The following article from Fan Graphs provides a couple of useful illustrations of a very basic tool you can use to identify the next star or super-star within your favorite organization. It looks at relative age of the prospect versus the average prospect in the league at the different levels of professional development. Once you are aware of the average age for each level of minor league play, you can quickly scan your organizations roster and quickly identify the "high-risers" -- the early developers -- within the organization.
Even in youth baseball, if you see a 9-10 year old competing well against 11-12 year olds in baseball -- even though most leagues "try" to keep players together by age (LL coaches are crafty at circumventing league rules) -- you know you have a player who is, in effect, "playing beyond his years". As the "growth curve" evens out through the high-school years and kids become professionals, the same principle holds true. If a prospect hits AA ball at 19-20 years old and is competing against older players and holding his own or excelling, he stamps himself as a legit future prospect that bears watching. Impress your friends by mentioning the guys name as a prospect to watch for down the road and see your "man-cred" go up when one of these guys hits big.
In HS ball, you hear the description of the future stud as one who is a "man among boys". When that kid gets drafted and plays professionally, the opposite effect takes place and all of a sudden he becomes a "boy among men". Some kids don't handle that transition well and it slows or ends their development.
The successful player is generally one who continues to demonstrate that he is "gifted beyond his years". Think Ken Griffey, Jr. or A-Rod with Seattle and more recently Bryce Harper of the Nationals. They all hit big early and advanced rapidly. This is the path the future super-stars of baseball generally take.
One caveat is that different organizations may have a tendency to advance players at a slower rate than others depending on the organizational philosophy. Sometimes need plays a factor, but not as often in this free-agent era. It seems like in this era, the big markets are more patient or conservative (they can afford to be and they can cover mistakes easier). The small market teams are the land of prospect opportunity. A good prospect can help ticket sales and generate a buzz.
Nobody wants to be accused of "rushing" a big-time prospect and damaging his "psyche" (think Mark Sanchez). IMO, talent ultimately advances or retards a players development. If his psyche is damaged that easily, you may have learned something early that you were going to find out eventually anyway.
Organizations are different and opportunity is the key for any prospect. Sometimes good ones are locked somewhat by veterans and an organization can afford to be patient. For example, the Giants seem to play more to the right side of the second table (below), which illustrates in % terms whether or not your favorite prospect is advancing relative to his peers historically.
If a player takes a trip up that golden staircase illustrated below or too the left of it, he is blazing a path led by 10-15% or less of all previous players recently. If he is to the right of the staircase, it's no guarantee of failure or prospect disgrace, BUT IT AIN'T GOOD!!!
Anyway, impress your friends , impress your family or just amuse yourselves quietly at home.
BTW:
Using this criteria, the guys I would keep an eye on this year as future ROTY prospects are:
Jurickson Profar, SS Texas
Wil Myers, OF Tampa
Shelby Miller, P St. Louis
Julio Teheran, P Atlanta
Martin Perez, P Seattle
Casey Kelly, P San Diego
Jameson Taillon, P Pittsburgh
Christian Yelich, OF Florida
Taijuan Walker, P Seattle
I would have Manny Machado, SS Orioles on the list except he does not qualify for ROTY due to his early call-up last season, but he fits the mold.
from FanGraphs.com:
Minor League Leaderboard Context | FanGraphs Baseball:
Below is a table of Minor League levels and their respective average ages. This is not meant to be an end-all be-all for the precise implications of age in MiLB, but rather to serve as a baseline to help give you some perspective while looking into the Minor League Leaderboard (further research will be done to look at the correlation of age and level with future Major League production).
Level Average Age AAA 28.2 AA 23.8 A+ 22.4 A 21.2 A- 20.9 R 19.4
The average age per level gives you some context for the MiLB Leaderboard, but average age is just a starting point. Statistics, framed with context, can be very informative, but without context, can be hollow. The converse however, is not the case. We can learn a lot about a prospect purely from his context. Because a player’s level is dictated by his front office, the level where he plays gives us insight into what management (which, in theory is more informed about their players than any analytic body) thinks about said player. Below is a table with the cumulative percentage of players of each age in each league:
AGE 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 AAA 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.5% 3.3% 7.0% 12.6% 22.4% 37.4% 48.6% 61.2% 70.6% AA 0.0% 0.0% 0.6% 1.8% 9.0% 24.6% 46.1% 68.9% 83.8% 92.8% 97.0% 98.2% A+ 0.0% 0.0% 2.5% 12.4% 26.1% 54.0% 75.8% 90.1% 97.5% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% A 0.0% 2.4% 15.6% 34.1% 52.1% 80.2% 97.0% 98.8% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% A- 0.8% 3.9% 19.4% 31.0% 63.6% 89.1% 98.4% 99.2% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% R 6.8% 24.6% 53.1% 73.4% 85.3% 94.6% 99.2% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Looking at the table above, we see that only 7% of players in Triple-A are 22 years old or younger. The bold diagonal lines, which starts from 17-year-olds in rookie ball and moves up and to the right to 22 year olds in Triple-A, outlines the path of elite prospects. The corner in the bottom right, shaded in red, shows the where players are “old” for their level.
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