Prospect Buzzkill '09!
by danmerqury on Sep 15, 2009 5:48 PM PDT
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This isn’t a fun post to read. It’s not even a fun post to write. That’s right, folks, it’s the latest installment of doom and gloom.
Okay, it’s not that bad.
I mainly wanted to write this post after seeing this article on Fangraphs. It’s something we should all read. I’m not preaching ultimate pessimism or anything, but, well, I’m just a little tired of seeing something like this.
C1: Donaldson, Josh
1B: Carter, Chris
2B: Weeks, Jemile
SS: Cardenas, Adrian
3B: Wallace, Brett
LF: Desme, Grant
CF: Brown, Corey
RF: Doolittle, Sean
It’s fun. It’s exciting. They’re shiny new toys. But we’ve got to be, at least a little bit, realistic. The Victor Wang SABR article that Fangraphs cites is a great read, but you can glean all of the necessary information from the tables he attaches. Not all prospects are going to succeed. Victor Wang analyzed Baseball America’s top 100 rankings from 1990 to 1999. He then put each prospect into categories according to Wins Above Bench (think WAR with a slightly different baseline). Prospects that averaged over 4 WAB per year he considered "stars". Those averaging between 2-4 WAB/year were "everyday" players. Those between 0-2 WAB/year were merely "contributers", and those below zero he deemed as "busts". I’m going to take a look and revisit Baseball America’s 2009 Top 100 Prospects preseason rankings, and give this an A’s related look.
Brett Anderson (7)
Pitchers in the top 10 busted 31% of the time. Only 8% went on to be solid regulars or better.
Trevor Cahill (11)
Pitchers ranked 11-25 busted 32% of the time. Interestingly, 15% became at least solid regular players.
Brett Wallace (40)
Hitters ranked 26-50 busted 35% of the time. 20% became everyday players or stars.
Michael Ynoa (54)
Aaron Cunningham (55)
Adrian Cardenas (74)
Pitchers ranked 51-75 busted 39% of the time. 8% were regulars or better.
Hitters ranked 51-75 busted 45% of the time, yet, 18% reached everyday status.
Chris Carter (76)
Gio Gonzalez (97)
Pitchers ranked 76-100 busted 43% of the time. Only 7% were regular players.
Hitters ranked 76-100 also busted 43% of the time. 13% were ever really any good.
Remember, no team is ever fully homegrown. Of course, these are preseason rankings, and things chance (hell of a season, Carter), but we can’t count on a lineup or rotation full of prospects. It’s just not going to happen. Remember Javier Herrera? Me neither.
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I still hold out hope Javier will do something good.
Injury’s for prospects suck.
i just looked up javier herrera
why did he only play in one game for midland this year?
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones."
-BB 07/27/05
Herrera was released long ago
"just a beating heart ... plasma that we'll put into our uniform." - Billy Beane
by athleticsBB4life on Sep 15, 2009 6:49 PM PDT up reply actions
Javier Herrera was ranked above Cole Hamels in BA's 2005 List
He can do it all tools-wise. If he were American, he would have been a certain first-round pick.
They say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing all the time!
I have an open ended question regarding the research...
Is it possible that the data Victor Wang collected is already outdated? He looked at BA’s lists from 1990-1999, but we know that there was a fairly significant evolution in scouting just a few years after the timeframe of the study. The introduction (or perhaps, the increased emphasis of) statistical analysis should have had some kind of affect on how prospects are graded and ranked.
The monster at the end of this blog.
Good point
1999 was freaking ten years ago!
You have to include smiley faces - Poppy
;- ) :- ) :-O : -> : -] : -}
my thoughts exactly
well said!
"If Bowden was a general contractor, he'd build houses with nine bedrooms, six garages, no bathrooms, and half a roof."
by DyeLongJustice on Sep 15, 2009 6:59 PM PDT up reply actions
Definitely a relevant question,
But the counteranswer would be that Baseball America has never exactly been a bastion of sabermetric brilliance. They’re quite the scout-toolsy-old school type of guys.
But I’m sure the prospect rankings for this decade would be at least a little better.
They've gotten significantly better in the last ten though
So it would stand to reason that the success rates would have improved as well
Ben Grieve!!!
"If Bowden was a general contractor, he'd build houses with nine bedrooms, six garages, no bathrooms, and half a roof."
Can we stop using Ben Grieve as an example of a failed prospect
He may not have reached his own lofty potential, but he was far from a failed prospect.
Same goes for Bobby Crosby.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
Yeah, but some of these guys (I'm looking at Carter in particular) are going to be higher next season
So I’d figure based on this season Carter’s a Top 25 prospect next year. I’m sure that alters the success/fail rate.
The Oakland A's: Pissing off fathers of disappointing baseball players who still managed to be better than their dads (charter club members: Tom Grieve & Ed Crosby)
Last of the Ninth - Photography
I don't think there's very many people at AN that believe that...
all of those guys will pan out. There isn’t a whole lot of minor league ABs there. Certainly the raw talent is there.
I don’t think Cardenas will be a SS, nor do I think that Wallace will be a 3B very long.
I think what excites everybody is that there are so many good prospects in that bunch. Ten percent of a lot is better than 10 percent of a little.
And there’s probably a decent chance that someone else from within the organization jumps over one or more of those guys.
"I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did." -Yogi Berra
only 4 of those guys you have in your lineup
are homegrown
A missing factor
Being in a stat baseball league with a AAA team because you carry on players next year I have watched many BA top players go nowhere. The reason was the opportunity factor. If a player is blocked their opportunity to play could stunt their growth and never amount to anything. Brandon Wood is the new poster boy of this. Opportunity plays a much bigger factor than what a scout will tell you. A good example is Cliff Pennington. Stat wise he has done nothing great in the minors. If he does exceeding well in the next year he could be the A’s 3b or SS of the future. 3b because of Green coming up. His time is now to capture his future.
Comparing current prospects
To past prospects when they have zero to do with each other is still and will always be, stupid.
"Chicks dig the long ball, although fat chicks will settle for warning track power" - Nick Diamond
I think as an overall view of the 'success' rate of prospects, with the general conclusion of
’don’t count your chickens’, is not stupid. It might not be terribly revealing, but still.
Well I think everybody knows not to cement these guys as superstars
But it doesn’t do anything to say prospects A, B, and C didn’t work out here, so prospects D, E, and F will bust there. Not all prospects are created equal, so you can’t use past success rates to judge these guys — they’re different players.
"Chicks dig the long ball, although fat chicks will settle for warning track power" - Nick Diamond
You're supposed to evaluate them individually
Some prospects are surer bet than others. Comparing a bat like Adrian Cardenas (who can basically fall out of bed and hit .300), to say, Adam Piatt or Richie Robnett 6 or 7 years ago is stupid. Neither had the insane ability to put the bat on the ball or had the great pitch recognition that Cardenas does.
"Chicks dig the long ball, although fat chicks will settle for warning track power" - Nick Diamond
whats the point of this post?
Are you trying to tell us that all of our young players are going to fail? Thats a load of horse shit, the law of averages has always showed that when you have so many highly regarded prospects, at least some of them will have solid-to-great careers.
The A’s are winning, have an insane amount of talented players in the organization, yet AN is doomsdaying it everywhere. What gives?
No, I’m pretty sure he’s saying that there’s good reason not to put all our eggs in one basket and hope all of these prospects wind up being saviors because the odds of that happening are pretty slim.
Nowhere do I see him saying they’re all going to be busts. That’s you misreading something that’s really written pretty clearly.
Last of the Ninth - Photography
Google > Search settings >
SafeSearch filtering > use strict filtering.
It doesn’t catch everything, but it cuts it down a lot.
Seriously, when you use image search, no matter what words you put in the search fields, chances are it’s going to turn up at least one banned image. There’s a lot of dirty pictures out there.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
Further eye-rolling
I think you exaggerate quite a bit with this “AN is doomsdaying it everywhere” stuff, too. There are quite a few people who are rather pleased with the way the team is playing and the future in store for the team with many of these prospects waiting in the wings, but you’ve latched on to some idea that the whole site is completely down on everything based on a few things you’re choosing to react to.
To borrow from you, what gives?
Last of the Ninth - Photography
this post, for one.
No one was saying these things about BA+TC and theyve both been pretty great after being rushed, all things considered. Now we have all these bats (and we NEED bats) who are even MORE developed than those 2, and there’s all these posts like “Chris Carter+Wallace need to be at AAA all of 2010”, which they have shown in this season here that they are ready for a cup of coffee, and they will mot likely be considered for opening day 2010 if they mash in spring, so there’s absolutely no reason at all to wait a full year on them.
Im tired of waiting we have sucked for 2.75 years now and people seem to like to revel in that. Now we are finally playing good ball again and people have these mystic years like 2011 and 2012 where we arent allowed to be good until then. Its frustrating listening to fellow A’s fans talk like this.
by PL78 on Sep 17, 2009 11:07 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
You're still not getting it
He’s not saying Anderson and Cahill will bust, but showing the percentage of pitchers ranked where they were that did. There’s nothing wrong with tempering enthusiasm with a little realism. Anderson’s had some pretty rough spots this year but lately he looks like he’s really been figuring it out, so it’s reasonable to figure he’s got a good chance to be among the 8% that make it.
Cahill’s really had some ups and downs and a lot of that has had to do with a lack of consistency in his curve and his arm slot, which he’s just admitted he can’t tell the position of most of the time. Last night is a look at the potential he’s got but he still needs some time to get a few issues worked out.
You can see the talent Carter and Wallace possess but people who have watched them can see the things they need time to improve on without being rushed so they’re in over their heads at the Major League level. Wallace has questions about whether he can stick at third base. Carter has questions about his ability to hit non-fastballs. Both of them should get at least half a year in Sacramento next season. That’s hardly going to be a negative impact on them or the team in the long run.
I think you need to learn better patience and stop taking things some people say as a sort of proof or evidence that all of AN is predominantly negative when it’s not true.
Last of the Ninth - Photography
They ought to have a button that lets you preview
your comment before posting it.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
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