Rookies & Prospects – Are They Worth It?

So you want to be one of those “smart” people in fantasy baseball that takes the hot shot rookie for the “upside” play early in the draft OK, maybe you aren’t that person, but let’s say you are more than willing to scoop up that prospect in the 15th round because of the “boring” options that are available. As I point out all the time, give me a team of Nick Swisher, Torii Hunter, Adam LaRoche and Michael Cuddyer and nine times out of 10 I will crush your team of Jurickson Profar, Domonic Brown, Dylan Bundy and Mike Olt. It’s just the way it is. Well, it’s the way I tell you it is without actually attempting to quantify that position with facts. Now we have them.

The following discussion comes from the mind of Kyle Elfrink. It’s not just his brainchild, in terms of him coming up with the idea, but it’s also penned by him. So special thanks to Kyle for the research he did to dig up the facts, and for allowing me to post his words here on the site.

I searched Baseball America’s Top 10 prospects (perhaps the most trusted source on minor leaguers) every year, going back to the turn of the century in 2000. (note: I did not include either 2011 or 2012 because it’s too early to give close-to-definitive answers on players). Here’s what I found.

- 89 different prospects were listed as ‘Top 10′ over the course of 11 years (many players were repeats from one year to the next).

- 29 of those 89 were ‘hits/fantasy assets’ (32.5%)

- 22 of those 89 were ‘OK fantasy players’ (24.7%)

- 38 of those 89 were ‘misses/busts’ (42.8%)

- If you repeat from one year to the next, your chances are quite good of becoming a serviceable MLB player (Joe Mauer was a ‘top 10′ prospect for four years!).

- Hitters have a far better success rate than pitchers … 31 of the 52 ‘hits’ and ‘ok’s’ have been hitters.

- Projections have become much better in the past few seasons.

- ’04 and ’05 are the only years since 2000 with more than three hits.

- What has the ‘Top-3′ done over the years?  Well, not including ‘repeats’, there are 10 hits, eight misses, and 3 OKs … less than 50% of the top-3 (i.e., guys that most everyone thought would become All-Stars) since 2000 has been a ‘hit’ … i.e. a good fantasy player.

- 2013 list - 1. Jurickson Profar 2. Dylan Bundy 3. Oscar Taveras 4. Wil Myers 5. Jose Fernandez 6. Shelby Miller 7. Gerrit Cole 8. Xander Bogaerts 9. Miguel Sano 10. Byron Buxton

- History says that three of these will be hits … two will be hitters … Profar, Bundy, Myers, and Miller are repeats from previous years, thus helping their odds

2000 – 0 hits, 3 OK, 6 miss, 1 repeat
1. Ankiel (MISS)
2. Burrell (OK)
3. C. Patterson (MISS)
4. V. Wells (OK)
5. N. Johnson (MISS)
6. R. Mateo (MISS)
7. Burroughs
8. Furcal (OK)
9. R. Anderson (MISS)
10. Patterson (MISS)

2001 – 3 hits, 2 OK, 1 miss, 4 repeats
1. Hamilton (HIT)
2. C. Patterson
3. Beckett
4. Rauch (MISS)
5. Sheets (OK)
6. Burroughs
7. Sabathia (HIT)
8. R. Anderson
9. Ichiro (HIT)
10. N. Johnson

2002 – 3 hits, 1 OK, 6 miss
1.Beckett (HIT)
2.Prior (MISS)
3.Blalock (MISS)
4.Burroughs (MISS)
5.Pena (OK)
6.Cruz (MISS)
7.Mauer (HIT)
8.Betemit (MISS)
9.Henson (MISS)
10.Tex (HIT)

2003 – 4 hits, 2 repeat, 4 miss
1.Tex
2.Baldelli (MISS)
3.Reyes (HIT)
4.Mauer
5.Foppert (MISS)
6.Contreras (MISS)
7.Phillips (HIT)
8.Matsui (HIT)
9.Floyd (MISS)
10.K-Rod (HIT)

2004 – 4 hits, 1 repeat, 3 OKs, 2 miss
1.Mauer
2.Upton (HIT)
3.Del. Young (OK)
4.Ed. Jackson (OK)
5.R. Weeks (HIT)
6.Rios (HIT)
7.K. Matsui (MISS)
8.Miller (MISS)
9.Sizemore (OK)
10.P. Fielder (HIT)

2005 – 2 hits, 3 repeats, 5 miss
1.Mauer
2.F. Hernandez (HIT)
3.Del. Young
4.Stewart (MISS)
5.Guzman (MISS)
6.Kotchman (MISS)
7.Kazmir (MISS)
8.R. Weeks
9.Marte (MISS)
10.H. Ramirez (HIT)

2006 – 3 hits, 1 repeat, 2 OK, 4 miss
1.Del. Young
2.J. Upton (HIT)
3.Wood (MISS)
4.Hermida (MISS)
5.S. Drew (MISS)
6.Liriano (OK)
7.Billingsley (OK)
8.Verlander (HIT)
9.Miledge (MISS)
10.Cain (HIT)

2007 – 2 hits, 3 OK, 2 repeat, 3 miss
1.Dice-K (MISS)
2.Al. Gordon (HIT)
3.Del. Young
4.Hughes (OK)
5.Bailey (OK)
6.Maybin (OK)
7.Longoria (HIT)
8.B. Wood (MISS)
9.J. Upton
10.Miller (MISS)

2008 – 3 hits, 4 miss, 3 repeat
1.Bruce (HIT)
2.Longoria
3.Chamberlain (MISS)
4.Buchholz (MISS)
5.Rasmus (MISS)
6.Maybin
7.Kershaw (HIT)
8.F. Morales (MISS)
9.Bailey
10.Price (HIT)

2009 – 2 hit, 3 OK, 3 repeat, 2 miss
1.Wieters (OK)
2.Price
3.Rasmus
4. T. Hanson (OK)
5.Heyward (HIT)
6.Snider (MISS)
7.B. Anderson (MISS)
8. Maybin
9.Bumgarner (HIT)
10.N. Feliz (OK)

2010 – 3 hits, 4 OK, 1 miss, 2 repeat
1.Heyward
2.Strasburg (HIT)
3.Stanton (HIT)
4.J. Montero (OK)
5.Matsuz (MISS)
6.D. Jennings (OK)
7.Posey (HIT)
8.Alvarez (OK)
9.N. Feliz
10.C. Santana (OK)

Around the Horn: September 19, 2012

(1) Ian Kinsler a dynamic option at second base.

(2) What do Chase Headley, Ryan Braun and Alfonso Soriano have in common?

(3) Yonder Alonso streaking at the dish.

(4) Tim Lineceum turned his season around.

(5) Erick Aybar producing in the average and steals columns.

(6) Orioles call up phenom Dylan Bundy.

 

By Ray Flowers

Tuesday Tips

Whether your fantasy baseball league is an AL-only, NL-only, mixed league or keeper league, there’s something for you in today’s piece. Promise.

Dylan Bundy, the Orioles uber-prospect who was chosen #4 overall in last years draft leading to him being named the #10 prospect in baseball according to Baseball America, has started out his professional career as if he has no intention of spending much time in the minors. Through five starts in A-Ball he’s walked two batters in 17 innings while he has allowed one hit. That’s three base runners in 17 innings leading to a 0.18 WHIP. He’s also fanned 25 batters and not allowed a run. Time to move him up a level already Orioles?

Zack Cozart is hitting a solid .271 for the season, but that’s likely a disappointment to his owners since he was hitting .342 ten games into the season. Like I said all preseason, and into the season when he was tearing it up, Cozart isn’t at a point in his development when he should be expected to perform at all-star levels. After his recent downturn in production at the dish Cozart is on pace to hit .271 with seven homers, 30 RBI and seven steals. Hate to tell you I told you so but…

Anyone out there realize that Adrian Gonzalez hit .271 with two homers an a .737 OPS in April? As I wrote three weeks ago in Panic In The Streets, AGone hit only one homer last April before finishing the year with 27 bombs so it’s certainly not panic time. However, he did hit .314 with a .836 OPS in a better first stanza to the season last year. For his career his April has led to a .288 batting average and .856 OPS with the OPS being the second lowest of any month from April through September. If you’ve read my stuff you know my thoughts on Gonzalez, but the guy has hit 29 homers in 181 games as a Red Sox. Are you ready to finally admit that I was right back in January of last year when I warned that Adrian may not produce huge homer totals playing half his games at Fenway Park? See ADP Riser: Adrian Gonzalez.

Billy Hamilton of the Reds might be the fastest man in the sport. Rated the 48th best prospect in the game coming into the 2012 season by Baseball America, Hamilton stole 103 bases last year as a 20 year old in Single-A ball. This season he’s off to a stupendous, and that isn’t a term I throw around lightly, pace with the bat as he’s hit .398 through 23 games at High-A ball. But what about the speed you say? Try this on for size. In those 23 games Hamilton has stolen 29 bases to give him 132 steals in his last 158 games. He isn’t likely to appear in the bigs this season, but dynasty leaguers you had better be aware of a guy who plays shortstop who owns the skills of Vince Coleman.

At this point, meaning when I wrote this piece, there are two greatly differing reports on the health of Evan Longoria. One report suggests he has a hamstring or knee situation that may or may not result in him being placed on the DL. The other reports suggests that it’s a hamstring issue that could keep him out for 6-8 weeks. As a Longoria owner I almost upchucked my breakfast this morning when I heard the 6-8 week line of though. Let’s hope that the report was premature and that Longoria will be back in a relatively short period of time cause losing Longo for two months would be a devastating blow to his fantasy squads.

Jed Lowrie is hitting .297 and here we go again. I’m getting questions about people in mixed leagues who really want to add him to the mix. I’ll repeat the same thing I’ve been saying for two years – he’s not that good. For his career his slash line is completely big league average at .256/.328/.409. He’s also stolen only four bases in his career and per 140 games he’s a 12 homer bat. Yippee doodle. It should also be noted that though Lowrie has hit .304 in the month of April in his career that his May-October batting average is .243.

Stephen Strasburg has been as dominating as any pitcher in baseball with a 1.13 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and 34 Ks in 32 innings to start the 2012 season. The most amazing part of his effort though may be this: Strasburg has allowed 22 hits in his 32 innings, and the breakdown is 20 singles, two doubles, zero triples and zero home runs. That’s two extra base hits in 32 innings folks. Wow.

By Ray Flowers