Zimmerman’s Mid-Season Prospect Ranking
It is mid-season prospect ranking time and I don’t want to feel left out. This past winter I introduced a stats only based system which ranks prospects by comparing at their position, age at the level, and production at the level. Since that release, I have made a few refinements to which I think make the results even better.
The inspiration behind these rankings is an industry league I compete in with 19 other prospect experts. These guys are good and read every available source possible, so I needed a source others didn’t have so I created these rankings. The rankings worked great this past offseason, especially when pointing out some players with prospect fatigue, namely Cheslor Cuthbert and Albert Almora. Both were highly touted when they first joined their teams but didn’t move as quickly as other prospects through their team’s system. The system pointed out that I should not give up on them yet.
On the pitching front, it wasn’t working as great and I needed to make some adjustments. The main issue I found it was giving too much value to young pitchers vs. good pitchers. With a few adjustments, the rankings are more in line with MLB production.
As for the rankings, here are some settings and limitations.
• The pitchers use 1.5 years’ worth of data and it is 2.5 years with hitters. Any player who played in the minors during this time frame, like Kris Bryant, is included. I thought of removing anyone with any MLB experience, but some players only get a brief call-up, so I just decided to keep all players and let the readers decide if the player needs to be removed.
• Two values are generated, regressed and not regressed.
• Players with little playing time (recently signed or often injured), but are highly touted are most likely undervalued with this system. A player needs at least a year of playing time to really start getting recognized.
• The position used to evaluate the player is their most common position played over the time frame examined. If the player will not be able to play the position at the MLB level, an adjustment needs to be made. Also, relief pitchers get penalty compared to starters.
Enough with the technicalities, here are the two lists. Let me know if any items sticks out as out-of-place and will look at correcting them.
Hitters
Pitchers
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
maybe Im not understanding the value system here, but how in gods name can joey fucking gallo be ranked above mookie betts?
and how is oscar tavares still on the list? No…i dont like this. I dont like it at all.
And although I like Dilson Herrera and Domingo Santana as solid baseball players, I must be missing something glaring… Because they are above the great Mookie Betts also. I just can’t think of a single baseball skill either of them has at which Mookie Betts does not best them – Mookie even seems to have more power than the 6’5″ 250 lb Santana.
My suggestion – Mookie has been in Boston since September of 2014, so he really seems to stand out as no longer a “prospect”. He is a full-blown MVP candidate in his third major league season.
I am probably missing something obvious, so I apologize. Not a complaint – just a comment.
The biggest reason with Betts being that low is only playing 2/3 of a minor league season the past 2.5 years.
It isn’t skill based, its stat based – and only for minor league numbers.
“The pitchers use 1.5 years’ worth of data and it is 2.5 years with hitters. Any player who played in the minors during this time frame, like Kris Bryant, is included. I thought of removing anyone with any MLB experience, but some players only get a brief call-up, so I just decided to keep all players and let the readers decide if the player needs to be removed.”
Actually reading the intro could aid in your comprehension of the system
I generally think these stat-based prospect rankings are interesting (I especially like Chris Mitchell’s KATOH stuff), but I think this idea needs some more refinement.
It doesn’t seem to incorporate which statistical profiles are have more risk, i.e. Gallo and Pederson’s high ratings. Maybe give strikeout rate more value or something.
I understand that it is tough to remove guys with some MLB experience like Bryant, but for fantasy purposes (this is Rotographs), it isn’t useful to see Correas, and Bryants taking up space. I’d be more interested in comparing, say, David Dahl against Manuel Margot.
Lastly, reducing these players to a single regressed or unregressed value makes sense in a real baseball sense, i.e. WAR, but for fantasy purposes, it’s important to know how each individual stat will translate to major league level. This system gives Jesse Winker more value than Trea Turner, but Turner is definitely more of a fantasy baseball-type player.
I hate seeing critical comments, so I regret that this comes off as one, but I just felt like sharing my thoughts. I still think this is a great idea with real potential going forward.
Agreed. Somehow Mark Teixeira is also on the list. This HAS to be an oversight right?
Probably from a minor league rehab stint?
Right, I should do a quick age filter to help remove some players
Or a MLB service time filter if possible.
Also, are you close to getting the baseballheatmaps database back online? Really missing the batted ball distance leaderboards this year :'(
So these are not even league-adjusted? INT is the same as PCL for hitters?
I don’t know. This just isn’t working for me. There’s so much noise in the data that it’s difficult to draw any useful conclusions from it. I get the idea, but the implementation seems problematic to me.
Why not use BA’s prospect definition to filter out players who are already established major leaguers? For hitters, AB < 130. For pitchers, IP < 50 and G < 30.