The Elite Pitching Prospects: 2003 through 2006
by John Sickels on Feb 7, 2012 3:05 PM EST
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Last week, I looked at the Top 25 Pitchers in 2011 (according to Fangraphs WAR) and how they were rated as prospects. Today I'm doing something slightly different, and looking at all pitching prospects that I rated Grade A or A- between 2003 and 2006.
I'm not doing earlier years because the way I rated players in the old STATS Minor League Scouting Notebooks was slightly different than the way I do it in the Baseball Prospect Book. I'm not looking at years past 2006 because I want to look at guys who are firmly established. I am not looking at players who had lower ratings than Grade A- because I want to keep the focus manageable and looking just at the super-elite, top 20 type guys. Keep in mind that there is often not a lot of difference between a Grade B+ and a Grade A-.
First, here is how I define Grade A/A- prospects in my book:
Grade A prospects are the elite. They have a good chance of becoming stars or superstars. Almost all Grade A prospects develop into major league regulars, if injuries or other problems don't intervene. Note that is a major "if" in some cases.
The year the player was an A or A- is in parentheses. Players are listed alphabetically.
Kurt Ainsworth (2003): 29 games, 22 starts, 127 innings, 4.88 FIP, Peak WAR 0.8, Total WAR 0.8. Career ruined by injuries.
Chad Billingsley (2005, 2006): 192 games, 163 starts, 1014 innings, 3.71 FIP, Peak WAR 4.5, Total WAR 16.8. Although he hasn't developed into a Cy Young type, he's been quite solid and I consider this a verified grade.
Joe Blanton (2004): 206 games, 198 starts, 1244 innings, 4.19 FIP, Peak WAR 5.6, Total WAR 18.1. Solid inning-eater. Hasn't been exceptional, but he's had a good career.
Matt Cain (2005, 2006): 204 games, 203 starts, 1317 innings, 3.69 FIP, Peak WAR 5.2, Total WAR 24.2. Very durable, very effective, very consistent, and still getting better.
Cesar Carrillo (2006): 10.1 innings, 11.42 FIP, -0.7 WAR. Ruined by injuries.
Jesse Crain (2005): 443 games, 4 saves, 447 innings, 3.99 FIP, Peak WAR 1.2, Total WAR 3.9. He's been a solid middle reliever when healthy. Why was he ranked so high? Back in the 2003-2006 window there was a big push in fantasy circles to find future closers, and I thought Crain could be one. This also impacts some of the other guys on his list. I don't rate closer prospects so highly now, one way that experience has altered my thinking.
Gavin Floyd (2003, 2004, 2005): 165 games, 153 starts, 959 innings, 4.37 FIP, Peak WAR 4.5, Total WAR 14.6. It took him a bit of time, but he developed into a solid starter. Verified.
Jesse Foppert (2003): 27 games, 23 starts, 122 innings, 5.27 FIP, peak WAR 0.4, total WAR 0.1. Derailed by injuries.
Jeff Francis (2005): 181 games, 180 starts, 1066 innings, 4.40 FIP, peak WAR 4.1, total WAR 16.5. Missed a year with injuries, but a decent enough pitcher when healthy.
Zack Greinke (2004): 238 games, 197 starts, 1280 innings, 3.51 FIP, peak WAR 9.3, total WAR 30.7. I'd say this one is fully verified. Cy Young winner.
Cole Hamels (2004): 181 games, 180 starts, 1161 innings, 3.63 FIP, peak WAR 4.9, total WAR 23.0. Excellent pitcher, fully verified.
Craig Hansen (2006): 95 games, 94 innings, 5.27 FIP, peak WAR 0.2, total WAR -0.3. Was supposed to be an ace closer but command issues prevented it. Major bust.
Rich Harden (2003): 170 games, 160 starts, 928 innings, 3.95 FIP, peak WAR 4.5, total WAR 17.3. He's been very effective when healthy but he has big problems staying healthy.
Felix Hernandez (2005): 205 games, 205 starts, 1388 innings, 3.31 FIP, peak WAR 6.8, total WAR 32.7. This one turned out really well, fully verified. Cy Young winner.
Mike Hinckley (2005): 28 games, 23 innings, 4.70 FIP, peak WAR 0.3, total WAR -0.1. Quality of both command and stuff faded, ended up in relief, had a brief bit of success in Nationals bullpen in 2008. Obviously a bust of course.
Jason Hirsch (2006): 32 games, 29 starts, 166 innings, 5.82 FIP, peak WAR 0.9, total WAR 0.2. A few moments of success but trade to Colorado didn't help, topped out as a Quadruple-A guy.
Kris Honel (2004): Ruined by injuries.
Edwin Jackson (2004): 203 games, 173 starts, 1079 innings, 4.34 FIP, peak WAR 3.8, total WAR 14.0. A decent starting pitcher.
Francisco Liriano (2006): 134 games, 113 starts, 683 innings, 3.61 FIP, peak WAR 6.0, total WAR 14.3. Outstanding when healthy, but he's only been healthy twice.
Scott Kazmir (2004, 2005): 180 games, 179 starts, 1022 innings, 4.15 FIP, peak WAR 5.3, total WAR 16.6. Excellent early in his career before injuries struck.
Brandon McCarthy (2005): 135 games, 81 starts, 543 innings, 4.28 FIP, peak WAR 4.7, total WAR 8.1. Looked like a bust until 2011.
Dustin McGowan (2004): 80 games, 60 starts, 375 innings, 4.15 FIP, peak WAR 3.9, total WAR 6.3. Pitched quite well in 2007-2008 before injuries.
Dan Meyer (2005): 103 games, 7 starts, 114 innings, 4.92 FIP, peak WAR 0.5, total WAR -0.1. Some moments of relief success, but chance to be more was ruined by injuries.
Adam Miller (2005): Career ruined by injuries.
Greg Miller (2004): Injuries, control problems.
Francisco Rodriguez (2003): 604 games, 291 saves, 649 innings, 2.93 FIP, peak WAR 4.0, total WAR 16.4. Became an excellent closer. Verified. Rolaids winner.
Rafael Soriano (2003): 384 games, 90 saves, 434 innings, 3.30 FIP, peak WAR 2.0, total WAR 7.6. Successful relief pitcher with two strong years as a closer. Rolaids winner.
Huston Street (2005): 417 games, 178 saves, 436 innings, 3.09 FIP, peak WAR 2.4, total WAR 10.0. Successful closer.
Justin Verlander (2006): 199 games, 199 starts, 1315 innings, 3.49 FIP, peak WAR 8.3, total WAR 32.4. Obviously excellent. Cy Young winner.
Ryan Wagner (2004): 148 games, 165 innings, 4.50 FIP, peak WAR 0.3, total WAR 0.2. "Can't miss" closer prospect missed due to control problems and injuries.
Adam Wainwright (2003, 2004): 182 games, 119 starts, 874 innings, 3.36 FIP, peak WAR 6.1, total WAR 18.5. An excellent starter now at his peak.
Jerome Williams (2003): 86 games, 77 starts, 469 innings, 4.69 FIP, peak WAR: 2.0, total WAR 4.0. Started off well but faded.
There were 32 pitchers rated as Grade A or A- prospects between 2003 and 2006. Of this 32, we had seven guys I regard as definite injury busts (Ainsworth, Carrillo, Foppert, Honel, Meyer, and both Millers). Others were also impacted by injuries although still showed at least something in the majors.
As I wrote about with Crain, I don't rate closer prospects as aggressively as I used to. Of the relief prospects on the list, K-Rod, Street, and Soriano were all successful, while Crain was a reasonable middle reliever. Hansen and Wagner busted.
There are three Cy Young winners, two Rolaids winners. Twelve of these pitchers have thrown 900 or more innings. Seventeen had seasons with a peak WAR of 3.0 or higher, and that doesn't include Street or Soriano (WAR doesn't give closers enough credit).
Overall, I am quite happy with this.
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Ainsworth
I remember when the O’s got him and I was excited. Sigh.
Kevin Gregg-"You obviously haven't acquired my taste for pitching yet"
In hindsight
how did either Foppert or Hinckley get an A grade? I can’t remember how they were thought of and both of their stats don’t show anything that would have merited it.
played a hunch in both cases...pushed them from B+ to A-.
Hinckley was a big stretch. Foppert wasn’t so much.
Hinckley wasn't a bust
He was never the same after his shoulder injury
John 3:16
"If they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I’ll play like Gallego." - Rickey Henderson
Foppert
He had 183 SO in 140 IP in the TL and PCL in his first full pro season. That is definitely A grade worthy stuff. Injuries ruined him, he never got his control back after TJS
You are picking one and only one stat to determine if he is grade A?
He also walked a lot in AAA and gave up a lot of HR’s. And while ERA isn’t the be all his ERA in AAA wasn’t anything special.
his stuff was devastating when he was on...saw it in person
by John Sickels on Feb 7, 2012 10:04 PM EST up reply actions
I figured as much, especially since his numbers were good but not great
My reply to bigboy1234 was in regards to their stats showing they were an A grade. I guess he took it the wrong way, I’m not stating Foppert didn’t deserve the grade. I wanted to know what the scouting side said. By all accounts His injury ended his career – and should be an example that TJ surgery isn’t a walk in the park like some think it is.
If memeory serves, didn’t BA also rank him very highly in 2002/03?
Yes, I just checked and found this from Sept. 2002 (bolded empahsis added by me):
Pacific Coast League Top 20 Prospects
By Jim Callis
September 27, 2002
1. Jesse Foppert, rhp, Fresno Grizzlies (Giants)
The question isn’t how Foppert became the minors’ best mound prospect two years after becoming a full-time pitcher. That answer is apparent to everyone who saw him pitch this year. But how did this guy last 74 picks in the 2000 draft?
Foppert reached Triple-A 12 months after signing and led the minors with 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings in his first full season. He got whiffs with three pitches: a mid-90s fastball that can reach 97 mph, a quick slider that runs down and in on righthanders, and a splitter that hitters couldn’t help but chase out of the strike zone.
“He misses bats,” an American League scout said. “Guys swing through his fastball and don’t touch it.”
Extremely athletic, Foppert has smooth mechanics to go with outstanding mound presence. He sharpened his slider in Fresno but still can improve his secondary pitches, which also include a changeup. He’ll also need to refine his command and get stronger after averaging less than six innings per start and fading in August.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Yeah big time fastball velocity that he never showed in the pros, right?
Foppert was big stuff…Foppert, Ainsworth, and Jerome Williams….those guys were going to pitch for Barry Bonds’ WS ring.
MVP Baseball
He was a beast #3 for me in MVP baseball, so there’s that.
Most arguments are really about context.
by SheaWasBettor21 on Feb 7, 2012 11:45 PM EST up reply actions
In retrospect
If you saw all these stats at the time of grading (but you didn’t know which guys was which – you could guess which ones were reliever prospects though), wouldn’t you want to lower quite a few of the grades…maybe all but the ones you felt really really good about? I realize the RP prospects would get lower grades, but I’d think with the overall high injury rate, you’d probably want to downgrade quite a few other pitching prospects as well. And if that is true, shouldn’t you be factoring in this risk of injuries (as well as busts), when you grade pitchers in the future? Maybe there is some way to look back and see which ones are injury risks, but I doubt you find ALL that much hindsight evidence. And maybe in general you give out fewer A-/A grades to pitchers now than in the past. But I think if you aren’t any better at identifying future injury cases, and are only marginally better (through experience or improvements in scouting/stats) at downgrading future bust candidates, maybe you shouldn’t have so many A-/A pitching candidates compared to hitting ones. If the failures seem random in retrospect, you can just downgrade 25% of the A-/A pitchers going forward, which should lead to better success in the future.
maybe this is my ego talking
But I don’t regard a 7/32 injury-bust ratio as being that bad considering how risky pitching prospects often are.
Of the 25 who didn’t get completely destroyed by injuries, 17 had a peak season with a WAR of 3.0 or higher, plus the two closers (Soriano/Street) that WAR doesn’t like. That’s a 19/25 success ratio of pitchers who did not have catastropic injuries that prevented all success. I think that’s pretty good.
But again, it is hard to judge oneself.
"considering how risky pitching prospects often are"
You should be downgrading them for that. I know you say pitching prospects are different from hitting prospects. I don’t want to start a big thing about that. But if the main reason pitching prospects are different is because pitchers get injured way more, then I think pitchers should be downgraded anytime you would even consider a potential downgrade (this would only apply at this point anyway to A-/A pitchers getting a downgrade to B+/A- because when you get to the lower pitching prospects there is an unexpected breakout factor — probably greater than with hitters — that mitigates the injury/bust factor).
You’ll end up with fewer A pitching prospects (maybe just Matt Moore this year?), and fewer A-/A pitching prospects combined, but maybe B+ pitchers wouldn’t need to be downgraded at all? I did see that you say often a B+ and A- are very close together, but maybe anytime you see that a particular player you have as an A- is especially close to the B+ guys, he should get the downgrade. You said above that Foppert and Hinkley were somewhat hunches…well, maybe the hunches should get the downgrade…they can still be ranked fairly high on your pitchers list (even the exact same spot). It is a short list, so I bet you remember which cases where borderline A-/B+ cases.
This is a small sample, so who really knows what conclusions we can draw from it, but if you believe that pitching prospects are risky, that risk should be factored in ahead of time, not just as a mitigating factor in testing your results against expectations after the fact.
I hope this doesn’t come off as a criticism. It is just something to think about.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 7, 2012 4:19 PM EST up reply actions
Alternatively we can just take pitching ratings with a larger grain of salt
Understanding that a quarter of them (roughly speaking) will simply explode.
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Well that isn't the alternative
That is the current situation that I’d like to find an alternative to.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 7, 2012 6:13 PM EST up reply actions
The current situation
Arguably, the current situation is that he already gives more hitters the higher grade. At least judging from the lists he just posted, he had 46 hitters compared to 32 pitchers, and if I counted right, only 28 of those 46 hitters had a peak WAR of more than 3.0.
So arguably you have had about 39% of the hitters disappoint, not that much different from the pitchers. Yes, there are a few more injury related busts with the pitchers, but the end result doesn’t seem to be that different in this sample at least.
by acerimusdux on Feb 7, 2012 8:10 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
+1
Kila's slash for Apr 20 to May 4, 2011, right before he was sent down: .276 / .344 / .448
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Feb 8, 2012 2:50 PM EST up reply actions
all you're doing
is squeezing more pitchers into the B+ category
at the end of the day, when you grade prospects on an A, B, C level, you’re just comparing them relative to other prospects. and since John keeps his pitchers and hitters separate anyway, i don’t really see what the problem is
No problem
But he does combine the lists, and he ranks the players accordingly.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 7, 2012 9:00 PM EST up reply actions
He only combines them because enough people ask. He doesn’t do it because he wants to. John has said that plenty of times.
Unless your talking about the organizational lists, of course he’s going to combines the pitchers and hitters. Otherwise he’d have to do 60 lists with 15-20 players on each.
Yeah
The organizational lists rank both hitters and pitchers.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 8, 2012 1:18 AM EST up reply actions
This is faulty prospect logic
As a front-office type, I think you would certainly take your pitching prospects with a grain of salt considering the injury nexus. However, when grading prospects, you really can’t guess. It isn’t worth it to downgrade someone who has a great chance to be successful when the biggest if is “if he stays healthy.” You’re just throwing at a dart board at that point.
by nobodyinparticular on Feb 8, 2012 12:30 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Well
You’d be downgrading all the pitchers on some level, but that doesn’t mean they’d all drop from A- to B+. A strong A- would likely maintain an A- grade. All other ifs are taken into account, so I don’t see why such a huge if wouldn’t be. Actually I am pretty sure it is already taken into account to some degree by John and pitchers are downgraded relative to hitters to some extent. I just think these results (limited sample), probably suggest that the downgrade should possibly be a bit stronger.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 8, 2012 1:27 AM EST up reply actions
This
We can never know, of course, but it’s entirely possible that some of the injured busts could have been elite players if they hadn’t gotten injured. That’s why you’d give them an A or A-. It’s for their potential and probability of reaching it if injuries don’t get in the way (and this is the same as for position players as well). You just can’t really tell when a particular player will get injured and what the long term effects of that injury are. Unless there’s something really obvious, you can consider pitchers to have roughly similar chances of having an injury and so you mostly take injuries out of the equation when you are grading players.
Or downgrade all of them slightly
Not necessarily a full +/-.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 8, 2012 9:55 AM EST up reply actions
Why?
Yes, 7 out of 32 bust because of injury, but why “punish” the ones that won’t?
We all know that pitchers, even elite prospects, can flame out due to injury. We just can’t, with any reasonable certainty, determine which ones and when the injuries will occur. Why downgrade them all when 25 of 32 won’t have their career completely derailed by injuries?
Because it doesn't apply to all prospects
It applies to pitching prospects. Maybe one of the reasons John is always stressing that pitching grades are different from positional grades is because he hasn’t figured a way to properly discount pitchers for their higher injury risk. I’m not sure. If you knew there was a 22% chance that a particular player would get hurt and ruin his career, and a very small chance that a similar quality player would get hurt and ruin his career, why give them the same grade? This is basic stuff.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 8, 2012 2:55 PM EST up reply actions
because
like i’ve said many times already
grades are read as relative
An A grade pitcher =/= An A grade hitter
The difference between an A grade pitcher and a B grade pitcher, however, is basically equal to the difference between an A grade hitter and a B grade hitter
That last statement
Doesn’t seem to be true at all. The difference between pitchers are much flatter than hitters. Plus saying a grade A hitter =/= equal a grade A pitcher is true to some extent, but they can be brought closer together, especially if the main reason they don’t equate is because of the injury risk difference.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 9, 2012 2:30 PM EST up reply actions
Really?
Seems the reality is that while a few ended up as B’s, many more held their A value or flamed out completely due to injury.
The flameouts would still be graded wrong if you dropped them all a grade, and you’d be taking a bunch of A prospects and dropping them into a category where you’d get even more of them wrong than if you’d left them as A’s.
I think most people recognize that pitching prospects come with an inherent injury risk – probably the reason so many are taken in the early rounds by real-world GMs. I don’t agree that it means that they all have to be viewed with skepticism. I still want to know which have the potential, barring injury, to be aces, and I’ll take my chances with the injury risk.
Well
The flameouts would be “less wrong” if they had a lower grade. The way I see it, the chance of a seemingly solid pitching prospect flaming out should be factored in as much as a high upside not-yet-solid pitching prospect chances of never quite putting it together should be factored in. That high upside guy would still have the flameout factor of the solid guy, but it wouldn’t necessitate the same kind of downgrade, because a lot of the flameout factor is already factored in with that type of player. There is no reason to be in denial that seemingly solid pitching prospects do flameout, largely due to injuries. I’m not suggesting that John is in denial either. I’m just saying it is worth taking a look and possibly ending up with a wider B grouping and a smaller A-/A grouping.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 9, 2012 2:41 PM EST up reply actions
Obvious logical extension of your argument
If we cannot tell which prospect pitcher will get injured and how that will affect their future, then we must, by your argument, downgrade them all. If John doesn’t hand out A+, the highest grade a prospect can have is an A. However, because of the downgrade, the highest possible grade a pitching prospect can have is an A-
Oh, I know you are going to say that some of the downgrading shouldn’t cause a pitching prospect to drop a grade. If you do so, what you are in essence saying is that John shouldn’t hand out as many A and A- grades.
I don’t mind the number of A and A- grades because I think that those are saying that, barring injury, these prospects should have good, possibly even great or elite, careers. When injuries can’t be predicted, they shouldn’t be a factor in grading.
You are sort of missing the point
There are prospects that get B grades or better that are very young and have a lot left to prove. All prospects of similar quality where that is true get a bump because there is a chance of a breakout or a chance that the player will develop as we hope. We don’t know which ones from that group will realize that upside though, so we bump each of them up a little. Granted the ones that do end up as stars will be “more wrong” because we bump them up only a little because of that upside potential instead of giving them an A- or A right away, but they’ll be “less wrong” than if we didn’t upgrade them at all.
The point is we should be factoring in all possible outcomes, not just some. If we assume the injury likelihood of pitchers with no red flags is constant, the downgrade will still not be constant as we look at lower graded prospects, because that injury risk is at the very least mitigated by their flame-out risk and possibly already factored in to it. Maybe the relatively high floor relatively low ceiling A- types need the downgrade…because they still have a 25%+ flameout rate including injuries. The high upside, higher risk ones, probably don’t have a much higher flameout rate.
You want to ignore the injury factor completely, even though the SAME injury risk factor affects pitchers overall flame out rates differently. I think that is a big shortsighted mistake. And if we ignore injury risk to pitchers while still integrating them with hitters who have a smaller injury risk, it skews the numbers even further. But the argument is valid when dealing with pitchers alone.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 10, 2012 3:58 PM EST up reply actions
Also
The flameouts would be "less wrong" if they had a lower grade
And the star players would be “more wrong” because their grade was too low.
I address this above
This is true yes. When you factor in all outcomes, you end up with an average, which will be further away from the extremes at both end, which is a key component in grading prospects.
by auclairkeithbc on Feb 10, 2012 4:00 PM EST up reply actions
Did you take a look at the hitter list at all?
Without fully compiling the results, I would suggest the success rate on the pitchers was comparable to the hitters. I don’t know why you would want John to downgrade pitchers 25% – unless you are suggesting to do the same with hitters.
So would you say that of the A/A- grades you give to a starting pitcher currently, the grade was justified if they become an innings-eater #4 or 5 starter for 6+ seasons?
Like if Shelby Miller became Joe Blanton (random WAR comparison only) then an A/A- was a good grade to give, or that maybe he was really a B prospect to begin with but at least he has shown some value?
follow @casetines
Sorry, I missed this one
Well I would say that a guy who is an A/A- but ends up like Blanton (an above-average but not excellent pitcher), while not ideal, isn’t really a failure. Grade A means “has a good chance to be a star and a almost all As become major league regulars.” A Blanton-outcome would fit into the “major league regular” category, though not a star. In my mind, while Blanton didn’t become a star, he did become a valuable player, and thus the grade verified, if not to its maximum extent.
Now, you can argue about the definitions, and certainly “almost all As” doesn’t turn out be true. But that’s a seperate issue.
Personally
I would love to see what level these players were at when they were graded at A or A- the first time. Would be interesting to see how far away you were able to see many of these guys being effective big leaguers to the extent that you placed a lofty grade on them.
Example: If you throw an “A” on Stetson Allie right now, and he actually fulfills his potential, that would be impressive to an extent well beyond labeling Julio Teheran an “A” this year.
Just an idea.
by Woo! on Feb 7, 2012 4:43 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
be interesting
to see if some of these “bust” type guys can make a second career out of it in their 30s. Jerome Williams, Cesar Carillo, Hinckley, etc.
Pitchers get a lot more chances than position players, and some of these guys could figure out how to get by on guts and guile even if their arms are shot.
Lets look back at this thread in 5 years and see how many come back around
Hinckley never regained his command after his shoulder injury.
Still had good stuff, just walked too many after the injury
John 3:16
"If they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I’ll play like Gallego." - Rickey Henderson
WAR Per Player
Anybody add it up and compare the pitchers vs the hitters?
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Another Idea
It would take considerable more effort, but might be much more enlightening, would be to not just list the top ranks, but list the outlier ranks, where did you differ mostly from the consensus.
telling us that you had felix hernandez as an A and he has been successful tells us absolutely nothing about ranking players. It would be more telling if you just ranked where you were far off from the other ranking pundits out there, give us your reason for the discrepancy and then figure out what happened
For in depth fantasy analysis be sure to visit the Hawk Fantasy Sports site @ www.HawkBall.com
yeah
But like you said, that would be a LOT of research and, I think, for little gain given what my goals are.
I’m basically trying to see what my past mistakes were. Learn from history…etc.
by John Sickels on Feb 7, 2012 10:06 PM EST up reply actions
Multiple A Grade Players
I posted that it was odd that so many of the player with multiple years of Grade A didn’t live up to the hype on the hitters list, but this definitely does not cross over to the Pitchers. There are only 5, but Billingsley, Cain, Floyd, Kazmir, and Wainwright would make a fine rotation in a year they were all healthy and at their peak.
Another point
Another point is that the lists we are looking at are five to eight years old. . .since my methods are constantly evolving, it doesn’t tell us a lot about how successful a 2012 list might be since I’m not looking at players in quite the same way as I did six years ago.
This is the kind of analysis I do on my work every year once the book is done. The difference is that this time I’m showing you how some of the sausage is made and making the process (somewhat) transparent.
It's great stuff.
This is also a catalyst for your readers to re-think the way they view prospects too, and it brings back memories. Fostering self examination is the writer’s most important role in society.
And it’s fun.
Most arguments are really about context.
by SheaWasBettor21 on Feb 7, 2012 11:57 PM EST up reply actions
Good point
Not to mention that the way that different orgs try to develop pitchers has evolved (in some cases quite a bit) just since 2006.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
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