Ask Baseball America By James Bailey
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- February 2, 2000
February 4, 2000You've probably heard the old saying "flattery will get you every where." Works on a date-usually-and it can work when you're writing in to your favorite magazine. But if you really want to ensure your letter sees the light of day, try going beyond flattery and actually do a lot of work, practically writing the column yourself. Those are the kinds of things a busy column writer can get used to. Here's what I'm talking about: I think BA by far does the best job in the business of analyzing and rating prospects. Other sources of this information at the very least reference you, if not practically plagiarize you. I was surprised to see how critical Rich_m@hotmail.com was in your 1/31 column about the job you do. I was wondering what kind of measurement could be done to analyze your success. Not that I felt you needs to defend your track record, because, as you mention, there is no science to predicting futures. The definitive way would be to analyze the major league performance of all your top ten picks, but come on, I don't have that much free time. I did a quick high level evaluation of baseball's top awards in relation to your No. 1 prospect for each team each year since 1990 (since that list for each team is easily accesible on your website). I identified all the No. 1 prospects who won major awards since 1991 (so, this list is missing anyone you identified as a No. 1 prospect prior to 1990, that may have won a major award from 1991-99). To me, one excellent measure of your accuracy is identifying Rookies of the Year. Your lists deal with prospects, as such, you'd expect your magazine to be good prognosticators of immediate impact of players. Incidents that happen once a player makes the big leagues (personal troubles, injuries, etc.) which hamper their career, should not take away from the fact you correctly identified them at the time as the best prospect in a system. Here are the players who have won ROY since 1991 that you identified as No. 1 prospects on their teams since 1990: Rookie of the Year: Nomar Garciaparra, Mike Piazza, Todd Hollandsworth, Scott Rolen, Kerry Wood, Sandy Alomar Jr., Tim Salmon, Bob Hamelin, Ben Grieve, Derek Jeter, Carlos Beltran. That is 61 percent (11 of 18) of the winners from 1991-99. Then there are the two highest awards in baseball, MVP and Cy Young. Here is your track record of winners of these awards since 1991 that you identified as a No. 1 prospect on their teams since 1990: Cy Young: Pedro Martinez (2X). MVP: Chipper Jones, Mo Vaughn, Juan Gonzalez (2X), Ivan Rodriguez. This doesn't even take into account superstars who have not won these awards, like Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, or the countless other all-stars who were your No. 1 prospects. I'd also imagine if we expanded the criteria to look at the entire top ten every year, and even go back a few more years, it would be even more impressive. Without delving much deeper than that, as I'm sure you were already confident, I think it is safe to say BA can take the Pepsi Challenge against any other public source of baseball prospect evaluation. Tony, Chicago
In the last 5 years or so, who have been the biggest top prospects flops, you know, guys you totally missed on (due to injury or whatever). Also, is it possible to locate an archive of old top ten lists? Thanks, and keep doing an excellent job! Jeff Seaman Rolla, MO There have been flops. The lists don't all look good five years down the road. Just for the sake of this question, I grabbed my binder from five years ago. That's far enough back for any No. 1 prospect to have made his impact by now-or proven that he's not likely to make one. The first thing I saw was a cover line that said "The Yankees' Ruben Rivera: The Next Mickey Mantle?" Um, no. I'll keep looking, but I have a feeling we might not find a flop much bigger than that one. Yeah, Rivera is a big leaguer and the Padres still hold out some hope for him. But it's pretty clear he's never going to live up to the hype of his glory days. Since he was a hot thing, guys like Vladimir Guerrero and Andruw Jones have passed him up, and then actually gone on to do something in the big leagues. The AL East top prospects that year: Boston, Nomar Garciaparra; Detroit, Tony Clark; New York, Rivera (with Derek Jeter No. 2, Andy Pettitte No. 3 and Mariano Rivera No. 9); Baltimore, Armando Benitez; Toronto, Shawn Green. Four out of five isn't too bad. Ugh. As I turn to the next issue I find Scott Ruffcorn on the cover. Maybe we had a cover curse going that year. The Central doesn't look quite so hot: Minnesota, LaTroy Hawkins; Cleveland, Jaret Wright; Milwaukee, Antone Williamson; Chicago, Ruffcorn; Kansas City, Johnny Damon. I'd rate that as one-and-a-half right out of five. The jury is still out on Wright. For the Twins, Todd Walker would have been a better choice than Hawkins. Ray Durham or even James Baldwin would have been preferable to Ruffcorn with the White Sox. As for the Brewers, they really didn't have much. Mark Loretta (No. 4) has turned into a good player, but when you look for a No. 1 guy I think you still prefer to gamble on a guy who might hit it big vs. a guy who will fill a solid role like Loretta does. Don't get me wrong, I like Loretta. But I think you know what I mean. The AL West cover boy was Oakland's Ben Grieve. The curse is broken. And we did a little better with the prospects: Seattle, Alex Rodriguez; Oakland, Grieve; California, Andrew Lorraine; Texas, Julio Santana. Lorraine turned into a journeyman Triple-A guy, while Troy Percival (No. 2) and Garret Anderson (No. 3) have become two of the Angels best players. As for the Rangers, that was a barren system in those days. There is only one guy I can find in the entire organization who would have been a good-looking No. 1 now. But at that point he was a 20-year-old kid with one strong season in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League under his belt. And no one has the balls to put a guy like that at the top of a Top 10. So Fernando Tatis didn't make it. Didn't even make the list. But in hindsight, he was the man. Next up, NL East. Cover: Marlins catcher Charles Johnson. Good choice. The top prospects: Florida, Johnson; Montreal, Ugueth Urbina; New York, Bill Pulsipher; Atlanta, Chipper Jones; Philadelphia, Scott Rolen. I still don't mind the inclusion of Pulsipher, because if he hadn't gotten hurt, he could have really been special. We can't feel bad about that one. That was a heck of a list though: Pulsipher, Paul Wilson, Rey Ordonez, Edgar Alfonzo, Carl Everett, Jason Isringhausen, Terrence Long, Jay Payton, Kirk Presley and Preston Wilson. The only guys that haven't panned out were guys that got hurt. NL Central. Another injury magnet on the cover in the form of Cardinals righthander Alan Benes. He actually has had some success when healthy though, and could be back in the Cardinals rotation this spring. I have to boost him up a little, because this isn't one of our stronger divisions. Chicago, Brooks Kieschnick; Pittsburgh, Trey Beamon; St. Louis, Benes; Houston, Brian Hunter; Cincinnati, Pokey Reese. With a little revisionist history you'd throw No. 9 Doug Glanville atop the Cubs list and No. 7 Jason Kendall atop the Pirates list. And Billy Wagner (No. 2), Bobby Abreu (No. 5) and Scott Elarton (No. 6) all have enjoyed more big league success than Hunter. Turning to the last Top 10 issue we find Todd Hollandsworth on the cover. How the NL West broke down: Los Angeles, Hollandsworth; San Diego, Dustin Hermanson; San Francisco, J.R. Phillips; Colorado, Doug Million. For the Dodgers, both Chan Ho Park and Paul Konerko seem like they would have been better choices than Hollandsworth, but but he did win an NL rookie of the year award, so that could be worse. The Giants were pretty thin, but they did have several players in their organization then who have become everyday major leaguers, like Marvin Benard, Bill Mueller and Chris Singleton, as well as Keith Foulke, who put up one of the best seasons of any reliever in baseball last year. Sadly, none of them made the Giants list. You can't win 'em all. And Million passed away a couple of years ago, so you can't really grade that one. So, what have we learned on our tour of 1995? We're not always right, but like I've said before, we're not the ones paying the signing bonuses on these guys. Obviously someone else saw something in them for them to have been in a position for us to be ranking them that high in the first place. Maybe there have been times when we have relied too heavily on the almighty tools, and not weighed in actual baseball ability. But I still think on the whole, we do a darn good job. And maybe we should end the week on that note. It's kind of fun looking back through the old binders, though. So maybe I'll hit a different year one day next week. And if we ever get some free time (or if we ever hire an intern again), I'd love to archive all of the old Top 10 lists. That would be some fascinating history for the web site. But it's going to be one of those back burner projects for now. A good idea, but it probably won't happen for a while. February 2, 2000The Ground Hog saw his shadow this morning, so that means it's two more weeks until pitchers and catchers report. And we get to watch that Bill Murray movie over and over on cable tonight. But for us, we’ll start things off today by revisiting Monday’s topic for a minute. And before I forget to mention it, we’ve resumed the Top 10 lists, with the White Sox. We’ll have the Indians for you by the end of the week. In your January 31 column you listed a letter from Rich_m@hotmail.com that mentioned "I do not have statistics but I bet that over 30 percent of your "prospects" never make it above Triple-A and that less than 20 percent have substantial major league careers. Maybe it is time you revisited how you chose this list. A list of players who might actually have a chance of playing in the majors might be more entertaining." This is one of the most absurd comments I have heard in your forum. You list a total of 450 players on your prospect lists. How many players playing in the minor leagues right now will go on to have substantial major league careers? If you consider a substantial major league career to be ten years, then on average you couldn't have more than 70 players in the minors right now that could go on to have a substantial major league career. Factoring in guys who play longer and guys that never play very long, I bet that each year there are 30-40 players playing in the minors right now that develop into someone that eventually has a substantial major league career. Think about it, does every major league team bring up a rookie every year that eventually plays ten years? Even being 20 percent right has you picking too many future major leaguers. You don't need to apologize to Rich_m@hotmail.com or make excuses. Your publication was great in the All American Baseball News days and it gets better everyday. How many times do you see the "Baseball America says" line in their reports? Thanks for the entertaining and informative reporting. Bob Lind Thanks, Bob. I didn’t really think to frame it in terms like that. There’s also the fact that several organizations never have even 10 good prospects to list. While we’re on the subject, here’s an interesting case to take a look back at: I know you've already defended the BA track record, but would you mind revisiting one egregious error? In the print editions BA lists the #1 prospect for each of the last ten years. The fact that Scott Cooper was listed #1 in 1990 while two future MVPs Jeff Bagwell and Mo Vaughn were in the system really caught my eye (I guess we know who Lou Gorman was listening to!). Could you do all of us masochistic Red Sox fans a favor and dig up the rankings to see where Bagwell and Vaughn ranked? Even better what "strengths" set Cooper apart and/or what "weaknesses" held those two perennial all-stars back? I'm not trying to pile on--I think you do a fine job overall. Thanks Mike Koblish Cooper was the No. 1 prospect in the Red Sox system in 1989 and again in 1990, when Vaughn ranked No. 2 on the list. Sadly, Jeff Bagwell’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the 1990 list. But you have to keep in mind that at that point in time he was a recently signed fourth-round pick who batted .310 with two home runs in 229 at-bats, mostly at Class A Winter Haven, in his pro debut. The Top 10 writeup on Cooper talks about how in demand he was at the Winter Meetings, despite a poor 1989 showing at Double-A New Britain. It was strongly speculated at the time that Cooper’s presence would allow the Red Sox to let Wade Boggs move on and not be missed. In 1991, Cooper slipped to No. 9 on the Sox list after a mediocre showing at Triple-A Pawtucket. Vaughn, meanwhile, took over as the No. 1 player after impressing at Pawtucket with a .295-22-72 showing. And Bagwell, who had been traded to the Astros on Aug. 31, 1990, for Larry Andersen, ranked No. 2 on the Astros list that spring, right behind Hall-of-Famer Andujar Cedeno. You can’t win ’em all. The Arizona Diamondbacks traded away Tony Batista because they felt he didn't have enough range or the glove to play a steady shortstop. That’s perfectly fine with me, but to give Tony Womack, who was sent to the outfield because he couldn't play a steady second base, the job is crazy. Tony Womack is a fine baseball player, but at shortstop? Is there something I’m missing here? Tragito@aol.com I don’t think you’re missing anything. It’s a curious move. Had Womack been regarded as a good, or even passable, middle infielder, he would likely never have gone to the outfield in the first place. He did a reasonable job defensively in right field, but he’s not the type of hitter one normally associates with the position. Despite the impressive stolen base numbers, Womack really isn’t much of an asset offensively. A leadoff hitter with a .332 on-base percentage (in 1999) doesn’t help his team much. And that was a career high. At short, Womack is likely to be a double-barrel drain on the Diamondbacks this year. If I were Arizona, I’d trade him straight up for Tony Batista. But I don’t think the Blue Jays will be sending Batista back to the BOB any time soon. I know this is Baseball America and not Baseball Japan, but I was wondering if you could answer this question: I've read Seattle newspaper articles where Piniella is quoted as being very high on Kazuhiro Sasaki. However, I remember him being very high on Mac Suzuki about 5 years back. The majors have had a string of mediocre, at best, Japanese pitching imports over the past 5 years. Can you provide and meaningful Japanese statistics on Sasaki? Also, what is your prognostication for his performance as a reliever in Seattle? Is he just another Kida or Hasegawa or do you think Seattle maybe got somebody special here? Thanks, Brad Keller Sasaki is the all-time saves leader in the Japan League, and has been pitching professionally for 10 years already. He’s posted a 42-33 record with a 2.31 ERA and 229 saves and struck out 828 batters in 599 innings. The Mariners signed him to a two-year, $8 million deal, with an option for a third season. Suzuki is not really a good comparison. Suzuki was very young when he came to the United States, having signed at 17 with independent Salinas in the California League in 1992. The Mariners signed him after he pitched a season for independent San Bernardino in 1993, when he was 18. He was regarded as a guy who was sort of bucking the system by signing his first pro contract in the U.S., instead of with a team in his homeland. He teased the Mariners for years with his stuff, but finally moved on last year when Seattle traded him to the Mets in June as part of the Allen Watson deal. The Mariners have a lot of hopes that Sasaki will play a key role in their bullpen this season. He features a wicked forkball and an average fastball. He missed much of last season and had bone spurs removed from his elbow in August. The Mariners believe he will be healthy and ready to go when spring training opens. He’s likely to begin the year in a setup role, but the Mariners seem to hope he’ll step up and take the closer’s job away from Jose Mesa. Assuming he’s healthy, I think Sasaki will probably do a good job. Remember that when Hideo Nomo first came over his forkball baffled the league for several years. If Sasaki can duplicate that success in a relief role, the Mariners will be very pleased. Directory: mlb mlb -> By Ken Gurnick mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> 2010 – What’s the name of the umpire whose errant call cost the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga a perfect game in 2010? (Jim Joyce) gabp mlb -> Wednesday, September 23, 2015 headlines: Verrett stumbles in the fifth as Mets lose to Braves 6-2 mlb -> All-Star History In what city was the first All-Game played? 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