I’ve made it almost a month since I made the following declaration on investigating prospect Hit grades:

I am going to stay away from more Hit tool predictions until I have collected every one of MLB.com’s prospect grades from 2013 and 2014, not just the top 100. I probably will not be able to compare many to their major league stats but I can with Triple-A.

I broke my position after collecting MLB.com’s 2013 grades. I ventured forward without the 2014 grades. With this larger and more diverse dataset, I compared the hitters’ grades to their batting average, home runs, and stolen bases in both AA and AAA.

Trying to better understand the Hit tool stems from finding it doesn’t contain any predictive power. When looking at players with different grades, major leaguers ended up posting similar batting averages. I concluded two issues were causing the production to level out.

First, hitters needed a talent and/or production baseline to get into the majors. Some hitters with below average grades were under-graded and produced up to the MLB baseline. Additionally, “better” hitters were over-graded but still had just enough talent to make the majors. This talent convergence tends to average out the grades.

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Chat transcript is below!

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As I mentioned in last month’s version of this article, I’m no scout, but I do love looking at prospect performances as a key indicator for future call ups and prospects on the rise. I’m once again using the tool I put together that pulls from MLBfarm.com  to show the top prospect hitting performances so far this season, and I’m also going to show the top pitching performances as well. Please note that only players currently in the minors and in the top ten prospects of their organization are listed.

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It’s not always easy to hold onto players who are off to slow starts if they’re near the back end of your roster. It seems like it’s even more difficult this year with DL usage up. As a result, the following trio of players have been dumped in many leagues. All three have compelling cases for being rostered in various league types, though. Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t have enough skim milk for my cereal so I mixed in some whole milk.

AGENDA

1. Holy Devers
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. Hitters to Use
5. SaberSim Says…
6. TDG Invitational Returns!

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Episode 264 – The End Of The Tom Koehler Era

The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Matt Garza’s resurgence, Yovani Gallardo turning things around a bit, Jimmy Nelson seemingly always facing the Cubs, the White Sox obvious regression, Zack Godley’s strikeout rate, Guillermo Heredia’s job, Matt’s moving adventure, and just trying to outrace each other in the contest.

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Marcus Stroman had a strong outing on the mound Thursday night. He tossed 5 2/3 scoreless innings against a Braves lineup that was without Freddie Freeman, and in the midst of it all, hit a home run. An opposite field home run nonetheless.

Marcus Stroman crushes an opposite field home run to go back-to-back with his catcher, Luke Maile. #BlueJays pic.twitter.com/RbWQziDhdS

— Andrew Hockridge (@drewhockridge) May 19, 2017

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5/18/17

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18!

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Leading Off: Question of the Day

• Which prospect are you most eager to see come up? (5:00)

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For a full primer on the process behind these rankings, check out episode 458 of The Sleeper & The Bust.

I decided to go a different route than the traditional 1 to whatever listing and went a step beyond the tiered rankings which allow for more nuance than just a numbered ranking, but still feel inadequate to tackle the many challenges of in-season pitcher management. I do still have tiers, but they are much different tiers and so they aren’t just talent-based groupings. They are more about usability in the fantasy game.

I have five different levels for active arms and then injury and minor league groupings for those we’re waiting on. We always talk “rest of season” when looking at deals and pickups, but I think we have to be more short term than that, especially with pitching. This doesn’t mean I’m wildly shifting rankings and my outlook on pitchers after every start, but rather I’m acknowledging that the landscape is going to shift so much throughout the six month season that trying to focus beyond a month or two is foolhardy.

The tiers are as follows:

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Last week I touched on a few misconceptions about launch angles and exit velocity. This article is a Part II, so you may be interested in going back and reading Part I if you haven’t already. Otherwise, allow me to summarize:

The value of batted balls drops rapidly with higher launch angles. In a sense this goes without saying, everyone knows pop ups are bad.  However, the ideal launch angle may be lower than you might expect. You’ll hear many people claim 25-30 degrees is the best range to shoot for, but even this is too high. The best angles are hit between 19 and 26 degrees. These batted balls can be referred to as fliners, somewhere between a line drive and a fly ball.

This week, I want to address the concept of the “Flyball Revolution”, why I think this is a misnomer, and which players may be suffering from this mindset. Read the rest of this entry »