's quick-and-dirty prospect list generator) or a kind of "seat of the pants" feel for the stats; (2) scouting, whether live/in person, video, or based on the reports of others; (3) other factors, such as body frame, etc (will a Dexter Fowler "fill out" and start to show some power?). Of course, Sickels' -- by his nature and no doubt because of his limited financial wherewithal -- is always considered more "stat-based" than the others. Baseball America is the opposite, and they draw on a network of writers in the field, who in turn draw on personal observations and their conversations with scouts, who in turn draw on the Empty Hat of Tracy [couldn't resist.] So it will be more interesting to see how much agreement there is between the Heltonfan ProspectBot and the BA "Scouting" Reports. [That's not to say that scouting is irrelevant; all the players on these lists are in their respective organizations because some scout somewhere actually watched them play.]

01-17-2008, 02:22 PM	#13 (permalink)
BigRapidsJackass Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 1,086	HF, the success of the ProspectBot says something interesting about the old "scouts vs. stats" debate, namely: 1. Scouting is important in the drafting of players. 2. Once a player is drafted and signed -- and has at least a bit a year of minor league experience -- "scouting" in the traditional sense becomes essentially irrelevant to projecting future performance. Now, I'm not sure this is 100% correct. One could argue that both the mechanical stats-based formula of the PropectBot and the "stats + overall scouting impressions" input of the BA crowd undervalue young guys with exceptional raw tools who struggle mightily in the initial stages of their pro careers (David Christensen, anyone?). It seems that no one, not even the biggest scouting purist, has the guts to rank guys with miserable minor league stats highly on their prospect lists. So it would be interesting to see if some of those prospects -- the ones with tools, but who never make it onto the Top 20 lists -- do emerge as big leaguers. I'm guessing that while some do, it's a very small percentage, and there's absolutely no way to predict which ones do succeed. Hence, the tendency of everyone (Ringolsby included) to avoid putting these guys on their lists.

01-17-2008, 02:35 PM	#14 (permalink)
wolf213 Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Thornton Co Posts: 186	So it would be interesting to see if some of those prospects -- the ones with tools, but who never make it onto the Top 20 lists -- do emerge as big leaguers. ---- I belive we have one of these types of guys playing LF for us right now? Correct me if I am wrong, but Holliday had always had tools, but due to crappy minor league seasons, he was never highly rated. Could Jason Nix be another one of these types?

01-18-2008, 11:21 AM	#15 (permalink)
BigRapidsJackass Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 1,086	Wolf, you are correct that Nix and Holliday show some similarities. Both showed great promise as 19 year olds in Low A ball (Asheville), and followed that up with reasonably promising showings as 20 year olds in High A. Then both of them tanked big time. Holliday then had shoulder trouble, forcing the move from 3B to the OF. When he recovered, he had a couple really uninspiring seasons at AA, putting up an OPS numbers of 766 and 708 at ages 22/23. I can't remember what the prospect rankers were saying about him at the time, but that's probably because he was viewed as essentially a non-prospect by then. I don't think there was any good reason to believe (based on performance) that he'd get more than a cup of coffee, at best, in MLB. And then Dustan Mohr hurt his leg celebrating an opening day victory, Holliday got called up from the Springs, and, well, he never looked back. Nix's 19/20 year old seasons were very, very promising in Low A/Hi A. But as we all know, he followed that up with 3 truly putrid years in -- 2 in AA, one in AAA. (OPS: 628, 644, 630). I had no idea why they protected him on the 40-man roster after that final ('06) performance. But, hey, maybe Schmidt/Geivett and the boys know something that I don't know. He didn't exactly dominate last year (793 OPS), but his leap back to respectability was totally unexpected. And if you take away the slow start, you can construct an argument (not that convincing an argument, but still) that he's taken a great leap forward. So there's some similarity there. Will the Rox catch lightning in a bottle twice? Pretty unlikely. (One big difference: Holliday is huge, Nix is 5'11" on his tiptoes). But given the other 2B options, the new focus on Nix doesn't strike me as a bad idea. Certainly better than throwing Barmes out there again.