Project Prospect's Mid-Season Top 50
by auclairkeithbc on Jul 2, 2009 2:38 PM EDT
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Here's the link...
http://www.projectprospect.com/article/2009/07/02/top-50-prospect-list
Seems like people have more problems with the inclusion of guys like Jenrry Mejia, Jon Niese, Kris Medlen, Brad Lincoln (and the high ranking of Nick Weglarz), than with some of the notable omissions like Kyle Drabek, Mat Latos, Brett Wallace (all honorable mentions) and Michael Taylor and Naftali Feliz (who just missed the HM list). Interesting that Jordan Lyles made it at #50, since he's been discussed a lot over here.
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I love their logic there
Bumgarner has still been really good, especially for a 19 year old in AA, but with a decreased strikeout rate. Therefor he drops almost out of the top 20. Justin Smoak, on the other hand, has been so good at being injured that he actually climbed the list 9 spots.
Semi-proud adoptive father of Scott "Aaron" Barnes.
I’m not speaking for them but I believe their concern is the drop in K rate might mean his secondary pitches aren’t developing the way some thought they were when he was dominating the lower minors. Being that the lack of secondary pitches was the main concern with him early on, I don’t think it is out of the realm of possibilities that this could be the case. Could they be wrong and Bumgarner is simply working on one particular aspect of his game? Yes but being in 19th instead of 6th in all of baseabll isn’t that big of a difference.
Derek Holland
What what what?
I had to check his major league stats to see if I had missed something. Nope.
He should be up there
Maybe not that high, but up there.
He’s a lefty who throws mid to high 90s. He showed the improvement in his stuff is real this year and not a one year fluke. He hasnt embarrassed himself in the majors and has decent components, very good K rates and good scouting reports – plus stuff, good poise, etc…
What’s not to like? I think youd be hard pressed to convince me he’s not one of the best pitching prospects in baseball right now (49.1 IP – so he’s 2 outs from qualifying as a rookie and losing prospect status).
To NOT include him among the top handful of pitching prospects would be unfairly putting a TON of weight on his first 50 IP in the majors. That’s a time period where even the best prospects should be expected to struggle. *cough*Hochevar*cough*. David Price?
I agree 2nd is too high, but lets not lose sight of how really good Holland is…
MAYBE not that high?
LOL yeah id say “maybe not that high” is putting it nicelty
Holland isnt “mid to upper 90s” I am tired of reading crap that isnt true on the internet (alskor, I am not attack you, because you probably just read a souting report) but I have seen Holland pitch twice now and he has been 92-95 and touching 96 here and there…that is low to mid 90s..alot different than mid to high 90s..
Right on...
So you are right on with his speeds, his average fastball this year is actually 93.2 MPH (I love Fangraphs). The interesting part about Holland though, is that his BABIP is at .350, so you would expect that to regress to the mean, his LOB % is also about 7% below ML average. His FIP (Fielder Independent ERA ) is a run and a half lower than his current ERA. The other thing you notice is that he is highly dependent on his fastball, which should change as he matures.
I guess what I am saying is… I wouldn’t be surprised to see this guy put together a few nice starts and end the year with an ERA in the mid-4 range.
I am not saying he is the #2 prospect, but that is a nice year for a 22 year old in a hitter’s park.
"God, I'm from Cleveland. When is it going to be our time?"
Fair point
First time out he was throwing harder… but as a reliever. I didnt really follow it religiously since then. AVG 94.40/ MAX 97.1
Last time out he threw AVG 92.14/ MAX 95.7
First start he threw AVG 93.49/ MAX 96.1
Fangraphs has his average fastball this season at 93.2.
Exaggeration notwithstanding, this is really hard for a LHP, and Holland is one of the hardest throwing lefty starters in baseball…
Definitely...
Only 3 lefty starters who throw harder on average…. Sabathia, Lester and Kershaw. Pretty solid company.
"God, I'm from Cleveland. When is it going to be our time?"
right
he is a great prospect..like stated, he isnt #2 lol…i just used that time to rant about all these scouting reports of guys with “mid 90s fastballs” and then i see them they are 89-92 lol
It is...
PitchFx data, and just giving more detail….
34% of his pitches have been thrown in relief, so 1/3 of the data is coming from relief and 2/3 from starting. If you take a look at his velocity charts, he did let it go (max speed) a little more in relief on some pitches, but from an average velocity standpoint, there really is little to no difference.
Hit FanGraphs and take a look at all of the data. I am not sitting her making this stuff up.
"God, I'm from Cleveland. When is it going to be our time?"
Just to clarify a little...
I agree he is not the #2 prospect, as I said above. But I don’t think we should be piling on a guy that obviously has a lot of talent and should end up being a #2 or #3 starter in the majors.
And looking at the prospects out there, there are only a few I would take over him (Tommy Hanson, Chris Tillman, Madison Bumgarner)
"God, I'm from Cleveland. When is it going to be our time?"
Not sure why I'm jumping in here...
but in Holland’s last start, his FB average was 92, and his max was 96. So he seems low to mid 90s.
To compare in their last games…
Kershaw was around 95 average, 97 peak.
Lester was 94 average, 96 peak
Sabathia was 95 average, 97.5 peak.
So, Holland looks to be a step behind these guys, his velocity is mid-90s for the first couple of innings, then it quickly falls to low-90s.
Check this site to review velocity game-by-game…
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/
Poster formerly known as artie
I swear
I didn’t create that list, LOL!
Now raise your goblet of rock. It's a toast to those who rock!
kinda?
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Same as always
Their lists should just be called “Who has put up good numbers lately?”
They always have wild fluctuations if a guy is hitting well or in a slump.
Moustakas went from #11 to out of the top 100 in the matter of a couple months.
Keep in mind, this is the same bunch that said back in March that Casper Wells and Giavotella were top 125 prospects, not to mention McGeary was number 89 overall.
yeah
it is done monthly so whatever guys are making noise move up in the rankings…i dont think its an overall list as much as a monthly hot list
It doesn’t suck, they just take a different approach. From the comments, I think people are mostly confused by the lack of consistency in applying their method not their method.
Strange
There aren’t many players who I say, “wow get this MOFO off the list” Niese and McAllister come to mind. However, to not have Latos in the top 25, in probably slightly below insane. Mazzaro too. Weglarz is also high.
As outshined mentioned, not vitters is a bad oversight.
Otherwise it isn’t THAT bad. Just strange. No worse than the crap we put out annually.
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...
no michael taylor
also…or am i the only one that thinks he is a better prospect then niese??…and i am a mets fan!!!
Niese has outpitched Michael Bowden this year, and has like a sub 1.50 ERA in his last 6 AAA starts.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
Bumgarner
1.96 ERA
21.5% K-Rate 6.8% BB-Rate
1.02 WHIP
This all while being a 19 YEAR OLD in AA.
I’m not sure how this can be possible without at least having a decent offspeed pitch
waiting for 2011....
The funny thing is...
if I remember correctly, Project Prospect was higher than most on Bumgarner coming out of high school. They were on that bandwagon before anybody else.
I think Foster has said on the forums he still has the utmost confidence in Bumgarner and that he probably is to critical of him because he liked him so much from the start. I also do believe Foster was one of the first to go out on a limb with Bumgarner back when he was drafted (which was well before other sites had him as a top prospect) because he had spoken with Bumgarner and his famil on multiple occasions and was able to see him pitch several times. Perhaps he shouldn’t have dropped that much (or perhaps he shouldn’t have been that high to begin with?) but top 20 is still pretty high praise.
But... but... they saw him in person!
Are you going to seriously suggest that a prospect’s entire professional career somehow outweighs a handful of innings casually viewed through a nacho cheese prism?
Selective memory combined with shiny new toy syndrome makes for a lovely combination.
by Joy in Melville on Jul 2, 2009 4:40 PM EDT up reply actions
ERA is down to 1.7 after his start today
7 IP, 4 h, 3 BB, 5 SO, no runs
Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?
This list blows.
Chris Carter > Freddie Freeman?
Really?
Q: If on-base pct is so important then why don't they put it on the scoreboard? -Failcoeur
A: Because the Braves don't want to show their fans how bad you suck.
I think many would agree with that
I’m not saying all, but many
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...
sucks.
rankings are tough but this list is really terrible, Latos, feliz and taylor arent even on it is this a joke, were they half asleep while putting this together?
RTFA
If you haven’t seen our rankings before, you’ll notice that we’re huge on trying to pick out guys with high floors. Sorry if that approach contrasts with your fantasy league setup
Seriously, not every list looks the same. I remember there was some other guy who used to do these lists years ago and basically quit in part because this website kept ganging up on him. Turns out that his rankings, for the most part, weren’t significantly worse than BA. He had more completely wild misses, but he also ranked a bunch of guys who weren’t even on BA’s radar who have turned out to be good major leaguers (Cody Ross was someone I remember immediately, but there were others).
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
Right
Its a different kind of list… people should realize that going in.
There are things I like about it and things I dont like… but its nice to see a different thing. I think of it more like Keith Law’s lists. They have a lot of personal favorites and dislikes.
guys..
you cant use “not every list is the same” as an excuse for putting down whatever crap you want lol..i am not saying they have to put every guy i like on there…like i dont care about carter over freeman, or having mccallister on there and not drabek, that can be just their opinion… but not having a guy like feliz on there just makes them look stupid.
Why not?
In a few years, if they keep posting, we’ll have a track record of their system. In the meantime, who cares?
Good point
Exactly, there is little evidence to suggest the site is as bad as people are letting on in this thread. There simply hasn’t been enough time passed to know how many players they missed or how many players they saw/caught before others did.
They gave a rationale as to why their list is different
And in the context of what they said, it makes sense.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
hmm, high floors?
Of course, that is an interesting concept. For Feliz, isn’t his floor a kinda semi-wild reliever with a 100 mph fastball, a la Zumaya? For Medlen, could his floor be a supposed control guy like, uh, Ian Kennedy? At this stage, that may be sort of a toss up, but you get the picture, in which case I move on to the upside. I suppose then you could say medlen’s upside is Greg maddux and Feliz is, I dunno, Nolan Ryan. I am picking these out of my ass, but fact is I think it is interesting way to go about it to say the least. 50 good AAA innings for a good control guy without much fastball versus the young guy with the golden arm.
But i do appreciate the added voice, and provokes thought.
Drabek?
Better than Latos easily IMO.
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i dont want to argue about that, they both should be in the top 50
lets gang up on projectprospect
This list is only a Joke...
If the players that were neglected or undervalued on the list make them look silly for posting them that low. Why do all lists have to be the same? Show me a highly rated publication that has actually projected a top 50 prospect list correctly.
When I look at prospect rankings its not solely how they are performing statistically. More important is how they will impact at the major league level. You can knock the list all you want but picking prospects are almost akin to picking a stock. You can have all the numbers in front of you and all the info in the world, but sometimes they just don’t work out like they should. I think their list is okay but not spectacular. If you think their list is so off kilter then make what you think is a better one if you can.
I actually liked the list a lot.
Aside from some minor quibbles (Bumgarner, Holland), I liked some of the risks they took (especially the Weglarz and Rondon rankings).
+1 on Rondon
TheSouthWing.com - A Magazine of essays, prose and poems
I like Kris Medlen but he hasnt faired well in the MLB so I dont think he should be on there
by Heyward is the next crime dog on Jul 2, 2009 10:38 PM EDT reply actions
LOL
You Project Prospect fanboys are pathetic. That site lost all credibility with me when they dropped Justin Upton down to like 40 a couple years back. That site was a piece of shit back then and it’s an even bigger piece of shit now with Josh Vitters not even getting an honorable mention. They obviously have no idea what they’re talking about and I won’t waste another nanosecond worrying about what those brain stems have to say about anything.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
by WayneCampbell08 on Jul 2, 2009 11:22 PM EDT reply actions
:D
Can’t say I remember a PP list with Upton in the 40s. It’s possible that I simply I don’t remember but I do remember KG having Upton around 30 in 2007. Even if PP had him in the 40’s, the difference between the 30th ranked prospect and the 40th ranked prospect is insignificant so you must think KG and BP are a “piece of shit” that “lost all credibility with” you?
I doubt Josh Vitters makes my top 50
Howie Kendrick 2.0 isn’t exactly knocking my socks off.
Linda's in the cold ground, won't see her anymore
Somewhere out on the highway tonight, the drunken engines roar
It's just one of those things, one of those things
-- Al Stewart, "Accident on 3rd St."
In memory of Nick Adenhart and all victims of drunk driving
Sickels Disagrees
I think Vitters will turn out to be a very good hitter, however John Sickels himself has made the Kendrick comp for Vitters so it isn’t like PT is making this up.
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
-Jonathan Swift
by King Billy Royal on Jul 3, 2009 10:45 AM EDT up reply actions
I was also alluding to Vitters's checkered past health status
Although, to be fair, he’s basically been healthy this year.
Linda's in the cold ground, won't see her anymore
Somewhere out on the highway tonight, the drunken engines roar
It's just one of those things, one of those things
-- Al Stewart, "Accident on 3rd St."
In memory of Nick Adenhart and all victims of drunk driving
PP
I enjoy some of there stuff, actually a good amount of it. I used to talk to Foster a little bit when he posted over here. We’d e-mail about some prospects and what not. I think he is a pretty smart guy, and I enjoy their takes on prospects.
My one issue is the criteria that someone posted before about them liking high floor players. Is someone honestly going to tell me that Fernando Martinez (10), Mike Stanton (12), Dom Brown (17), Desmond Jennings (25), Chris Carter (37), Lars Anderson (38) , Jenrry Mejia (41), Martin Perez (44), have high floors? Honest that’s a bunch of crap. These guys are great prospects, but a good deal of it has to do with projection of tools, not high floors.
High floor guys to me are Alderson, Reese Havens, Freedie Freeman, Logan Morrison, and Neftali Feliz.
My next biggest issue is to drop out Neftali Feliz, and leave Holland at two. If Holland has such a high floor, then Feliz does too. Even if Feliz’s secondary stuff never comes together (and I have been as critical of him as anyone) he is already a MLB reliever, and a good one. That is the definition of a high floor. While you can say the same about Holland and even Bumgarder, I don’t see how one could rank them so far apart.
I think the list is decent, but if this is a list of prospects with high floors then don’t call it a top 50 prospect list. Call it you top 50 sure things list. One could argue that part of projecting a prospect is whether or not they will actually put it together and make it to the show. However, it is as equally important to project which players have the tools of a major leaguer. They really missed the boat on that last part. A mid – season list, not containing Michael Taylor after all he has done, is practically a failure. Especially when it is apparent you have overreacted to the performances of other prospects in a negitive way (see Moustakas 11 to Dropped Out) Would a reasonable prospect watcher really believe they would rather have Vin Mazzaro, Kyle Blanks, or Zach McAllister than Moustakas, Feliz, Taylor, Wallace, Kelly, Latos, Freeman, or Vitters. Every single team in baseball would trade one of those three for one of the latter mentioned.
I understand not ranking, Villalona, Flores, Yona, and young kids who are really far away. But don’t tell me
BB% and K% are career rates; Ages are as of July 1, 2009; Lvl is the highest level the player has reached; Our rankings factor in floor and ceiling
And then hit me with
If you haven’t seen our rankings before, you’ll notice that we’re huge on trying to pick out guys with high floors. Sorry if that approach contrasts with your fantasy league setup.
If you are going to mention the fantasy league crap, then say how you heavily account for defensive value, don’t say that you are looking for high floors, that’s a load of sh!t. That’s not a complete evaluation, that’s not a list of the top 50 prospects.
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...
I think you are taking that comment to far. They aren’t specifically looking for high floor guys who are good bets to be league average, they just value those types of players more than other sites. Your first quote is essentially their method (+ ISOP and a few other things) but then they make adjustments on personal preference/opinion as they gather enough information about the players to form opinons. I to have trouble understanding how they come to their final version of their rankings but it really comes down to a difference in philosophy that I have to account for when reading their lists/work.
Thanks for all the comments
It’s an honor to have our work dissected by such a well-informed community. Reading through the comments in this thread, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m in the company of some of the best minor league thinkers around.
My writers and I have noted your criticism. Many of your points are valid. If we truly had our act together, Project Prospect would have a larger following and would get more respect in the industry. We still have a lot of ground to cover. And I’m aware that I could have set a better tone as the voice of Project Prospect by carrying myself with more maturity during our first year and a half or so of existence.
We’ve poured a lot of energy into crunching numbers over the years. Recently, I’ve dedicated myself to learning more about scouting – I spent a week at Minor League Spring Training in Arizona last March. My fellow writers and I have also made an effort to become better connected in the industry. Lincoln Hamilton has established a lot of baseball contacts – both of us aided a pro team in some basic 2009 draft research. We also plan to spend an extended period of time at the Arizona Fall League later this year.
I realize that we owe the people who acknowledge our work a better explanation of our thought process. We haven’t earned the right to just pump out lists and be taken seriously. A lot of the rankings that I’ve headed are from a relatively shot-in-the-dark approach. Efforts to fine-tune our methods will be taken. I’ve actually spent a good part of this weekend conducting quantitative hitter studies that will help solidify our in-season ranking approach.
Thank you very much for your feedback. It is greatly appreciated.
I’m happy to address specific concerns with our mid-season Top 50 as well.
Sincerely,
Adam Foster
Way to take the high road Adam
I did not like the list much myself, but that in no way means you suck or don’t know what you are doing. I think some people here lose that point. Like any message board, people tend to get sucked into group-think and fail to have truly independent ideas. Then when someone breaks away from that group-think, they get heavily criticized.
This is no different than how Luciano used to get treated here, or how Law still gets treated here. Guess that puts you in elite company!
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