age-relative-to-league

by lgavind on Oct 25, 2005 12:04 PM EDT Comment 17 comments

Who are some age-relative-to-league prospects that panned out?
It seems like this is the weakest prospect characteristic and I would like some more thoughts on the subject. Hidalgo had one great year. We have covered Rivas. I don't think Beltre counts because he put up big minor league numbers (even though he only had 350 minor league at bats).

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baseball reference

www.baseballreference.com is a good source for this. You can look at ML debuts for any given year. Here are some guys that I would say have panned out.

1998 Aramis Ramirez (19), Eric Chavez (20), Kerry Wood (20), Carlos Beltran (21), Troy Glaus (21)
1999 Vernon Wells (20)
2000 Johan Santana (21), Mark Buehrle (21), Jimmy Rollins (21)
2001 CC Sabathia (20), Albert Pujols (21), Adam Dunn (21)

Most of these guys took a while to get established though.

by LindInMoskva on Oct 25, 2005 12:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Weakest...

I can't remember who wrote it, but about 5 or so years ago, someone actually published an article where they looked at a number of factors, and they actually determined that age relative to league had the HIGHEST correlation to success in the bigs than any other factor which the study looked at...

Of course, their methodology could have been flawed. If you look at ALL minor leaguers, and not just prospects, that would be the natural result since there are so many older minor league journeymen who never have success in the bigs...

To add to that list, more recent young debuts include Rocco Baldelli, Carl Crawford, Scott Kazmir, Jose Reyes, Miguel Cabrera, Jeremy Bonderman, Jhonny Peralta, K-Rod, Ricky Weeks, Carlos Zambrano, Jake Peavy, Oliver Perez, etc. Not all of them pan out, but if you just glance through who was the quickest to the majors in the past 20 years, I think you'll see that a disproportionately high number of them turned out to be good or great major leaguers as opposed to all debuts.

by Brickhaus on Oct 25, 2005 1:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

more specifics?

Do you mean prospects who the only thing they had going for them was age-relative-to-league? Guys that only held their own in the league or had slightly subpar production but analysts or their orgs hyped them simply b/c they were young?

I'm assuming that's what you mean b/c you are asking who 'panned out'? Guys like Eric Chavez who dominate AA while young for the league usually stick. What is harder to gauge is these tools guys who never truly hit in the minors but just b/c they were young for their league they get the benefit of the doubt from analysts or there orgs that they will hit...

"If you don't like Torey Lovullo, then you don't like baseball." Sparky Anderson

by natsfan2005 on Oct 25, 2005 1:06 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

thats it

Players whose best quality is that they were young for their league. Are they generally toolsy guys? Why do they advance even though they haven put up great numbers. Richard Hidalgo made it to the majors at 22 but never put up very good numbers in the minors.
How about Andy Marte? He is generally considered one of the top 10 prospects in the game and has had some very good seasons, but not great seasons unless you lookat that fact that he is 20-21. Do guys like him pan out?

by lgavind on Oct 25, 2005 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good indicator

I've always found that most things being equal that age relative to level was an excellent indicator as to the overall likelihood of a prospect making it.

After all, I'd rather have the guy who posts decent numbers at AA at age 20, than a guy who posts Triple-Crown numbers at High A at age 22.

In fact, I can only think of one guy who put up pretty good numbers at AA at age 20 and failed (so far anyway) to perform fairly well in the majors -- Sean Burroughs.

Can anyone else think of any other recent flameouts along the same lines?

by Ur on Oct 25, 2005 1:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

flameouts

A great player must start out young, but many young players are never great.

Players less than 22 years old at debut.
1999 - Rick Ankiel, Matt Riley, Travis Dawkins, Ruben Mateo, Onan Masaoka, Wilton Veras, Buddy Carlyle, Brian Falkenborg, Kevin McGlinchy, Chad Durbin, Peter Bergeron, Yamid Haad, Juan Pena, Aaron Myette, Chad Hermanson

Question Marks (flame out, stud, or neutral) - Byung-Hyun Kim, Gil Meche, Cristian Guzman, D'Angelo Jimenez

2000 - Jon Garland, Ruben Quevedo, Kenny Kelly, Tim Drew, Luis Rivera, TJ Tucker, Clayton Andrews, Joey Nation,

???? - Luis Rivas, Corey Patterson, Luis Matos

2001 - Nick Neugebauer, Carlos Hernandez, Bud Smith, Nate Cornejo

by LindInMoskva on Oct 25, 2005 1:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

College Ball

The problem with age relative to league is that it heavily discounts college players. Teixeira didn't debut until age 23 because he was too busy destroying college pitching.

by LindInMoskva on Oct 25, 2005 1:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

BINGO!!!

"If you don't like Torey Lovullo, then you don't like baseball." Sparky Anderson

by natsfan2005 on Oct 25, 2005 1:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Doesn't devalue

23 is actually a year below the "standard" age-relative-to-league prescription for major-league arrival.

Age relative to league tells you how much room a prospect has to develop. It's used by prospect analysts to project possible scenarios for players who haven't yet reached their ceilings. The rough scale (19-20 for low-A, 20-21 high-A, 21-22 AA, 22-23 AAA) is not set in stone. For instance, I don't think anyone was saying in early 2005 that Jonny Gomes couldn't handle major-league pitching just becasue he was destroying AAA at the age of 24 instead of 23.

The top college picks generally enter the minors around the age of 21, and start around high-A, which is right on track. Age-relative-to-league might say that these players' chances to break through to a new level of performance are low, but their performances themselves are usually enough to get them noticed. ARTL may unfairly slide a 24-year-old dominating in AAA a few spots down on BA's top-100 list from time to time, but it's generally a good tool.

by jhelfgott on Oct 25, 2005 2:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

This is why a lot of A's prospects have been

downgraded. They draft almost all college players, but you can't advance them all at the same time, so you have good players at levels below there skills, and then they have monster years, scouts say of course they are too olde for the league, but there is no place to go, because the major league team is usually so young.

by theblackpearl on Oct 25, 2005 5:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

true

Baseball America in particular is bad about this. They didn't even list Dan Johnson in their top 100 prospects last year after a .300/.400/.500 season in AAA at the age of 24. That was silly.

In general, though, that's not because BA doesn't consider people like DJ prospects. In its rankings, BA almost always prefers the player who MIGHT develop 35-hr power to the player who almost certainly WILL hit 25 hrs a year.

Baseball Prospectus is almost the exact opposite, ranking guys like Jeremy Reed and Chris Burke over players with a lot more upside who are farther away from contributing at the major-league level.

by jhelfgott on Oct 25, 2005 5:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree with the sentiment but

I believe DJ was 26 making him a little bit less a prospect.

"The difference between Kobe and Jose Canseco is that Kobe doesn't believe in giving his teammates any shots."

by vignette17 on Oct 25, 2005 10:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, but with his Minor league stats

he would have progressed faster on most teams, with different philosphies. The A's minor league philosophy seems to be, keep them at a level a little longer, so they can achieve success, not just prove you can do it, then keep moving, where some move too fast. That is why they almost always have one of the highest winning percentages in the Minors, so when they make it to the pros they are used to winning as a team, not just getting your stats.

by theblackpearl on Oct 25, 2005 11:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

DJ

DJ's 26 now, but he was 25 coming into the season, meaning his track record prior to the BA ranking occured 1 year beyond the standard age range for a AAA prospect. That's pretty inflexible. DJ belonged in the top 100 this past year. Not the top 30, but given how many people on the average BA top 100 list won't produce anything at the major league level, a relatively sure thing like DJ deserved a mention.

by jhelfgott on Oct 26, 2005 3:42 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes

Now there are people on the A's like Danny Putnam and Kurt Suzuki who are at lower levels right now but performing.

by ohad on Oct 25, 2005 9:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think a big reason

people value players who are young is because if they follow growth trends they would become better players than the ones closer to their peak, i.e. older. of course, not every one enters their prime at the same time and some people never become better. They are the busts. But, age grants time. A player who is twenty in AAA has more time "to figure it out" than the 24 yr old and hence, hass better odds of being the better player eventually.

"The difference between Kobe and Jose Canseco is that Kobe doesn't believe in giving his teammates any shots."

by vignette17 on Oct 25, 2005 10:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Andy Marte

It sounds like this may have been an Andy Marte question indirectly. People mistake his nonstellar numbers for simply average or complain that he hasn't dominated any level. People who are high on him say that's fine because he hasn't repeated a level and he's young compared to who he's playing with. This is not to be confused as being nothing but young relative to his level. If a player isn't playing well then he shouldnt be advanced. Also I've come to trust the Braves decisions in these matters. But it is very important that I point out that not merely average in everything, he's ABOVE average.

According to minorleaguebaseball.com he ranked in the INTL league
12 SLG
13 OBP
38 AVG

The 38 AVG actually makes the SLG all that impressive in my mind since, it means he's got a higher ISO relative to the league as well.

If I'm not mistaken the Intl league is a pitchers league and Richmond is a pitchers park (966 rating according to BP2005) so this might explain why in absolute terms his numbers don't look that great. And some would say the multiple trips and sporadic pt in and out of Atlanta may have slumped him a bit. He also played well in the Mexican Winter league leading the league in RBI a couple weeks in if I'm not mistaken again.

I think the argument is, that Marte could have repeated AA instead of gone to AAA and absolutely MASHED, instead he was merely top 15 in the league in OBP and SLG.

Hope this helps.

by rustic on Oct 26, 2005 1:46 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs