That was Carson Cistulli (still fangraphs), not longenhagen. Longenhagen said he'd be a 40 present value and joked about adding a new feature to the site and mentioned he'd be rank 15, so that's not top 100
Interesting perspective. I disagree but interesting. Comparing a year 4 HS draftee's A-ball numbers directly a low-round draftee's A-ball numbers from 3 years ago when said the latter has had massive late helium seems bizarre to me. In my mind, Sandoval was a bad season away from release and him performing at A ball in year 4 doesn't significantly move the needle for me. Sure he could take a Musgrove-like turn but I haven't read much about his stuff ticking up in the way that James's had. He's still a 'tops out at 91 lefty with decent secondaries" guy. One out of 10000 guys turns into Keuchel, but most don't amount to much. James BTW has a career BB/9 of 3.4. That's not elite Musgrove-in-the-minors control but that's not red-flag territory for me.
I thought Sandoval was something like 90-93? I'd agree that he's not particularly close to a top 100 for me, and would probably rank James ahead of him until we see Sandoval hold his own at higher levels.
I find the Josh James discussion interesting. Reliever seems the safe bet on what he becomes, but expect the Astros to try to develop him as a starter as long as possible. That said, with starters pitching less innings (generally speaking even if Astros have an unusual set of starters at the moment), the difference in value between a BoR starter and a late inning reliever has gotten a lot smaller. With Astros current rotation, it may be very tempting to go the reliever route if they need one later this year. My biggest beef with Top 100 lists is that a lot can happen between A ball and AA. Guys that are close to MLB-ready, but not projected to be stars get underrated as Top 100 lists seem to be about a cross between "ceilings" and expected value. I prefer expected value. Snake seems to prefer a cross between "ceilings" and expected value. I have a hard time seeing a 21-year old in A ball with a worse K%-BB% having more expected value than a 25-year old in AAA with a higher K%-BB%.
I agree with pretty much all this (except the last sentence but that’s pure opinion). When I evaluate prospects this is the order of items I look at: 1. Signing bonus. If we assume the organizations know more than any fan or website, the best most concrete indicator of a prospect’s potential and expected value is how much money the club committed to him. Obviously the further away from signing the player gets, the less meaningful it becomes relative to other things, but generally it will always be the best indicator. 2. Age relative to league. Next to signing bonus, this is the best indicator of a prospects odds of reaching the majors. Older Players beating up on younger opponents is way less of an indicator of future success than a younger player simply holding his own against older competition. Age relative to league is also a very good indication of what the org thinks of the prospect, and again, I always assume they know the most (especially in Houston’s case). 3. Strikeouts. For both hitters and pitchers, strikeouts are the most accurate statistic to use when filtering out which prospects project to be big leaguers. A player who strikes out >25% of the time in the minors, especially if he’s not young for the league, has very little chance of reaching the majors regardless of other tools (power, walks, defense, speed). A pitcher who can’t strikeout at least one minor leaguer per inning also faces extremely long odds. 4a-z. Power, Walks, Defense, Speed/Baserunning, Scout opinions, Velocity, etc. I consider all these factors meaningful, but they are just noise relative to the 1st 3 criteria on this list. That said, I penalize defensively limited prospects pretty heavily. When was the last time Houston developed a truly successful prospect who was entirely limited to 1B/DH? So you can see why I might overrate guys like Arauz, Toro, Sandoval, and Dawson, and underrate guys like James, Armenteros, Alcala, and H Perez.
I'm pretty similar. That said, AAA is not full of just young guys. Beating up on AAA players at age 25 is more impressive than beating up A ball players at 21. There are 69 pitchers 24 and under in AAA. There are 40 pitchers 20 and younger in A ball. For James and Sandoval, I would not put much weight on (1) as they are well removed from acquisition. On (2), both are not really young for their leagues so neither gets much credit (or discredit) for age, but James gets more credit for being in a higher league. On (3), James wins easily.
Sandoval is nowhere close to a Top 100 guy. He'd need to be an Astros Top 5 prospect. He's 88-92mph and tops at 93 with an above average curve, an average to slightly above average changeup, and a slider that has a chance to be average. He'll turn 22 at the end of the year (October) and should finish in High A. I'm expecting the Astros to keep developing him slowly, so he'll probably start in High A in 2019 and hopefully will reach AA next year. If he reaches the majors at some point, it'll likely be his age 24 season in 2021. He's likely to stay a starter, given he has two pretty good secondary pitches already, but he does throw with a bit of effort.
Also, both of Kyle Tucker's homers last night were absolute bombs over the 428ft sign in right center.
https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/katoh-forecasting-major-league-pitching-with-minor-league-stats/ There is a good graph on chance to make majors for players under 27 at this site. I'd give James a greater than 75% chance to make the majors (this is likely a conservative assumption). It is easy to see how elite an A Ball prospect needs to be versus his peers to get a 75% chance at making the majors. While odds of making a majors isn't a great proxy for expected value, it is hard to have a higher expected value when the odds of making the majors are likely so different.
I may have been hasty labeling Sandoval as a top 100 guy. But I would still keep him as a grade 50/55 and rank him over Josh James. Tale of the tape: Bonus: Sandoval Age relative to league: Sandoval K/9: James Bb/9: Sandoval K/bb: Sandoval ERA: James FIP/XFIP: Sandoval Velocity: James Secondaries: Sandoval I also give Sandoval points for being a lefty. The other thing to keep in mind is that a 21 year old in A ball is much more likely to be working on weaknesses (which would negatively skew his stats) than a 25 year old in AAA, who is strictly focused on getting guys out.
Deury Carrasco and Fruedis Nova made the BA top 20 DSL prospects list. It mentioned that Solis is one of the top players from last year that played there, but since he was a top GCL prospect they kept him off the list. Speaking of the DSL, it starts Saturday, so we should at least be able to see what players graduated stateside by then.
His age relative to league suggests he has about a 20-40% chance of making the majors using the A ball curve on the Fangraphs graph I referenced assuming 100% correlation between age relative to league and chance to make majors. James based on his age relative to league has a 50-80% chance of making the majors. I see this as a solid win for James regarding expected value. Age relative to league without regards to league suggests Sandoval has a slightly higher ceiling all other things being equal (i.e., where he is on his league's bell curve, but not comparing that league's bell curve to chance to majors).
Not to go down a rabbit hole but those % are influenced much less by age relativity than by the level. Yes, James has a high likelihood of reaching the majors. But so does the average AAA player regardless of age. By the same token, based solely on being in A ball, Sandoval is unlikely to reach the majors. But that’s evaluating the prospects’ proximity to the majors, not any quality that compares him to his peers. I’m fine giving points to prospects that are closer to the majors, but I think age relative to league (with ‘relative’ being the operative metric) matters more because it’s more reflective of the prospects’ status vs his peers, which is what we are trying to evaluate. It’s completely subjective so I understand your logic, but still disagree with you.
Where does proximity to the majors rank on your chart? If you disregard proximity to majors, you are going to overvalue "ceiling" if what you are after is expected value. There is a reason KATOH's expected WARs favored guys in the upper minors (especially for pitchers). There is a reason why guys that maintain their spot relative to their peers move up prospect lists as they move up levels. "By the same token, based solely on being in A ball, Sandoval is unlikely to reach the majors." Does this not cause you to think his proximity to majors makes his age relative to league less valuable?
Closer proximity to the majors narrows the band of outcomes more than it does increase the expected value. The “% chance of reaching the majors” you keep referencing is a great indicator of floor, but not necessarily a very good predictor of expected value. All other things being equal, yes, guys closer to the majors should be ranked higher, but that factor is pretty far down my list.
Disagree highly. Let's take Nova for example. His ceiling is worth say 20 WAR now. His expected value is less than 3 WAR as he's not in the Top 100. If Nova makes it to AAA in a few years, his ceiling will likely still be around 20 WAR if he remains where he's at relative to his peers. As Nova has made it to AAA, his floor (chance to make the majors) has dramatically increased. Provided Nova is succeeding at AAA, I would expect his expected value to dramatically to have increased over 3 WAR. If Nova busts in AAA or before, his expected value would go to zero. Feel free to change what the ceiling value is. I picked a high number, but probably off by some. What about my thoughts on Nova would you disagree with other than approximate ceiling value? Edit: I know this is overly simplistic. As players succeed at higher levels, their floors increase by more than their ceilings decrease (i.e. expected value goes up). As players bust at higher levels, their ceilings and floors decrease to zero (i.e. expected value goes down.)
I disagree with everything you typed. Like I said, the band of potential outcomes narrows as a prospect ages and gets closer to the majors and we have more data. At this point Nova could be Hanley Ramirez or he could never get out of the complex leagues. As he moves up we will figure out a lot more about both his ceiling and floor. I feel like we’ve monopolized the thread so I wont respond anymore and let you have the last word if you want it.
