Are there any indicators of a potential bust?
by DJSlam on Mar 1, 2009 5:50 PM EST
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PrintHi, sorry if this is a stupid question, I've only been folloing the minor leagues closely for about a year or two now. I would like to know, are there are any indicators of highly ranked or touted minor leaguers that they might be a bust at the major league level? I was thinking in terms of things like "makeup," poise on the mound, approach at the plate, etc.
I am anxious to hear everyone's opinion on this, thanks!
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Gut feelings...
control(pitchers), plate discipline(hitters), and injury history are some things I look at. Makeup is a really good thing to keep in mind too.
Contact rates, both hitters and pitchers.
Strikeouts are big for hitters. Also, you don’t like seeing a pitcher allow too many fly balls and home runs.
If I had just one stat to look at...
(well, actually it’s sort of two stats) it’s strikeout to walk ratio – for both pitchers and hitters.
The wind is in the buffalo.
Best indicator...
is if they are playing for the Angels. Pretty high bust rate for them.
Seriously though, everyone who has replied has good stats they use. Strikeout to Walk ratios are great indicators like journeymen stated. Another thing I look at is overall performance. I am always wary of these “going to be great” players who are putting up mediocre lines, no matter what level or age they are (cough*FernandoMartinez*cough).
One thing to remember is to look at the overall player. Don’t get too hung up on one stat. With pitchers I am a big fan of groundball rates and low walk rates. Even if a pitcher is not striking anyone out, if they aren’t walking batters and then giving up the longball, they are less susceptible to the big inning.
"My mom always taught me it's better to laugh at yourself than to laugh at others. She was so wrong. ;)" -Pedrophile
those things...
usually cause a prospect’s status to take a major hit as is, though, making them less of a bust.
For the guys with one or two holes that look small in the minors, I’m tempted to say makeup is an underrated warning sign. Delmon Young can’t be called a bust yet, but I saw his lack of discipline in the minors as a red flag in a way I don’t as a general rule, because it was combined with the constant reports of attitude and an unwillingness to take instruction. When conditioning is a concern, makeup is another big flag. Chris Marrerro is seeing the effects of having a fringe body-type and questionable work ethic.
I just put together a projection spreadsheet
Where the two indicators are strikeouts per plate appearance and their age for their first season of AA ball. I was suprised how accurate it projected everybody.
Basically, if 20+% of your plate appearances end in strikeouts, you can expect your major league batting average to dip hard. And for each year older than 21 you are in AA you can expect a dropoff.
Note: on the flip side, of course
If you’re striking out in less than 10% of your plate appearances, or you’re 20 or younger in your first season of AA ball, you can expect an increase in production. I ran about 200 major league players, and two of the top three players with the lowest strikeout ratio in the minors were Pujols and Pedroia – the two MVPs from last year.
I agree
It’s less of a question with high school hitters, which are pretty guesswork-based, but when I’m looking at top-tier college hitters I’d be strongly inclined toward players who have power combined with low strikeouts. Kentrail Davis types with serious contact issues should be left for the second round.
If there’s anything that worries me the most about the A’s hitting prospects, it’s that too many of them have strikeout problems. Billy Beane needs to address this in future drafts (maybe the choice of Jemile Weeks was a step toward doing so, I don’t know).
Many years from now, when his name's recalled
Everyone will say, "He should have passed the ball"
-- Al Stewart, "Football Hero"
Digging up an old argument?
Careful there, alskor. You don’t want to dredge up the HATER comments again.
(and remember, I agree that Davis’ strikeout rate is a concern)
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Mar 2, 2009 4:55 PM EST up reply actions
The spreadsheet has him developing into
a .273 batting average, .824 OPS, 40+ homer player, although the certainty factor is pretty low (that doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily be worse or better than that) because of his low AB and walk totals.
His closest comparables are Travis Snider, Dallas McPherson, Jack Cust, Hee Seop Choi, Brandon Wood, and Derrek Lee. So yeah… most likely worse.
Question
YaoPau,
You have me completely intrigued here, I am a math dork/baseball junkie, did you set up a regression analysis or how did you handle this projection? Any possibility of getting you to share?
Brett
"God, I'm from Cleveland. When is it going to be our time?"
Nah, just simple weights
I like looking at minor league stats of major league players, especially of those who busted. And iI noticed some trends – when players bust it’s almost always because of injuries, strikeout rate, age (they were 23 in AA, for example), or flat out crappy minor league numbers.
So I used strikeout rate, AA age, and minor league career numbers as the inputs, and I used total minor league at-bats and walk-rate as ‘certainty’ variables, and then I used a whole lot of guess and check afterwards. As I said, nothing impressive, but I’m really liking these results.
About two-thirds of the players I ranked had a high certainty, above 1.0 (think Baseball Prospectus’ Beta variable, except in reverse and mine is from the stone age). Some notable names:
Carlos Quentin: .317 BA, .944 OPS, 29.6 Homers, 6 SB, 1.0 Beta
Lance Berkman: .302 BA, .939 OPS, 36 Homers, 8.2 SB, 1.2 Beta
Jack Cust: .261 BA, .845 OPS, 38 Homers, 6 SB, 5.7 Beta
Jacoby Ellsbury, .315 BA, .789 OPS, 6.5 Homers, 48.8 SB, .7 Beta
Chris Young, .250 BA, .791 OPS, 33.3 Homers, 28.1 SB, 1.4 Beta
Some Busts…
Drew Henson: .223 BA, .637 OPS, 28.6 Homers, 3.8 SB, .8 Beta
Pablo Ozuna: .304 BA, .690 OPS, 8.4 Homers, 36.8 SB, .9 Beta
Joe Borchard: .249 BA, .710 OPS, 31.5 Homers, 3.7 SB, 1.6 Beta
Andy Marte: .264 BA, .808 OPS, 34.8 Homers, 1.4 SB, 1.8 Beta
It’s not a perfect system, and it gets its fair share wrong (I see no way to project Chase Utley or Hanley Ramirez correctly, Ryan Howard is just as tough) but for something an 8th grader could make, I’m pretty happy with it. And stay away from Chris Dickerson.
To answer the main question:
“Not really.”
I think when it comes to the big time elite prospects that are sure-fire can’t miss that bust, there’s no real major indicators to explain why. Partially the reason they’re called “busts” is an inexplicable reason why they did.
Now, there are guys with serious “bust” potential, but if they have question marks to begin with, calling them good or elite prospects wouldn’t be responsible would it?
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Mar 2, 2009 5:10 PM EST reply actions
Strikeouts
Strikeouts are the big thing for me. During Brandon Wood’s crazy season I saw him becoming a poor man’s Troy Glaus at best, which it still looks like he’ll become. If a guy strikes out a ton in the minors there’s no way he’s going to keep his average high enough in the majors, and then you get Russ Branyan.
What were the indicators that these players would bust?
Looking at the players BA rated top ten prospects from 1998 through 2004, the major busts (in my subjective opinion) were:
1. Corey Patterson, OF, Cubs
2. Sean Burroughs, 3B, Padres
3. Ryan Anderson, P, Mariners (injuries)
4. Ruben Mateo, OF, Rangers
5. Wilson Betemit, SS, Braves
6. Drew Henson, 3B, Yankees
7. Matt White, P, Rays
8. Kazuo Matsui, 2B, Mets
X-Factor: Rick Ankiel, P, Cardinals (#1 prospect in 2000 as a pitcher)
I have not made a judgment as to which of the more recently rated top prospects will be busts.
If there is are common indicators that a highly regarded prospect will be a bust (not sure that there are) which ones apply to these busts?
I think the problem with most of them
Is either injuries (Anderson, Mateo) or that they just didn’t put up good in the minors (Patterson, Burroughs, Betemit, Henson). I’ve noticed that the pre-2006 BA Top 100 lists put waaaay too much stock in tools and build and athleticism and not enough into actual minor league performance (which I think should count the most).
Starting in 2006 BA got it right, and you won’t see many busts from then on. As for why pitchers bust, who the hell knows.
Kaz Matsui
I don’t think he is a bust. He has become a major league regular. Pretty solid defense and speed on the basepaths.
As for some of the others:
Patterson – Make-up. Wanted to be a power hitter, but it wasn’t in the cards. Kept swinging for the fences instead of just trying to make solid contact.
Burroughs – No power. I still think he could have been a decent player if he could have moved to 2B where power is not as essential. He just peaked early as John said a couple years ago. His growth curve was ahead of everyone else’s so he always seemed advanced for his age. But after his growth stopped, so did his above average production.
Henson – Was never that great. Great athlete, but since he split time with football in college, he was behind the curve when he went to the minors. Great power, but it never resulted into great things (as far as I remember, Baseball Cube is down right now so I can’t check all the numbers to refresh my memories). He always seemed like one of those “Great upside, but little production to date” kind of players.
Betemit – Not positive, but wasn’t he an Age-gate guy?
Ankiel – As a pitcher, I think it was confidence. I think he lost it while on the mound and couldn’t find the strikezone.
"My mom always taught me it's better to laugh at yourself than to laugh at others. She was so wrong. ;)" -Pedrophile
Well...
it wasn’t working five hours earlier when I posted that it was down for me. Kept giving me a server down screen. But anyways, I did remember right, his production was never elite. Couple decent half seasons in 1999 and 2000, but like I said, nothing special.
"My mom always taught me it's better to laugh at yourself than to laugh at others. She was so wrong. ;)" -Pedrophile
I'm pretty sure
that Betemit was reverse age gate, in that he was actually YOUNGER than his orginal reported age, and the Braves got fined for it (because they signed him at age 14)
Betemit is a combination of inconcistent plate disipline combined with a rapidly changing body frame. he’s a odd case. still, if you look at his #, it seems to have only really messed up after he was traded to the Yankees. before that he walked at a at least acceptable 8% rate, and in 07 it shot up to 13%, at that point he looked like he was ready to break out as a smaller Adam Dunn with a little more defensive value type, but then it just completely fell apart with the Yankees.
He also got fat too quickly, he’s bat was still ok even last year (at least above replacement level) but since he became too fat for a middle infielder. that’s just not going to cut it.
i think \
for hitters, plate discipline. but for pitchers, i think mechanics.
"Sometimes Joe (morgan) doesn't like facts to get in the way of his opinions."- billy beane
"That was a great pick...if this was 2002" Me, to guy who selected Barry Zito in a fantasy draft
www.27ClubPeak.blogspot.com
-1
Baseball analysis on mechanics is hysterical if you’ve ever talked to a biomechanist. The smartest scientists in the world can’t map out joint stresses and conclusively say what type of action will lead to what type of injury. I don’t see any reason to believe why baseball scouts should be any better than biomechanists at figuring out the perfect way to perform repetitive, stressful actions without causing injury.
However...
We do know that there are more risky ways to throw a baseball. I’m still waiting for the day that Francisco Rodriguez’s arm snaps off from his body and flies into the crowd.
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Mar 2, 2009 9:39 PM EST up reply actions
Sure...
we just don’t know with anything remotely resembling certainty what they are.
No, and...
certainly we don’t want to get overanalytical about things beyond our control. Teams will tinker and mess with a guy’s mechanics after drafting them which could be even more detrimental to their careers.
Tony Butler is a quick Mariner example I can think of. They didn’t like his mechanics and started messing with him to mixed results. From what I understand, he’s back to his old style now, but his future is up in the air. Did the same thing to Austin Bibens-Dirkx
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Mar 4, 2009 7:03 PM EST up reply actions
On the other hand they sometimes help too
TheSouthWing.com - A Magazine of essays, prose and poems
I remember
watching a video about Tim Lincecum right before he hit it big and they kept talking about how even though his mechanics are ridiculous and most pitchers would already have been injured from them for some reason his body took to them and work without causing more damage than a normal pitcher. Mechanics are an odd thing. None are perfect, but you can’t really say any are wrong either.
few things
already covered is strikeout rate for hitters..I also agree with the age reached AA. If a guy is a really really good prospect, he wont struggle in Low or High A, typically.
For pitchers, the obvious one is command, and on the flip side, dont be fooled by finesse pitchers who dominate Low and High A
Great Answers
Thanks everyone who came through and answered, this whole thing has been very eye opening to me and I’ve learned a lot. I’m going to look for some of these indicators down the line.
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