Position player failed prospects will usually be more interesting that failed pitching prospects (dead arm, couldn't find the strike zone, straight pitches, lather, rinse, repeat).

I think that if you're going to develop home run power, you had better at least be showing doubles power.

Burroughs is why I'm worried about Barton.  There's more than a little similarity.  I hope he becomes Jason Giambi instead, with those doubles becoming home runs, and that's not insane wishcasting... but it hasn't happened yet.

I'm a longtime lurker, occasional poster.

I think this is my favorite new feature you've done in quite some time.  This is right up there with the "Thinking about X" or "What's the matter with Y?" and the prospect retros.

Though prospect projection will always be more of an art than a science, looking at previous mistakes can be useful in understanding the process.  

Thanks.

He hasn't hit for more than 8 HR's in a minor league season and some people think he's going to hit 25 or so.

I'd like to differentiate between being a bust, which Sean Burroughs may or may not have been, and being a failure on the part of the prospecting community. I've been at this a long time, but my knowledge has exploded over the last 5 years. Looking in hindsight,  I'd say Burroughs is the biggest failure amongst the prospecting community in that time frame.

He was a BA top 10 prospect three times, and at least two of those were completely unjustifiable, based on the information available.

Drafted in 1998, he signed late and didn't play that year. He was ranked 82nd heading into 1999. In 1999, he hit .359/.454/.479 with 5 HR in 426 AB and an 11.8% k-rate. The key number that made him stand out was the 14.8% walk rate. He tore it up in a week at Ranco Cucamunga. His OPS was +27%, although that was fueled by a .412 BABIP.

He was ranked 7th by BA heading into 2000. You can make an argument that he deserved this ranking. His plate discipline was flat out awsome, and 5 HR by an 18 y/o in the Midwest League is not terrible. It's bad, and a cause for concern, but not terrible. Depending on your frame of reference, he could have been considered a top 10 prospect at that point.

In 2000, he hit .291/.382/.403 as a 19yo at AA. His BABIP was down to .325, and his OPS was +11%. His k-rate improved to 10% and his walk rate was still phenomenal at 12.8%. Despite that, the 2 HR in 382 AB should have been a huge red flag and there is no way he should have been a top 10 prospect heading into 2001. BA actually moved him up one spot to #6 overall.

Despite being 20 and playing at AAA, 2001 should have killed his top prospect status. His power improved, but only to 9 HR in 394 AB. What was the cost? A severe loss of plate discipline! His k-rate rose to 12.5% and his walk rate plummeted to 8.6%. These are still very good ratios, but not for somebody with no power and no speed. His BABIP was .356, which is a little high and probably accounts for most of his +8.5% OPS. In normal years, he shouldn't even be considered for the top 25 prospects in the game, yet he was #4 on BA's list. He was still very good and very young, but all the red flags were there. Part of the problem is that was a weak prospect class. The other part is Burroughs was severely overrated.

I think there were two big issues that we overlooked. First, everybody assumed he would develop some power. I seem to recall the scouts being diveded on this, so while there should have been some 20+ HR years in his range of outcomes, most should have been in the 10-12 range with plenty of single digit outcomes. Second, we forget what a big component the power plays in batting average.

I'm not going to touch on power too much, because everybody knows the power is the single most imporant indicator of future potential. It doesn't need to be abundant, but it needs to be present. On the batting average front, HR is a huge component of that. For example, let's assume that Burroughs gets 600 AB and strikes out 60 times and mantains a fairly healthy .320 BABIP. Here are his batting averages per HR output;

 0-.288
 5-.294
10-.299
15-.305
20-.311
30-.322
40-.333

I think everybody thought that Burroughs was automatic to be a .320 hitter. As you can see, assuming he could mantain a .320 BABIP, which is something very few non speed burners can do, he was going to need to develop 30 HR power or cut his k-rate to well below 10%. Most people who thought he'd develop power thought he'd be a 15 HR type, which would put his BA at .305. A .305/.375/.450 line is good, but not great as a 3B. Again, it's not that he didn't have a lot of good outcomes in his range, it's that he didn't have enough superstar outcomes to warrant the prospect hype he got. Overall, I think he was more a prospect community failure than he was a bust. His 03/04 seasons in the bigs are right in line with what should have been expected based on his minor league performance.

As I stated in the Matt Kemp diary, I believe he was a prospect community failure, albeit of a different sort. The kid banged 18 HR and had a +13% OPS as a 19yo with tools and projection in A ball and didn't even make the BA top 100 in 2005. He followed that up with 27 HR and +28% OPS in the FSL as a 20yo and only ranked 96th heading into 2006. Maybe we should do a case study on him as well.

This is actually the perfect scenario for the Dodgers. They've only got one more year on the Furcal contract, so they might as well go with him since he's still better. They can let Hu get another month and a half at AAA to keep his service time down, then let him be the utility infielder for the last 3/4 of the year. This will give them a good long look and let them know exactly where they stand at SS heading into 2009. For crying out loud, whatever they do, they shouldn't trade Hu. I wouldn't give Hu straight across for Blanton or Garland, let alone as part of a package.

Although I never got to see him in Mobile because I was away for college, people that got to watch him in Mobile said the Padres never tried to alter anything with his hitting approach and that Burroughs played a little bit to relaxed as if he didn't care. At some point Burroughs had to realize that the lack of power would become a issue in the majors.

I don't know about you guys but I think he was rushed through the Minors when maybe the Padres should have taken their time with him and they should have sent somebody to help his hitting aproach.

The next Burroughs?  I hope not.

Also, I can't believe Burroughs is already done.  Did he just get fat & lazy and quit, or could he still make a comeback?

i think the sean burroughs thing is alot simpler than everybody is making it out to be, and is the biggest reason to take age-relative-to-league considerations with a grain of salt. the reason burroughs's power didn't develop was that it was already fully developed--there are plenty of kids that mature physically earlier (or later) than the average, and burroughs was on the extreme end of that spectrum. so, when he was 21, his power was done developing. i remember people were citing his little league world series dominance as a positive, but really, what it showed was how much ahead he was physically compared to other kids his age.

I held onto him for 3 years in a roto league (he was cheap)- so I watched him whenever I could and read as much as I could-

my impression was that he had plenty of power (ie strength), but his swing was just not conducive to getting the ball in the air with sufficient loft- and just about every article I read about him said he was uncoachable {almost as bad as his father, who never listened to any coach- including Ted williams when the elder Burroughs was a rookie- the elder Burroughs was by all accounts pathologically arrogant, he knew best, period, end of story- and may have inolculated his son against accepting any coaching).

WRT to Teahen, according to MoneyBall the A's believed that good hitters will develop power naturally, that a prospect should already know how to hit, and that you shouldn't draft someone whose swing is a mess with the intention of fixing it.

In reality the A's drafted Teahen with every intention of changing his swing- they liked his pitch recognition/plate discipline, the rest not so much.  Teahen has admitted that his power only came after finally accepting some of the modifications his coaches had been trying to get him to incorporate. Old habit dies hard, and I suspect Teahen has difficulty maintaining a consistent approach- but at least he, unlike Burroughs, appears to be trying.