Mlb updated top 100/team top 30

[Bob Reed]

Thanks, Brian, for the link to the BTB study of Baseball America over the years. Not sure how much can be gleaned from a study that only compares BA to itself, however. While BA has improved over time, it’s difficult to say whether BA should be lauded for their more recent lists, or belittled for their earlier ones. Maybe both. Maybe neither. We can’t know, because we aren’t comparing BA’s success rate to Sickels, or Keith Law, or Baseball Prospectus, or Fangraphs, etc..

To conclude based solely on that study that “BA is really good at finding the top players” is a little like saying “Bob Reed was really the best tennis player at Kiwanis Park on Sunday” when I was in fact the only one there, hitting the ball off a concrete wall. Each example may be both a true statement and utterly valueless.

By the way, other Cardinals who were never BA top 100: Tommy Pham, Randal Grichuk, Jon Jay, and Aledmys Diaz. To add to Molina, Carpenter, Haren, Lynn, Craig, Freese, DeJong, Hicks, Bader, and so far Dakota Hudson. (Last chance on Hudson, boys!)

But the thing of it is, nearly every one of the above cited players was nowhere near BA’s top 100. They simply weren’t close at all in their evaluations.

Anyway, thanks for the vigorous feedback, Brian and Sooner.

[Brian Walton]

It would be great to see a comparison of the various prospect raters’ accuracy, but that would be a large effort to do right. As you saw, the BA-focused researcher went through a quarter-century worth of data to come to his conclusion.

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that they would all fall in the 60-80 percent accuracy range. (For my personal fantasy baseball drafting purposes, I combine the various national top 100 lists each spring into one blended list. My quick count of 2018 showed the same 65 players were on every one of the lists.)

In terms of our personal reaction to the BA-oriented study, it all gets down to our expectations. In the opinion of the author/researcher, and I agree, identifying 80% of future top MLB players is pretty darned good. Not just any future MLB players, but those who end up being among the best.

However, if one wants to focus on the 20% misses instead, one could cite dozens of specific examples, almost certainly across every organization.

You seem confident you could do better, but frankly, I believe you underestimate the challenge of knowing approximately 8,000 minor leaguers across 30 organizations well enough to pick out the top 100 – and be correct better than 80 percent of the time.

Closest to home, I suspect the majority of the non-top 100 prospect Cardinals names you cited were probably never among MLB’s top 100 players in WAR, either. They represent more examples of good, but not great players, which is my primary point.

[Cardinals27]

I think if narrowed down to anyones favorite team, you MIGHT do better. But to differentiate 30 teams x 30 players each would be very difficult.

[Cardinals27]

It also would be interesting to see how the 30×30 prospects that actually made the show met their projected floors/ceilings.

[Brian Walton]

C27, I agree that would be great, but whose projected floor/ceiling? Rarely is there a consensus. I guess one could do it by each individual projection of each player, but that would be a huge undertaking. Probably why it hasn’t been done to date.

Since Sickels has been an example cited, I would point out that he accepts a lot of reader input on each teams’ prospects before he finalizes his lists, which is probably why some fans like his lists better. (But as I noted above, in five of the last seven years, his overall ranking of the Cardinals system did not stand out from BA, BP, ESPN, etc.)

[Brian Walton]

I just saw this posted on another Cardinals group and it helps reinforce my point.

This current Cardinal make up seems to be replete with players that Whitey Herzog refers to as being, “just good enough to get you beat.”. This I believe is from his book, “You’re Missin’ A Great Game.” Players with great stats or potential but when added to the team the sum does not add up to enough wins, and thus miss the playoffs again.

[SoonerinNC]

Just for fun I checked draft choices back to 2000 to see which had forged a solid career. I checked rounds 1 through 5 from 2000-2015 since a large percentage of stars are drafted that high. My conclusion is that it is a valid contention that the Cardinals have had depth but not the high profile players. Thus lower team ranking than expected by us rabid Cardinal fans.

Part of the Cardinals problem has been their success on the field. They have consistently have not had top 10 choices. As a result of the players selected for the 2018 all-star game the following were selected before the Cardinals first choice; Greinke, Votto, Lester, Markakis, Verlander, Scherzer, Freeman, Harper, Machado, Sale, Yelich, Cole, Bauer, Nola, Lindor, Baez, Springer and Bregman.

This did not include 39 others who have previously made all-star teams such as: Baumgartner, Votto, Stanton, Kershaw, Braun, etc.

So at least 57 players who have been all-stars were drafted prior to the Cardinals first pick from 2000-2015

Over that same period only 6 Cardinals picked in the first 5 rounds (Yadi, Haren, Chris Perez, Lynn, Miller and Wacha) have been selected all-stars. Further of the 97 players selected by St. Louis in the first five rounds 2000-2015 34 have either not made it to the major leagues or have a WAR 0 or less. Only Yadi, Haren, Lynn, Rasmus and Wong have a WAR of 10 or more. It seemed to me that the Cardinals always went cheap in the higher rounds until the slotting came in.

The Cardinals have typically done a great job picking up the diamonds in the rough. You also wonder who are the ones who were missed. Boyd was picked in 2000 just before Utley and Wainwright. Miller was picked in 2009 just before Trout, Miller also before Arenado, and several in 2011 before Mookie Betts,

[Brian Walton]

Sooner, thank you for sharing your findings. The Cards almost always seem to draft in the 19-23 range. As noted, so many good players are already gone. Maybe Gorman will be the first position player in a long time to slip through to the Cards and become a difference-maker in the bigs.

[Brian Walton]

MLB Pipeline named Montero and Poncedeleon their Cards Hitting and Pitching Prospects of the Year.

https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/cards-prospects-of-year-montero-poncedeleon/c-297278966

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