Minor Leagues April 13th, 2012

I think Profar might go 280 350 450, while playing an above average SS. Which is very valuable. But more like 10-15 for me.

Machado I think will be a special bat while playing decent SS.

What happens if Profar ends up as a 2B/3B who hits .270/.350/.400? That is a solid player but not a great one, and it would be more within the realm of reasonable outcomes, IMO. Would that then make you ahead of the curve on being behind the curve?

His polish does not reduce his ceiling, obviously, and I haven’t seen anybody make that argument, so I’ll call straw man. What his relatively advanced skill set might do is lead to unrealistic projections for his game, for two reasons. One, it does mean that he might not have as much room to grow in his game as other players, as there will undoubtedly be other players who make gains both in physicality and in polish. In other words, it’s not so much that he’s getting worse as other players are just getting better. The second reason is one I’ve mentioned numerous times before, that a player with developed skills is rare in Low A, and having those skills will enable a player to excel there with the consequent result that it is difficult to derive his true talent level solely from the numbers. You don’t need superior physical talent to succeed in the lower levels of the minors, as I’m sure you are aware. Double A tends to sift through the players and make it very clear who has truly exceptional talent and who does not, and it does so through both scouting and numbers.

I never said his polish was a minus. That is pretty ridiculous. I also have him in my top 5 overall. Like I said, my post really had nothing to do with Profar exactly. IF you believe the only advantage he has vs other hitters his age is polish, that doesn’t mean much to me. I’m not saying that I believe his main ARL advantage is polish though.

“If he’s still struggling in 6 weeks, then we can start looking for reasons to downgrade him. We’re not there yet.”

The only things that could change for Profar in 6 weeks’ time are his performance level and his statistical sample size. So you would downgrade him for his numbers? Does that mean that the reverse is true - you upgraded him because of his numbers? In A ball?

I continue to be confused as to how anybody got the idea that there is a group of people downgrading Profar for having an advanced skill set for his age. I haven’t seen a single person advocate that view, let alone a group of people. If you have evidence that specifically notes the existence of this view, feel free to show me where it exists. Otherwise, I think a retraction is in order.

Let’s say we have group

A: Raw players with plenty of tools, that we dont know if it will translate to skills.
B: Polished players with patience and all the skills but don’t have the elite tools.

There are two situations we concern ourselves with:

Player A struggles
We expect that. The ranking will go down a marginal amount - based on how much skills improvement (like plate discipline) occurs. If in subsequent years the player continues to struggle and we dont see skill improvement then gradings are seriously lowered. While this player may have a high OFP their likelihood of reaching it is much lower.

Player B struggles
We dont expect player B to struggle as they are polished playing against players that are not polished. Player B should have a plan and know how to execute it. If they fail in this we have to rethink if they truly have the skills that resulted in the grade they got. The ranking of player B would drop drastically, barring extenuating circumstances like injury.

Player A excels
We don’t expect that right away. If this occurs and it goes with a true skills improvement like plate discipline then the ranking of Player A should go up. Their likelihood of reaching their OFP goes up.

Player B excels
We expect that. If this occurs then the likelihood of Player B reaching their OFP goes up. Their grading is only increased a marginal amount because this player was/should have been given a high floor already due to the polished game.