BaseBallstotheWall

As some of you may know, in addition to watching video from Prospect Tube, the two places I’m mostly likely to consult for scouting information are Project Prospect and Baseball Prospectus. Oddly enough, it would be difficult to find more conflicting philosophies, with a very general statement suggesting that Project Prospect favors floor and Baseball Prospectus favors shooting for the moon. That said, if you wanted to determine what either site prefers, well…I gave you the link for a reason.

The point of contention for me arises from evaluating pitchers versus hitters. I was struck particularly by some information I read this morning from Adam Foster in his chat here, which is essentially that “all pitchers have a low floor.” I think this shines a light on a very good point: upside, in my evaluation, is far more important as it pertains to pitchers than to hitters. A pitcher who is just good at some things (throwing strikes, getting rounders, missing bats, having a strong history of health) is literally just another guy. Hitters are another story: they have value if they’re just a good defender, if they’re just good at drawing walks and reaching base, or if they just have plus power, you can generally find a fit for them. I’m not focusing tremendously on platoon play because if you read this site you know my preference for right-handed pitchers and left-handed hitters, but I don’t think that is really a unique enough trait to weight in this exercise.

I disagree with the notion that hitters are more valuable than pitchers for almost exactly the same reason that the folks over at Project Prospect seem to be ranking hitters over pitchers, and that’s because the pitchers who can potentially do “everything” have so much more value to me than hitters who can do “everything,” largely because of scarcity. If you draft or rank a 5-tool prospect in the low minors and he winds up not developing the plate discipline necessary to capitalize on massive raw power and elite fielding skills, he still has raw power and fielding skills to potentially making him a positive asset. The reward, however, is that all 5-tools develop and he turns into an elite asset. By contrast, you can find any old pitcher to throw strikes and sport an ERA around 5, and there is a rash abundance of them. There are very few pitchers who can miss bats, control the strikezone and win games, and those are the most important assets in baseball.

If I’m being unclear, let’s take some an opportunity to illustrate my point. Ryan Sweeney, drafted in the second round of the 2003 draft, was drafted as a legitimate 5-tool center-field prospect. He was expected to develop power while playing plus defense, hitting for high average and having strong speed. The power simply has not come, however, and while he’s only 25, it seems pretty unlikely at this point that it’s going to come. It appears that his defensive ability also plays up far better in a corner (he’s played nearly 50% more in RF than CF in his time with the Athletics) and his UZR has been stronger in RF (though should be noted that it’s also VERY good in CF). That means, despite the power, we still have a 4 win player with plus strike-zone control and elite defense. So why shouldn’t we rank him as highly as a pitcher with a similar skillset? Because it’s FAR, FAR more rare that a pitcher can have this level of development, and so believing in one means seeing them with more value.

Perhaps this is a turn from conventional wisdom, but I’m a strong believer in drafting and ranking assets that are more difficult to accumulate. For pitchers, if their strikeout rate declines, their walk rate rises, or their command or stuff worsen, they’re really not unlike every other #4 or #5 starter. They don’t have the uniqueness of elite defense, strong contact skills, massive power, etc. They’re just like everyone else. So you might say, why favor the riskier bet?

It’s simple. The difference between a flawed pitcher and an elite pitcher is so much greater than a flawed 5-tool prospect and a complete 5-tool player. I’d want to hedge my bets.

Having read a number of interesting baseball books (Moneyball, The Book, The Book on the Book), I feel it necessary to discuss the value of an out as it pertains to evaluating minor league prospects. All of these books discuss and weigh the various parts of the game that cost an offense outs, including strictly managerial tendencies like sacrifice bunts and intentional walks.

Let’s take a look at the virtually universally accepted runs per outcome chart, this one taken directly from The Book (Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin, page 28).

Home Run 1.397
Triple 1.070
Double .776
Error .508
Single .475
Interference .392
HBP .352
Non-Intentional Walk .323
Passed Ball .269
Wild Pitch .266
Balk .264
Intentional Walk .179
Stolen Base .175
Defensive Indifference .120
Bunt .042
Sac Bunt -.096
Pickoff -.281
Out -.299
Strikeout -.301
Caught Stealing -.467

Now, this graph is a tad bit superfluous for the information I want to illustrate, but you’ll see quite plainly that an out is worth essentially -.3 runs. Every time a batter makes an out they are costing a team that many runs, with caveats for some specific outs made (strikeouts, caught stealing, pickoff, etc.). You’ll see the lack of value in the sac bunt, intentional walk and caught stealing in this metric, as well, which is a good thing to realize for you folks advocating small ball. There are a number of interesting books on this topic that I would suggest taking a look at if this topic interests you in any way.

I think you can use this information to determine exactly what you want in a prospect, and the single most paramount of those things should be the ability to avoid an out, with the second most important being to create an out. This should be fairly obvious, but I think often times folks are shooting for the upper end of this spectrum (power) and ignoring the more attainable part of the spectrum (outs gained and outs lost). I like to consider power in a prospect a bonus and in fact, often look at prospects in the lower minors who are already doing well at avoiding and creating outs, hoping that their power will come but realizing that if it doesn’t, they are good enough at avoiding and creating outs that they still should have value to my organization.

I essentially bring this up because I’ve been reviewing a recent acquisition of my own, Toronto 3B Kevin Ahrens. As a former first round pick, Ahrens has done nothing terribly impressive to avoid a bust label after two and a half years in the minor leagues. But what I see is someone that manages the strikezone well (9% BB Rate, 18% K Rate) and can handle his position very well (good reports on defense, former SS in high school). He’s also primed to take advantage of platoon rates (I’ll have an upcoming article on this and my preference for left-handers) as a switch hitter, as well. His IsoP is below .100 but he’s also just 20 in Hi-A, so he has time. The LD% is low, also, and may ultimately be his undoing (13%) but I think there’s a lot more going for him than a cursory statistical analysis will tell you.

In the end, it’s all about preference. If you want to shoot for the moon you can ignore the ability to create and avoid outs and hope for the homerun, but if you get a homerun hitter who costs you outs in the field and at the plate (not walking, not putting the ball in play, etc.), you’re likely losing out to someone who can efficiently avoid and create outs while still having the upside to gain the other attributes you want so badly in the first player.

As per a reader request, below you will find a post about some of the defensive metrics I value, though I will start with an important caveat as it pertains to minor leaguers, first. There is very good defensive data available for evaluation of major leaguers, but in general, prospect evaluators almost have to rely on scouting for the minor leagues. The necessary legwork simply hasn’t been done to provide enough data to evaluate statistics defensively for lower levels.

As far as things I look at when it comes to defense, I think UZR/150, OOZ, RZR, Error Runs and Arm are the places where you can really determine and measure run prevention effectively. You’ll note that I don’t lend much credence to Range Factor, as I just don’t think it’s very useful.

First of all, let’s define how we determine what a zone is. If you look at this graphic, you’ll be able to see the field divided appropriately into nine zones. To be more specific, according to THT, a zone is defined by “The areas on a ballfield in which at least 50% of batted balls are handled for outs. Zones are standardized and defined separately for each position.” You’ll need to consider this when looking at the following fielding metric options below.

As defined in this excellent article by The Hardball Times, RZR, or Revised Zone Rating, is a simple principle that determines the outs made on balls hit into a determined zone for each position. This is, of course, a bit of an oversimplication, but at its core, RZR intends to measure the efficiency of a player in recording an out that he “should” record. Simply put, the statisticians behind RZR determine the amount of balls hit into a fielder’s zone and the amount of outs recorded by all third basemen, and determine the average for each position. It then becomes easy to compare whether a player is above or below average at converting outs on balls in their zone. You can determine how “steady” a fielder is by using this metric, as you can see how reliably he can make the “routine” play. I don’t necessarily consider players with the best RZR to be the best fielders, but I do think you can consider them quantifiably reliable.

Going hand-in-hand with RZR is OOZ (Out of Zone Rating), which is a simple recording of the number of outs made by a fielder outside of his designated zone. This rating is really where the steady ends and the spectacular begins.  This is a particularly valuable metric because it determines the ultimate range of a player. The ideal combination would obviously be a reliable RZR (average to slightly above) with a strong OOZ. As an evaluator, I don’t want to compromise reliability, but I’d also really like my fielder to have the range to make the big play from time to time, especially when range on a corner can really determine a single from a double, or even better, an out from a double.

UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating over 150 games)  is yet another important measure of defense as it evaluates the positive or negative value of a position player at EACH position over a 150 game (essentially full season) period. The best definition of UZR/150 that I can find is given by Baseball Think Factory here. They say the following: “STATS expanded on ZR by creating sub-zones. You can take the average out-conversion rates by sub-zone and apply this rate to the number of balls in play for each fielder for each sub-zone to establish a baseline. This baseline will show the number of outs an average fielder would have had, had he received the same number of balls in play for each sub-zone that our specific fielder received. This is, essentially, UZR, or Ultimate Zone Rating.” I don’t think it’s really terribly important to grasp all this so much as to say that given the evaluation, it is very easy and reliable to say exactly how many runs above or below zero that they are responsible for allowing or preventing. A negative UZR/150 indicates that a player is essentially costing you considerably on the field, so much so that even with a nice offensive output they still might be a negative defensive player. Simply put, it’s very easy to measure how many runs a player produces but it would be foolish not to put equal weight on the number of runs a player allows defensively.

UZR nicely also accounts for Error Rating and Arm within it. Just a quick note on Error Runs alone, according to the Fangraphs Glossary: “The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by the number of errors he makes as compared to an average fielder at that position given the same distribution of balls in play.” This is a bit simplistic, hence the necessity to include it in UZR (and correspondingly, UZR/150) but its value is in the fact that it allows us to neutralize the balls that each player receives and note how they would do on the same amount of balls, ignoring range and zone. Much like RZR, it can tell us how “reliable” a player is at recording outs.

Lastly, there are surely measures of arm strength, but on a yearly basis you can usually just look at assists to determine how good a fielder was not only at recording outs on tag plays and hits, but also in preventing runners from advancing. What arm strength does separately is allow you to avoid fluky assist seasons and predict who should have that effect each year regardless of luck.

I realize this blog has suddenly become cluttered with philosophical posts, but this post is pertinent for a couple of valuable reasons. First and foremost, I want to signal a change in blog philosophy going forward: I don’t really expect to be able to continue the production of top 10 prospects and provide interesting insight on each one of them. It usually takes me anywhere between five and seven hours per system (nevermind the notes I already have on players) to come up with a top 10 list. Instead, my intention is to provide a more detailed write-up on a couple of folks in each system, as I believe that to be my strength. By the time I find a top 10 list, I really don’t have the energy to do the detailed write-ups I like. Now, if I produce 5 prospects a week, you’re looking at over 250 prospects on this blog per year. I think that would be the desirable route.

Secondly, I want to talk a bit about the purpose of this blog, because it’s as much to get my thoughts down on paper as it is to have anyone else read. I don’t get a chance to watch prospects in person, and I haven’t seen video of even 10-15% of the folks I write about. My approach is almost entirely statistically driven, combined with scouting reports for others, so I’m not really offering anything unique to the prospect community so much as I’m humoring myself. The glimmer of hope there is that I interpret the data, reports and video slightly differently than other prospects, and that I can make a name for myself with some correct reads on a few folks (this year, guys like Hector Rondon and Carlos Carrasco, for example).

Either way, I haven’t made a post in two weeks and wanted to give my readers and update. I expect to have something done Monday. Work and life has really gotten in the way lately, though rest assured I’ve still been doing a lot of research. Every day I read I become less and less enamored with the “tools, ignore production” routine that so many prospect evaluations concern themselves with.

With apologies to those anxiously refreshing my page for the next top 10 prospects posting, or for the more in-depth analysis of the Red Sox top 10, well, you’ll have to wait. I’m not sure it’s actually even feasible to provide the level of commentary I have been on all the prospects but I will at least provide you with the good and bad information about every prospect. I will finish the Red Sox tomorrow and work on another AL East team, likely the Blue Jays, following that.

As for tonight, The Red Sox Jeremy Hermida Trade brings to light an important question that I wanted to bring up (and again, apologies for the non-minor league focus for today): At what point does value become, well, not valuable anymore? By that, of course, I mean that you have a finite number of roster spots, and an even more finite amount of positions where you can add superstar level talent in any given offseason. It does seem “possible” to have too much “value” on your roster, even if I don’t necessarily agree with that, which I will explain later.

Let’s start with why Hermida is valuable. He’ll be just 26 entering the 2010 season, he has demonstrated strong splits favoring his plate appearances versus right-handed pitching and his plate appearances away from his pitcher-friendly home park in Florida. He has a very strong understanding of the strike zone and in the minors, and was regarded as the 4th best prospect in baseball at one point. He’s slated to make between three and four million in 2010, and it’s clear the Red Sox think that they can “fix” him. in exchange for Hermida, the Red Sox gave up Hunter Jones (a 25 year-old left-hander that does not qualify as loogy status and does not have overpowering stuff, rendering him effectively useless) and Jose Alvarez (a 20 year-old left-hander that looks like a loogy and is relatively undersized). There are some concerns about Hermida’s defense (UZR/150 of -11.3, almost exactly the same as Jason Bay) but even with that, he’s got the potential to be worth more than 3-4M and isn’t costing the Red Sox a thing.

So why might this be a problem? Well, having Hermida gives the Red Sox the flexibility to say, “Hey, we now have someone who we’d feel comfortable using in left-field, so we don’t have to cave to Jason Bay and give him extra years or money.” Technically, this is sound financial management, but some will tell you that the Red Sox only have so many places where they can add premium talent and left-field is the best place to do so this year. Some will say, “Where will they spend the money if they go with Hermida in left-field?” My answer would be that they need to be creative, perhaps using it to unload Mike Lowell and then going after a premium player like Adrian Beltre. My other answer would be that they can take that money and use it toward getting midseason upgrades when you know exactly what you need.

Because of that, I would say you can never have enough “value,” largely because it gives you the flexibility you need to address needs when they’re truly there. If Hermida works out, you suddenly have about 12 million dollars to pour into another positional need, without the excessive financial commitment to Jason Bay for four years, or for Matt Holliday for potentially longer (for the record, my preference is for the defensively sound Holliday). Just as one example, not locking Bay up long-term, and rolling the dice on Hermida, might mean that Josh Beckett is locked up long-term, or that instead of Michael Bowden, we might have a legitimate middle to front of the rotation starter to have for the rotation (Erik Bedard, perhaps?).

I was all set to do an article on some top 100 prospect, or some near miss, but instead, I thought I’d write a bit about the internal debate I wrestle with pretty constantly when evaluating hitting prospects. I say hitting prospects because I think it is fairly easy to evaluate pitching prospects (strikeout percentage, velocity, command and stuff) because you know if a pitcher is having success with strikeouts and command, and he has the physical attributes to back it up, that you pretty much know what you have. With hitters, however, it isn’t nearly that easy. Personally, I spend most of my time wrestling between a hitter’s tools (hitting for power, hitting for average, running speed, arm strength and fielding ability) and a hitter’s ability to get on base and make consistent contact. Ideally, you would like a combination of both, but this is a rarity, especially at the lower levels.

The minors are riddled with people who have tremendous batting practice power but strikeout so much (+30% of the time) that they simply cannot translate that power into an above average slugging percentage in game play without a lot of luck and a very high HR/flyball ratio. At the same time, there are plenty of speed demons who can’t make enough contact to use their speed as an asset. The risk of ignoring these assets altogether is fielding a group of prospects that are merely average, with no breakout potential and a relatively high floor (see the Toronto Blue Jays), so it’s really not clear which strategy to adopt. The generally held belief is that a “safe” pick is really no more successful in the long run than a risky pick, so you may as well shoot for the stars.

I prefer to simply go by my own “tools,” which are as follows: manage the strike zone, play strong defense with good range, draw walks, make strong contact. I don’t tremendously value home run power or general speed outside of the necessity for good range, and I think arm strength is an overrated entity. It’s not without importance but it’s not something I spend a lot of time using to judge prospects. Even still, it’s almost impossible to get a gauge for what a player can do at lower levels so it’s really a crapshoot.

From personal perspective, as far as minor league hitters are concerned, I prefer college players who are athletic and have untapped potential (Brett Jackson from the 2009 draft for instance) and high school players who have proven an understanding of taking a walk and controlling the strike zone. Even still, I’d much rather take a shot in the dark on a raw tools bet (Anthony Hewitt) than a guy who’s going to be a fourth outfielder (A.J. Pollock).