Not true. For one, grading draft picks right out of the draft isn't pointless--your information is incomplete, but there is still enough out there to draw some conclusions. There is a whole segment of baseball journalism dedicated to analyzing, grading, and ranking minor league prospects. That's how we get lists like Baseball America's or Keith Law's top 100 each year. There are many ways to analyze prospects. None of them are 100% reliable, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth doing.
Good points on Sanchez, bad comparison. I'd heard the Wolf comparison, also like the words "beast" and "bulldog" being thrown around on this guy.
You are so wrong. Spoiler Well sorta :grin: For the casual baseball fan (like found here at a basketball forum), we are more more familiar with the basket draft or even the football draft. Football and Basketball (mostly) don't have minor leagues. Top draft choices play right away. Baseball is so different. Top draft picks typically have to spend several years working their way through the minor leagues. At each step through the process, there is a great deal of uncertainty. For example this year, can Ross Seaton, one of the Astros recent top picks, get people out in AA? The answer appears to be no. But there is always next year, where the answer could decidedly change to hell yeah. If Seaton figures it out next year in AA, one would not be surprised at a AAA promotion and potentially landing in a top 100 list. Zero to Hero in less than a year. And in this scenario, Seaton still has to answer the question if he can get hitters out at AAA. If he can't, then he is off the top 100 list in a flash. Hero to Zero in less than a year. The casual baseball fan may not be able to grok the fluidity and uncertainty of prospect rankings. I for one would not mind seeing something from Baseball America like : 15. Joe Player - 3B - very toolsy. 18% chance of having a 10 year MLB career. The 18% chance would set the expectations for the casual baseball fans, like me
Prospect analysis will never be as exact as you are wishing for it to be. Sure, publications like BA could throw out percentage numbers like that, but they would be extremely rough guesses. The best way to get a feel for the minor leagues and the quality of different baseball prospects is to spend a lot of time studying the minors and paying attention to scouting reports, statistics, video, etc. And no, I don't think one season of success would be good enough to vault Ross Seaton to top 100 status at this point. Too long and sustained a pattern of failure.
I was not trying to pick on Ross Seaton; it is just that I needed an example. BTW what has Ross Seaton got for his "too long and sustained a pattern of failure"? A yearly promotion. That might not happen next year but it is confusing for the casual fan. Speaking of Seaton, I openly wonder if his troubles are not partially to blame on the Astros player development. This is probably a question that can not be definitively answered but ... Most of the Astros minor league teams are playing below 500 ball. I suspect that most minor league teams at a given level (except AAA) have about the same amount of talent. Some teams might have one or two more prospects but not enough to dramatically change their team's win-loss record. Given this admittedly shaky proposition, one might concluded that the below average teams are doing a bad job of developing or coaching up the non-prospect talent. This below average coaching/development might also keep the real prospect from reaching their potential. It will be interesting to see what changes Crane makes to the Astros minor league system going forward.
And if you look at how many of those top 100 panned out in the majors over the years, you'd see why I feel how I feel. The reason why it's mostly pointless, especially when you're not talking about AAA stud/can't-miss guys, is that the averages are just against you. Of all the prospects we obtained at the trade deadline, odds are only one of them will make any impact on the majors. And I'm not even talking about being a star, but rather just being an average starter. If two pan out, I'd be dancing for joy. If any one of them turn out to be Bagwell or Biggio, I'd worship the ground Ed Wade walks on. There's a reason why organizations with good farms have A TON OF prospects. That's because the odds are so low it's almost like having a lottery. You fill your entire minor league with young, high-upside players. Maybe 30% go from A to AA. Then another 30% go from AA to AAA. Then another 30% reach the majors. Then another 30% reach stardom. But if you have enough of them, a few will break through and become stars. The rest you can either trade for established players, or write off as they taper off.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up an old (2005) Top 100 List. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/features/050303top100charts.html Let's just say, I'd much rather have prospects on this list than off it. Pretty much every player that is looked at as a "star" today is on here. It's an inexact science, but the guys making these lists actually do know a little about what they are doing.
FAR more of the top 100 prospects pan out year in and year out than minor leaguers who are not top 100 prospects. If you glance over top 100 prospect lists you will see they are littered with ML regular and names you will recognize. And almost every star player, with VERY few exceptions, was a top 100 prospect at one point in his career. It's a percentage game. There are thousands of minor league players in baseball. A top 100 list is an attempt to list the guys who have the best chance of ML success. And that's very much worth doing. There is some truth to your statement that many prospects never pan out, but that doesn't make analyzing prospects a bad idea. In fact, I'd argue that the ability to assess the value of prospects-their ceilings and their likelihoods of reaching them--is one of the most important skills in baseball management. You can't just throw a bunch of crap at the wall and see what sticks, you really have to find out which ones have the best chance at success, and which ones have a chance at becoming true impact players.
Someone put some Oberholtzer video up on youtube. You can't see his stuff, but you can get a good look at his build and motion. He's definately built like a bulldog: <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0HqLievOD30" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The top 100 list is always changing though. Some players aren't projected well, then they have success and get on the list later. Ryan Howard was drafted in 2001, as late as 2004 he still had not appeared in baseball america's top 100. He had a cup of coffee in the big's before he shot up to the #27 prospect pre-2005. Just because a player isn't top 100 now, doesn't mean he won't be.
Posting an OPS over 1.000 with 46 HR will do that for you. Telvin Nash, who has Ryan Howard potential, is putting up numbers similar to Howard's when he was in the Sally League. Howard was 22. Nash is 20. If Nash could stay healthy, he could be a top prospect
Just checked the top WAR in the NL, guys in bold were almost instant prospects Hitters Matt Kemp 3 years before 96 Andrew McCutchen Ryan Braun Jose Reyes Matt Holliday Never Appeared Michael Bourn Never Appeared Troy Tulowitzki Joey Votto 5 season before got to # 43 Shane Victorino Never Appeared Justin Upton Carlos Beltran 4 season before shot to # 14 Chris Young 4 seasons before shot to # 23 Pitchers Roy Halladay Cole Hamels Clayton Kershaw Cliff Lee 3 seasons before # 30 Jair Jurrjens 5 seasons before # 49 Jhoulys Chacin 3 seasons before # 46 Ian Kennedy Tim Stauffer never appeared Ryan Vogelsong never appeared Johnny Cueto 3 seasons before # 34 Johnny Venters never appeared Tim Lincecum 24 players Only 10 players were immediate prospects 8 players played their way onto the list 6 players never appeared at all People assume a non prospect will never be a prospect, most people on the list played their way onto the list plus being called up disqualifies you from the list, if our players had finished out the year in the minors Jordan Lyles J.D. Martinez Jose Altuve Jonathan Singleton Jarred Cosart Brett Olberholser (he'll appear on the next list, won't be high though) and maybe Kody Hinze and Jonathan Villar thats 6, possibly 8 top 100 players
Springer will appear on the list, scouts are gushing over his abilities. Ovando needs to keep hitting and he'll show up too, his tools are off the charts. Scouts love Villar also, even in a down offensive year, he should move the list. I think 5 make it and guys like Foltyz, Houser, Clemens and Obie will push for the list also.
I doubt Oberholtzer makes any top 100 lists, Villar is a more likely candidate. And yes Springer is pretty much a surefire top 100 prospect when he signs.
All this kind of talk makes me wish I could flash-forward 3-4 years and see how it all turned out. A couple thoughts regarding the thread in general. I was wondering what perspective it puts on it all to have 3 of the top 10 when the amount of players traded/received by each team are uneven. How many prospect players were received in total at the trade deadline? As for projections and rankings, its a bit like guessing what the weather will be like in several days. You could have every weather site say it will be sunny, and yet, it could still rain. Loading up in terms of numbers is good, but you can only have so many guys on the farm. True, some guys already there needed to be replaced. In other cases, you let someone go to make room for the new guy, and the old guy goes on to be a star and your new guy stinks up the joint. So oddly, its a process we need. But at the same time, a process that wrong nearly as often as its right.
