Baseball America just posted their latest minor league transaction log today. It includes some names on the cut list that should be familiar to anyone who's followed our minor league system over the last few years:
*Jason Sharber, a good-looking righty who hasn't been able to pitch since early 2004 due to a series of arm problems. He was trying a comeback this spring, but things apparently didn't work out, and this is likely the end of his pro career. A look back at Lynchburg's 2002 roster is a good reminder of the inherent instability of young pitching. Every starter on that team looked like one variety or another of prospect, but Burnett and Sharber got hurt, and Jacobsen, Connolly, and Borner were finesse guys who apparently didn't have the stuff to handle the transition to the upper minors. Bennett looks like he's finally establishing himself with the Braves, but even he didn't exactly have a smooth ride to the bigs: He got picked in the Rule 5 draft, had Tommy John surgery, got released, missed the entire 2006 season, and gained more than 50 pounds.
*Cameron Blair, a sixth-round pick from 2005. Blair had the misfortune of being an offensively-minded second baseman whose bat didn't translate to the bigs. He looked pretty lost from day one, and also spent part of 2006 on the restricted list for reasons that have never really become clear. I don't think he'll be missed, but it's a pretty strong indictment of your scouts when they miss this badly on a fairly high pick, and our success rate on middle infielders in particular has been low in recent years. Which brings us to our next guy...
*Taber Lee, the brother of former ML 1B Travis Lee. Taber was our third-round pick in 2002. The selection was pretty roundly criticized in the fan community at the time, as a microcosm for the Creech/Littlefield/McClatchy drafting preferences for gloves over bats, ML proximity over ceiling, and signability over everything else. Regarded as a future utility infielder, Lee was unable to reach even that modest ceiling, as his glove was not as strong as had been previously assumed.
*Mauricio Mendez, one of the three guys we took in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft this year. His stat line was interesting, and I wonder why they didn't take a longer look at him. He's actually the second of our Rule 5 picks this year to depart before suiting up in a game; we also sent Rafael Cruz Chavez to a Mexican team a few months ago.
*Vic Buttler, one of the longest-tenured players in the organization. Part of Mickey White's insanely productive 2000 draft, Buttler joined the franchise in the 14th round as a 19-year-old outfielder from El Camino College. Over eight years, he played at every level of the farm system, making league All-Star teams in 2002 and 2006. If you've seriously followed any of our affiliates for a few years, you've probably seen him play at least once or twice.
Those may be the big names (for varying values of "big"), but there were a lot of other cuts as well. Fairly anonymous guys, drafted in the 30th round, or the 40th, or not at all, who pitched a dozen innings in the GCL, or sat on the bench at State College. They all knew that the odds were long, but they've played baseball all their lives, and they wanted to believe that they'd be the next Mike Piazza (62nd round, '88) or Rob Mackowiak (53rd round, '96). Now, they'll try to catch on with an indy league team, or settle into that sales job. Maybe give coaching a try.
From an institutional standpoint, it's a good thing that the Pirates won't need to fill their short season team with late-round college players anymore, but there's still a certain pathos in watching the guys who didn't have The Right Stuff pack up their gear and go. That's baseball, red in tooth and claw. Every shiny new draft pick is taking someone else's job, and even if you are one of the lucky chosen few with an arm or a bat touched by God, you aren't going to be able to make it to MLB without stepping over the bodies of a dozen other guys who had the same hopes and dreams.
Showing posts with label Prospects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prospects. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
When prospect lists attack
Three prospect lists came out today, and I thought it might be fun to look at them within a Pirate context.
First up: Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus. His list has three Pirates. Andrew McCutchen is #24, Steve Pearce is #43, and Neil Walker is #94. The second ranking, posted a few hours later, was Keith Law's for ESPN.com. He ranked McCutchen at #12, Neil Walker at #89, and Brad Lincoln at #97. His ranking included comments, which I've provided below:
The third list, compiled by "20 members of the scouting community", was posted at minorleaguebaseball.com. It includes only one Pirate, Cutch, but gives him his highest rating among the three lists, at #8 overall. The article links to a little analytical capsule. I'd quote it here, but you really ought to click the link because the page also includes some scouting video that's worth seeing.
It's interesting to look at the lists as a reflection of the preferences of the men who wrote them and the institutions that commissioned them. Goldstein spent most of his career at scouting-oriented Baseball America, before moving to the much more stat-oriented Baseball Prospectus. Law is a writer who started out at BPro, spent some time in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays (under J.P. Ricciardi, the least "Moneyball" of Beane's assistants), and then took a position with the more scouting-oriented ESPN. The scouts, meanwhile, are going to be fairly scouty in their perspective, but their list is the process of analysis-by-committee rather than individual insight, which can be an advantage at times (because it rules out individual craziness) and a disadvantage at others (because it rules out individual brilliance).
The link between respect for scouting and enthusiasm over McCutchen seems pretty straightforward. He didn't have the killer offensive season that some other top CF prospects did last year, but most scouts seem to retain confidence in his tools and makeup, and they feel that his second-half improvement is a reflection of adjustments that he made (instead of random variation, or promotion bias, or something to that effect). Looking at the video, I do think that Law's point about McCutchen's lower body is a good one. With better weight transfer, he could add some extra pop, though I think that if it does show up it'll come initially as doubles/triples rather than HR. He just looks like he's got a line drive swing right now.
It's interesting that Law didn't put Pearce on his list at all, especially when Goldstein ranked him so highly. There are a lot of valid reasons why he might have done so, but I'm curious about which ones apply here. I dropped him a note, and if he replies, I'll be sure to pass it on. It's also worth noting that BPro has generally treated corner players with unusual bodies (Pearce is kind of small) better than most analysts in the field.
I think it's very interesting that there seems to be a good consensus about Walker, placing him as a future starter but not a star. That might be a disappointment for casual fans who wanted a star, but if he turns into a Travis Fryman or a Doug DeCinces, it's honestly not a bad outcome for us. An average regular would be an upgrade on what Bautista's giving us right now, and when you have an average regular making the minimum, that lets you throw extra money at other holes.
There are still a few lists out there lurking in the weeds, most notably the one from Baseball America, which usually comes out in late February.
First up: Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus. His list has three Pirates. Andrew McCutchen is #24, Steve Pearce is #43, and Neil Walker is #94. The second ranking, posted a few hours later, was Keith Law's for ESPN.com. He ranked McCutchen at #12, Neil Walker at #89, and Brad Lincoln at #97. His ranking included comments, which I've provided below:
McCutchen started off horribly in AA this year, but finally turned his season around in his last 40-odd games there, hitting .307/.382/.460 from July 1 until a mid-August promotion to AAA. McCutchen has incredibly quick wrists that give him tremendous plate coverage and result in a lot of hard, line-drive contact, as well as flashes of raw power. The player-development fiasco in the Pirates' minor league system under Dave Littlefield has hurt McCutchen, however, as he doesn't use his lower half and get his weight transferred with his swing, so all his power now is in his wrists and forearms; once he gets his whole body involved, he should have 30-plus homer power. He's a 65-70 runner with good baserunning instincts, and he plays a plus center field. Take heart, Pirate fans: Nyjer Morgan's goofy routes have only a year or so left in Pittsburgh's center field.
[...]
Walker's plate discipline took a 180 for the better this year, to the point where he's now clearly going to play in the big leagues. He wears down every season even now that he's no longer a catcher, and his defense at third remains unacceptable, so he may end up a 'tweener who doesn't hit enough to play first and can't handle any tougher position on defense.
[...]
Lincoln missed 2007 after Tommy John surgery, but is expected to be ready to go in March. He has an above-average fastball and power curve with some feel for a changeup and is a good athlete who can swing the bat a little bit. It remains to be seen whether his stuff still measures up after the operation.
The third list, compiled by "20 members of the scouting community", was posted at minorleaguebaseball.com. It includes only one Pirate, Cutch, but gives him his highest rating among the three lists, at #8 overall. The article links to a little analytical capsule. I'd quote it here, but you really ought to click the link because the page also includes some scouting video that's worth seeing.
It's interesting to look at the lists as a reflection of the preferences of the men who wrote them and the institutions that commissioned them. Goldstein spent most of his career at scouting-oriented Baseball America, before moving to the much more stat-oriented Baseball Prospectus. Law is a writer who started out at BPro, spent some time in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays (under J.P. Ricciardi, the least "Moneyball" of Beane's assistants), and then took a position with the more scouting-oriented ESPN. The scouts, meanwhile, are going to be fairly scouty in their perspective, but their list is the process of analysis-by-committee rather than individual insight, which can be an advantage at times (because it rules out individual craziness) and a disadvantage at others (because it rules out individual brilliance).
The link between respect for scouting and enthusiasm over McCutchen seems pretty straightforward. He didn't have the killer offensive season that some other top CF prospects did last year, but most scouts seem to retain confidence in his tools and makeup, and they feel that his second-half improvement is a reflection of adjustments that he made (instead of random variation, or promotion bias, or something to that effect). Looking at the video, I do think that Law's point about McCutchen's lower body is a good one. With better weight transfer, he could add some extra pop, though I think that if it does show up it'll come initially as doubles/triples rather than HR. He just looks like he's got a line drive swing right now.
It's interesting that Law didn't put Pearce on his list at all, especially when Goldstein ranked him so highly. There are a lot of valid reasons why he might have done so, but I'm curious about which ones apply here. I dropped him a note, and if he replies, I'll be sure to pass it on. It's also worth noting that BPro has generally treated corner players with unusual bodies (Pearce is kind of small) better than most analysts in the field.
I think it's very interesting that there seems to be a good consensus about Walker, placing him as a future starter but not a star. That might be a disappointment for casual fans who wanted a star, but if he turns into a Travis Fryman or a Doug DeCinces, it's honestly not a bad outcome for us. An average regular would be an upgrade on what Bautista's giving us right now, and when you have an average regular making the minimum, that lets you throw extra money at other holes.
There are still a few lists out there lurking in the weeds, most notably the one from Baseball America, which usually comes out in late February.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Prospecty stuff
*Baseball America published capsule descriptions of some players who didn't quite make the cut, including three Pirate prospects: Charles Benoit, Serguey Linares, and Nelson Pereira. Linares is pretty well known as one of Littlefield's impulse buys last year, and Benoit has been starting to attract a little bit of attention among Pirate prospect-watchers, but Pereira might be a little more obscure. I, certainly, had never heard of him before now, which is a shame, because he's actually got kind of an interesting background. BA seems bearish on Linares and cautiously optimistic about the other two, which sounds about right to me.
*Pereira isn't our only international prospect attracting notice. John Perrotto says that several other teams kicked the tires on Sam Vasquez, a 19-year-old pitcher with our DSL team. Any specific A-ball pitcher is a longshot to become a useful ML pitcher, but when you gather a large clump of interesting arms together, there's a pretty good chance that at least one or two will pan out.
*Perrotto also mentions a possible switch in our AAA affiliation, from Indianapolis to Buffalo. The Buffalo Bisons were our AAA partner from 1988-1994, before bailing on the deal and signing up with the Indians, with whom they've remained ever since. The Cleveland connection through Huntington is interesting here, and the closer geographical proximity to Pittsburgh could be an advantage for us (although Indy isn't terrible in that respect by any means). I had blogged about our situation with Indy in December, and it's worth thinking about some of the points there in light of this new information. With Indy turning huge profits, we might just be trying to create additional leverage for ourselves, in order to strike a more favorable deal when the current agreement expires. If we do end up making the switch, Buffalo is a slightly better offensive environment than Indy, and it seems to suppress strikeouts to a significant degree, so color your expectations for prospect performance accordingly.
*I went to PirateFest (more on that later), and I got a chance to ask a question during one of the management Q and A sessions. I used my shot to try and pick Huntington's brain on draft philosophy (i.e. fastball movement or fastball velocity, curveball or slider, power or speed, physical projection or track record, etc.). His response was pretty general (not surprising), but he did mention that he was interested in having pitchers with clean mechanics (where we've sometimes focused on injured prospects or guys in need of work over the past few years), and he sort of hinted that for position players they would focus on tools and ceiling (which could be good or bad, depending on how they implement that strategy). Another fan tried to get them to commit to taking a position player with this year's first-round pick, and to management's credit they wouldn't bite that hook, sticking with the line that Greg Smith had taken in the P-G a week before. If the best player available ends up being a pitcher, we need to bite the bullet and take the pitcher. An impact player is an impact player, regardless of where he ends up on the diamond.
*I found this BA article about the distribution of each team's Top 30 prospects pretty interesting, even if it says more about where we've been than about where we're going. Compared to the average, more of our top prospects were college players and reclamation projects, while fewer came from high school and international signings. None of that is news, but it's nice to be able to put some numerical support behind the common knowledge.
*We're apparently scouting a Georgia high-schooler named Xavier Avery. At this point in the process, it means very little, but there's no harm in filing the name away just in case he ends up in our pile on draft day. If nothing else, it's nice to see us doing some work in Georgia, after Creech ignored the area for so long.
*Pereira isn't our only international prospect attracting notice. John Perrotto says that several other teams kicked the tires on Sam Vasquez, a 19-year-old pitcher with our DSL team. Any specific A-ball pitcher is a longshot to become a useful ML pitcher, but when you gather a large clump of interesting arms together, there's a pretty good chance that at least one or two will pan out.
*Perrotto also mentions a possible switch in our AAA affiliation, from Indianapolis to Buffalo. The Buffalo Bisons were our AAA partner from 1988-1994, before bailing on the deal and signing up with the Indians, with whom they've remained ever since. The Cleveland connection through Huntington is interesting here, and the closer geographical proximity to Pittsburgh could be an advantage for us (although Indy isn't terrible in that respect by any means). I had blogged about our situation with Indy in December, and it's worth thinking about some of the points there in light of this new information. With Indy turning huge profits, we might just be trying to create additional leverage for ourselves, in order to strike a more favorable deal when the current agreement expires. If we do end up making the switch, Buffalo is a slightly better offensive environment than Indy, and it seems to suppress strikeouts to a significant degree, so color your expectations for prospect performance accordingly.
*I went to PirateFest (more on that later), and I got a chance to ask a question during one of the management Q and A sessions. I used my shot to try and pick Huntington's brain on draft philosophy (i.e. fastball movement or fastball velocity, curveball or slider, power or speed, physical projection or track record, etc.). His response was pretty general (not surprising), but he did mention that he was interested in having pitchers with clean mechanics (where we've sometimes focused on injured prospects or guys in need of work over the past few years), and he sort of hinted that for position players they would focus on tools and ceiling (which could be good or bad, depending on how they implement that strategy). Another fan tried to get them to commit to taking a position player with this year's first-round pick, and to management's credit they wouldn't bite that hook, sticking with the line that Greg Smith had taken in the P-G a week before. If the best player available ends up being a pitcher, we need to bite the bullet and take the pitcher. An impact player is an impact player, regardless of where he ends up on the diamond.
*I found this BA article about the distribution of each team's Top 30 prospects pretty interesting, even if it says more about where we've been than about where we're going. Compared to the average, more of our top prospects were college players and reclamation projects, while fewer came from high school and international signings. None of that is news, but it's nice to be able to put some numerical support behind the common knowledge.
*We're apparently scouting a Georgia high-schooler named Xavier Avery. At this point in the process, it means very little, but there's no harm in filing the name away just in case he ends up in our pile on draft day. If nothing else, it's nice to see us doing some work in Georgia, after Creech ignored the area for so long.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Down on the farm
John Sickels is pretty bearish on the prospects of our prospects. He just completed the 2008 edition of his annual prospect book, and he posted his grades for our Top 20:
John's grading system may not be intuitive for readers, so here's a quick breakdown: A guy's grade is a reflection of both his likely development AND his proximity to the majors. As such, a guy who grades out as a "C" could be either a bench-player-in-training in AAA or a guy in rookie ball with starter-level talent but maybe four years of development (and potential pratfalls) between then and now.
Right now, he's saying that the system includes one future star, three guys who look like potential ML regulars, and a bunch of guys who are either low-ceiling, injured, or playing for a spot on the 2012 roster. The sad part is that I can't disagree with him in any significant respect. Having Ed Creech as a scouting director is a development strategy right up there with sowing your fields with salt. Right now, we're easily bottom 10 among ML franchises, probably bottom 5, and most of the teams behind us are ones that just nuked their farms to make prospect-for-veteran trades over the offseason. We had to sign more than 30 minor-league free agents last year in order to provide enough organizational players to field teams at all levels, and that's probably not going to change for the next few years.
If you're interested in reading about prospects, I recommend Sickels's book. It makes a good companion to BA's book, and I usually buy both. There are a fair number of subtle differences in approach between the two, and as such they complement each other quite well.
1. Andrew McCutchen, OF, Grade A-
2. Steven Pearce, OF-1B, Grade B+
3. Neil Walker, 3B, Grade B (not convinced he'll hit quite as well as they expect)
4. Daniel Moskos, LHP, Grade B
5. Brad Lincoln, RHP, Grade C+ (pending recovery from TJ)
6. Brian Bixler, SS, Grade C+
7. Shelby Ford, 2B, Grade C+
8. Duke Welker, RHP, Grade C+
9. Brian Friday, SS, Grade C+
10. Andrew Walker, C, Grade C+
11. Jamie Romak, OF, Grade C
12. Nyjer Morgan, OF, Grade C
13. Brad Corley, OF, Grade C
14. Bryan Bullington, RHP, Grade C
15. Matt Peterson, RHP, Grade C
16. Romulo Sanchez, RHP, Grade C
17. Quincy Latimore, OF, Grade C
18. Marcus Davis, OF, Grade C
19. Tony Watson, LHP, Grade C
20. Josh Sharpless, RHP, Grade C
What a horrible system. There isn't much else to say about it.
John's grading system may not be intuitive for readers, so here's a quick breakdown: A guy's grade is a reflection of both his likely development AND his proximity to the majors. As such, a guy who grades out as a "C" could be either a bench-player-in-training in AAA or a guy in rookie ball with starter-level talent but maybe four years of development (and potential pratfalls) between then and now.
Right now, he's saying that the system includes one future star, three guys who look like potential ML regulars, and a bunch of guys who are either low-ceiling, injured, or playing for a spot on the 2012 roster. The sad part is that I can't disagree with him in any significant respect. Having Ed Creech as a scouting director is a development strategy right up there with sowing your fields with salt. Right now, we're easily bottom 10 among ML franchises, probably bottom 5, and most of the teams behind us are ones that just nuked their farms to make prospect-for-veteran trades over the offseason. We had to sign more than 30 minor-league free agents last year in order to provide enough organizational players to field teams at all levels, and that's probably not going to change for the next few years.
If you're interested in reading about prospects, I recommend Sickels's book. It makes a good companion to BA's book, and I usually buy both. There are a fair number of subtle differences in approach between the two, and as such they complement each other quite well.
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