Kyle McCulloch was the last straw for Kenny Williams, and deservedly so. The White Sox were making practice of botching first-round picks with low-ceiling players that, if their skills even progressed enough to reach the Major Leagues, weren’t likely to be significant contributors (Royce Ring, Lance Broadway, etc). So, in 2007, Williams issued an edict to begin drafting players’ ceilings, and suddenly, a nice middle ground was struck: the White Sox have made habit of drafting college players with prep-like potential.

It began with Aaron Poreda, who hadn’t pitched extraordinarily well at the University of San Francisco, but his size and velocity from the left size promised greater things. They did, as Poreda became part of the package that acquired Jake Peavy from the Padres last season. Next in line was Gordon Beckham, who had developing power and the defensive skillset to succeed in the middle infield. And then last year, the White Sox took the approach to new levels with Jared Mitchell, who like many high school first-round picks, covers a lot of ground in the outfield, hits a fastball a long way, but swings and misses far too often against curveballs. I expect Mitchell to be the next success story, but obviously his timetable was pushed back a year this spring with an ankle injury.

Ultimately, the Sox need to connect on these first-round picks, because it’s not happening with their international scouting department. What should be an easy pipeline thanks to Ozzie Guillen’s far-reaching popularity is not, as it has instead become a hot-bed of controversy. The White Sox are still recovering after bonus-skimming allegations led to Dave Wilder’s dismissal from the team. Yes, the team is still one of the prime locations to Cuban defectors — leading to Dayan Viciedo, Alexei Ramirez, etc. — but just have not recruited enough impact talents from Venezuela and surrounding countries.

So with Mitchell out, and a dearth of international talent, the White Sox prospect list is topped with almost-ready prospects that each have a ding against them. Jordan Danks had a breakout season last year, and has very nice OBP and defensive skills, but his power development simply isn’t happening. Tyler Flowers can hit, but it looks more and more like a move to 1B/DH will happen, decreasing his value as a prospect. I really like Daniel Hudson, but his peak is a third starter or so, unless Don Cooper can do more change-up magic with him. The next tier is filled with guys like Brent Morel who just doesn’t profile all that well.

Part of the reason for the shallow farm system is Kenny Williams, who does a nice job of using the farm system to get good talent. We mentioned Peavy, but both Carlos Quentin and John Danks were acquired using other young players, and the Sox look to have received the better end of both deals. But, you still sometimes get head-scratchers like trading Brandon Allen for Tony Pena, which creates the worry that Williams might be too haphazard trading prospects. Williams wheeling and dealing makes it impossible to accurately predict the future of the White Sox after guys like A.J. Pierzynski and Paul Konerko have moved on. But given the current talent level, it’s difficult to predict much success with the pool of players behind Gordon Beckham and John Danks looking so shallow.

As written in the article previous to this, things could be very bad in PNC Park this season. And you know what? That’s the most encouraging sign in Pittsburgh in quite awhile. The new regime in Pittsburgh, led by Neal Huntington, has begun extracting value from the assets remaining from Dave Littlefield’s time in Pittsburgh. This has provided a host of players that could contribute to a successful Pittsburgh team in the future: Jose Tabata, Ross Ohlendorf, Gorkys Hernandez, Tim Alderson and more.

Slowly and deliberately, the Pirates are building something. If you squint and project generously, there is quite the offensive core coming together. It starts with a pair of potential stars: Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez. You’ll see a lot of teams ahead of the Pirates on this list whose ranking is largely owed to the presence of a superstar. These two have that potential. McCutchen could push 4-5 wins above replacement this season, and really looks to be successful at every phase of the game.

Pedro won’t be that successful from a fielding perspective, and will have to be +25-35 with the bat to match McCutchen’s potential. I think we can certainly project the low end of that scale, making Pedro the Robin to McCutchen’s Batman. And as Dave mentioned in the Padres review yesterday, a good team needs a few superheroes.

Around them you’ll see a series of unexciting, but low-floored prospects that could contribute to a winner. Tony Sanchez, the team’s budget-conscious first-round pick last year, is a great example. The team believes he is a plus defensively to go along with a league-average hitter – that’s a 2-3 win player. Or how about Chase D’Arnaud? Here’s a guy that scouts are saying could be average defensively (+0), stick at shortstop (+7.5), live in the two hole (+20) and ride his patient approach to a ~.360 wOBA (+15). And you have Tabata, who is no longer a projectable middle of the order star, but a great contact hitter that could hit .300.

If you didn’t notice, that’s getting close to a full lineup of players: C Sanchez, 1B Jeff Clement, MI D’Arnaud, 3B Alvarez, LF Lastings Milledge, CF McCutchen, RF Tabata. I think it works, and it’s going to be under team control until 2015 or so.

But then you get to the pitching staff. and things aren’t so optimistic. The group that pitched in the Major Leagues last season is about replacement level. You might like Paul Maholm, or believe in the Ross Ohlendorf sinker, but generally, these aren’t the guys you win with. The first-round picks the team put together in the decade don’t really help. Dan Moskos has fallen off the radar, and while Brad Lincoln had an encouraging return from Tommy John surgery, his stuff no longer inspires faith below a 4.00 FIP.

You can feel the Pirates beginning to sense the discrepancy between the offense and pitching staff, as they spent seven figure bonuses on two players in last June’s draft: LHP Colton Cain and RHP Zack Van Rosenberg. Both are years away from the Major Leagues – their peaks should be after some of the hitters above have moved on – but it does show a recognition from the front office.

The Pirates drew some criticism last year for drafting Tony Sanchez, a low upside player, so high in the draft. But I think this front office knows its talent and understands what it needs. If ownership is patient with Huntington’s strategy, and McCutchen and Alvarez blossom as expected, the Pirates are ahead of the curve in competing once the aging St. Louis and Chicago rosters drop off. But they need pitching, and they need lots of it.

It would make a nice story to cite the offseason between 2001 and 2002 as the birthplace of a new Royals regime, an overhaul in organizational drafting philosophy. In 2001, the team was captured by a sideshow act, Colt Griffin, that held few skills beyond the ability to throw a baseball as hard as an 18-year-old ever could. The next year, of course, the team looked for pitchability from their prep pitcher first rounder — and found their city’s great hope, Zack Greinke. But what could have been a symbolic upheaval wreaks now merely of coincidence, as the farm system — and the process for acquiring talent — has barely improved. Coupled with the occasional resistance to give successful prospects an opportunity, headlined by Internet favorites Kila Ka’ahiue and Disco Hayes, and the Royals’ problems seemingly extend to every department of their organization.

This is not to say they don’t have young talent, and with a particular shade of rose-colored glasses, couldn’t be projected for a successful future. Top ten picks yield prospects, and while neither Alex Gordon or Mike Moustakas or Eric Hosmer have yet had the success for which they were projected, each still harbors reasons for optimism. Behind Greinke, the best draft pick from this decade has been Billy Butler, who I still believe will flourish into a dominant hitter during his forthcoming arbitration seasons. And while I can’t claim much faith in Luke Hochevar’s future, I’m a bigger believer than most in regards to Aaron Crow, who has three pretty good starting bullet points on a scouting resume: fastball velocity, fastball movement and fastball command. It shouldn’t take a lot of pitching instruction or time to smoothly develop their second option behind Greinke.

If there’s further reason for optimism, it’s a subtle loosening of the purse strings the scouting department has been afforded in the middle rounds. The team isn’t wasting their time on polished college players that will help a Major League roster soon, but instead buying out college commitments from extremely talented and extremely raw young players. The poster boy of this approach will be Wil Myers, whose $2 million bonus as a third-round pick is one of the ten biggest the Royals have ever handed out. Myers then followed it up with a .426/.488/.735 debut in 18 Pioneer League games, quickly validating the Royals new middle-round strategy. That is, if Chris Dwyer or Tim Melville or Tyler Sample all didn’t already do it, all pitchers given above-slot bonuses in the fairly early rounds. And that’s to say nothing of consensus top prospect Mike Montgomery, who was a more agreed-upon talent entering the 2008 draft, but still is providing great value for a 36th overall selection.

So, on the positive side, I do see a wealth of pitching that, even when accounting for attrition, should provide the pieces of a good pitching staff. But what of these problems developing position players, and perhaps more concerning, struggling to properly develop Moustakas and Hosmer? Given the mid-market organization’s relative inability to lure free agents, developing offensive pieces will be the key to their success. This is also a team that simply must begin to plunge into foreign waters, as — brace yourself — their last homegrown international player to have any semblance of Major League success is probably Runelvys Hernandez. Dayton Moore, who was second in-command of an organization with a top-notch international scouting department, should know better. But that isn’t the first time we’ve said that.

In 2002, the Houston Astros started a homegrown product on the mound for 127 of 162 games. They were among the first organizations to develop a pipeline to Venezeula, where they found the pieces to acquire Randy Johnson (Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen). And brilliantly, they had had found a market inefficiency that was working: short pitchers. Roy Oswalt, Kirk Saarloos, Carlos Hernandez were all having success, and this appeared to be a forward-thinking organization that could adapt to changing markets. Success beyond the Bagwell and Biggio era seemed a foregone conclusion as the newest Killer B, Lance Berkman, became a star.

Talk about regression. Fast forward seven years, and you find an organization that lost their dibs to the Venezuelan market, to short pitchers, and to Drayton McLane’s wallet. I think 2007 will always represent the rock bottom for the organization: while the Major League team stumbled to 73 wins (in Biggio’s final season), the scouting department’s first signed draftee was fifth-round pick Collin DeLome. Their first round picks in the three previous drafts were Max Sapp, Eli Iorg and Ralph Henriquez. Yikes. So when the Astros get back into contention — and I can’t see it happening until 2013, at least — they will look back to the revamping of the scouting department, starting with the hire of scouting director Bobby Heck in October 2007, as the moment when the tide shifted.

Heck learned how to rebuild a farm system from the ground up under Jack Zduriencik in Milwaukee, who succeeded whilst the Brewers won less than 75 games for seven straight years from 1998-2005. These things take time, and we have to give Heck credit for choosing his Best Player Available without fail, never pausing to consider their ETA. This insulation mentality of drafting began immediately, when Heck took Jason Castro from Stanford ten to twenty picks before anyone thought he would go. But we were wrong, because Castro is going to be a very solid Major League catcher to guide this team into their next era. With quick feet and good contact skills, Castro has the essential foundation for Major League success. So while Castro reinstated Heck’s credibility, the director has not gone back to that well — Castro represents the only college player he has drafted in the first three rounds (totaling nine picks).

With the other seven that he’s signed, Heck has opted for raw talents: big, projectable right-handed pitchers and quick-twitch position players. It’s not a bad strategy in practice, but it’s also loaded with risk in an organization with little margin for error. The pitchers are all still getting rave reviews, with Jordan Lyles the front-runner ahead of Ross Seaton and Tanner Bushue. The best position player draftee still appears to be 2009 first rounder Jio Mier, a shortstop whose reports read like Alexei Ramirez‘ when he came from Cuba (Mier’s seem less exaggerated). In the later rounds, Heck’s best finds have been college outfielders, though it’s hard to tell how much of the success of T.J. Steele, Jon Gaston and J.B. Shuck should be credited to Lancaster, California.

After 2012, Carlos Lee is off the books, along with Roy Oswalt, Brandon Lyon. Berkman and Wandy Rodriguez come off after 2011. By then, the meat of Heck’s first drafts will be ready for the Major Leagues, perhaps just as Hunter Pence and Bud Norris are ready to hit their peak. Before that happens, it’s going to get worse in Houston. A lot worse.

With projected catcher Rob Johnson slow to heal from offseason hip surgery, it’s becoming more and more likely the Seattle Mariners could open the season with prospect Adam Moore as the starter. The 24-year-old has responded positively to his opportunity in Spring Training, as he enters Friday 8-for-14 at the plate in Peoria. Moore is the most talented catcher in the Mariners organization, so it’s certainly possible this opportunity could be a springboard into a full-time position in 2010 and going forward. Today, I want to look at how Moore looks as a prospect, given what we already know about WAR’s affinity for catchers.

Let’s start with the defense, where the consensus is such that Moore has work to do with his receiving skills, but remains a modest talent behind the plate. He threw out 31% of runners last season, which is neither positive or negative, which tends to reflect scouts’ overall impressions of his defensive capabilities. We don’t even factor defensive plus-minus for catchers into our WAR calculations, but it’s something that you should consider for any catcher’s runs above replacement tally. I think in a full season of work, Moore would be a -2.5 behind the plate — no one believes he is a positive, but given that there has never even been talk of moving him from backstop, we have to assume he won’t be bad defensively.

The problem with that adjustment is when I say “a full season of work.” Catchers aren’t ever given this, and Moore will never be so good offensively that he will DH in his off days. So, even a perfect world projection of Moore’s ultimate playing time would suggest 100-130 games per season. We have also begun to account for a non-perfect world projection in the Replacement adjustment of our calculation. Ultimately, there’s three possibilities for Moore’s career: regular catcher, back-up catcher, and bust. I truly believe the latter is the least possible outcome; Clay Davenport’s minor league translations have Moore at .265/.315/.397 as a 24 year old in Triple-A. He’s ready.

If we say the perfect world projection for Moore is 125 games (we’re calling it 480 PA’s), a bust represents 0 games, and a back-up gig probably is good for about 180 plate appearances. I’m going to say the likelihood of outcomes is something like 40/20/40 — which works out to 264 PA’s. This would mean 8.8 in the replacement adjustment (versus +16 perfect world), +5.5 in the positional adjustment (versus +10) and changes our defensive dock to only 1.1 negative runs.

I’ll look at this 480 PA perfect world projection to predict offensive performance. Again, we’re going to stray from the scientific when considering offensive projection to keep things concise. I’m thinking 20% strikeout rate, 7.5% walk rate, a .290 BABIP, and 12 home runs. So in 480 plate appearances: 96 K, 36 BB, 4 HBP, 12 HR, 1 3B, 35 2B, 60 1B, 3 RBOE. That’s a .321 wOBA, which by the way, is exactly what the fans projected for Moore this season. I’m going to call Moore -2 offensively.

So, perfect world, we have: -2 offense, +16 replacement, +10 def. adjustment, -2 defense: 2.2 WAR. And, non-scientifically accounting for his bust potential leaves us with: -2 offense, +8.8 replacement, +5.5 def. adjustment, -1.1 defense: 1.1 WAR. Interestingly, that represents the same “floor” I projected Domonic Brown at earlier in the week, but a far cry from the 3.8 perfect world that Brown was given. It passes the smell test for me, and I think Mariners fans will be happy to get 2 wins from the catching spot: Dan Wilson and Kenji Johjima only did that six times in 15 years.

Given the media circus around the event, you surely already know the specs behind Stephen Strasburg’s Spring Training debut with the Washington Nationals yesterday: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 27 pitches. If you spend any time on Twitter, you caught wind that he touched 98 mph (thankfully we have Twitter, because the radar gun didn’t kick into the TV broadcast until inning three) and threw all four of his pitches for strikes. And after the game, you probably heard that Jim Riggleman sounded a little less confident the Nationals wouldn’t start him him in the minors: “We’ll make that call as an organization. But as far as he knows, he’s like everybody else trying to make the club.”

My feelings about starting a top prospect in the Major Leagues on Opening Day have already been voiced, so we won’t re-hash that today. Instead, since Strasburg wasn’t available during the Fan Projections on this site, I want to open up a dialogue about the expectations that we have for his first season in the Majors. I want to approach this using the components that make up FIP: home runs, unintentional walks, hit by pitches and strikeouts. I’m eliminating innings pitched from the discussion — we’re going to use 150.

Why? Because it’s nice and round and possible. It accounts for either a May call-up, an early shutdown in September, or a slight injury. And I want the focus to be on the component stats. Let’s talk about each:

Home Runs: I point you to Jeff Sackmann’s study on The Hardball Times about the average college pitcher’s development, and his interesting findings that players give up more home runs as they progress through college. Strasburg was no exception: even though his sinker got better in college, and his GO/AO ratio was 1.41 as a junior, his four home runs allowed were more than expected. Now a 0.33 HR/9 isn’t bad, but the Aztec had given up just one over 134 innings in his first two seasons. Then, in the Arizona Fall League, Strasburg gave up three big flies over just 19 innings.

This is going up quickly, and I can tell you Major League players will be no easier. I’m going to go with 18 home runs allowed.

Unintentional Walks: This is, of course, one of Strasburg’s hallmarks — he walked just 50 batters in a college career almost reaching 250 innings. He did walk seven in the Arizona Fall League, so I think we can probably toss a walk rate below 2.0/9 out the window. Still, you will never find a scout that won’t rave about his fastball command. And yesterday, with his last strikeout a perfectly controlled full-count breaking ball, you saw the touch he has with all his weapons. I’m going to go with 45 walks, representing a 2.7 BB/9.

Hit By Pitches: There’s an old story about Wes Roemer, who was famous in college because he never walked anybody. His walk-less streak kept a dialogue about him going, and scouts were quick to give him a 80 on the 20-80 scale for command. However, another scout noticed that Roemer wasn’t walking people because if he got to a three ball count, he would just peg the player. I don’t think is an uncommon story in college baseball, and I tell it because it’s interesting, not that it applies to Strasburg. In fact, he hit just 7 batters in his final two seasons, and avoided them completely in the Arizona Fall League. Conservatively, let’s say 5 HBP, and move on.

Strikeouts: This is where the intrigue lies. I’m guessing it’s been a long time since Strasburg didn’t strike out a batter an inning — all three years of college, every summer baseball stop, and last fall in the Arizona Fall League. He showed yesterday that he won’t be intimidated by stars like Miguel Cabrera, who he sent to the bench with a nasty high fastball. However, he was also very sinker-heavy against the Tigers, and I wonder if the two-seam fastball won’t be his bread and butter early in the count. I also wonder if hitters won’t take the Chipper Jones approach and swing early to not fall behind. All in all, I’m projecting 135 strikeouts.

I want to hear your predictions in the comments, but those are mine — a conservative first year equaling out to a 3.95 FIP. And if you think I’m setting the under/over there, you’re wrong, because I’ll take the under.

Today I want to continue with the work in thinking about prospects in accordance with the WAR they might produce in the Major Leagues. With your help, the flaws of the analysis we’ve done so far have been recognized. In some cases, we’re at work behind the scenes. But I also want to flesh out this new thought process in the open. Today, I want to go through the four components of WAR, and talk about how we might treat each when projecting a prospect.

Runs Above Replacement

To keep things simple, this is computed in WAR as just 20 runs per 600 plate appearances. In my first two forays into this brand of analysis, I was after the question of what these players might look like given six full Major League seasons. It allowed for me to keep the math simple, but many of you correctly pointed out that I was overlooking the likelihood that these players fail. This, “Bust Potential,” is one of the white rabbits of minor league sabermetric analysis, but I think we can account for it in these quick-and-dirty projections in this quadrant of WAR calculation. Given that runs above replacement is only concerned with playing time, we can properly account for varying outcomes of each player’s career: a regular player, a bench player, a complete bust.

Today, I’ll be using Philadelphia Phillies top prospect Domonic Brown as my guinea pig. Brown is a consensus top 25 prospect, and the one player the Phillies would not let into trade discussions this winter. I wanted to see how rare he was, so I went to see who else Baseball America has ranked as a top 30 prospect as a “tall” (above 6-foot-2) outielder. In their first 15 years of top 100’s (1990-2004), BA ranked 25 players in that demographic. I’ll make the full list available in the comments. But the cross-section gives a really nice break down of the different possibilities for Brown’s career: 10 players became full-time regulars in the bigs, 8 players were never given a full-time shot, and the rest only got a few seasons.

So, while I’ve been giving guys +20 runs above replacement because it’s more fun to acknowledge a perfect world outcome, even for the top prospects it’s an up-hill climb. I think we can actually do better by saying that Brown’s peak is +20, but also acknowledge all outcomes and conservatively project +10 runs above replacement.

Positional Adjustment

When projecting what a player’s positional adjustment will be, there are two factors to consider: playing time and position. We have taken care of playing time in the runs above replacement adjustment — so like I did with Jesus Montero, this section allows us to look at a player’s specific situation and project a likely position. We look at the Philadelphia Phillies, and we see their outfielders contract situation: Jayson Werth is a free agent after 2010, Raul Ibanez after 2011, and Shane Victorino after 2012. While some scouts have said that Brown would work in center field, his size plus the long-term presence of Shane Victorino allows for confidence in seeing Brown in LF/RF. This means Brown would receive a -7.5 position adjustment in a full season, or -3.7 if we correspond with his conservative +10 runs above replacement projection.

UZR/Fielding

Presently, there are both quantitative and anecdotal offerings available, thanks to Sean Smith’s TotalZone play by play metric (offered at MinorLeagueSplits), or any of the great scouting reports you’ll find at Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN and more. Domonic Brown, by TotalZone, was a -6 defender in 106 games. Meanwhile, we have Keith Law’s scouting report which reads, “His biggest deficiency is in the outfield, where his reads are poor and he doesn’t set his feet to throw, but he has the speed and arm strength to become plus at the position and already runs down many balls he misreads.” Given the two, which say roughly the same thing, I’m fine with projecting Brown to be -5 UZR/150 as a Major League corner outfielder — and can accept improvement up to +0. These aren’t scientific, but it’s using an acknowledgment of everything available to us in determining a usable round number.

wRAA/Batting

Continuing today’s theme, I think we can look at batting runs in two ways: a median performance that acknowledges many of the guys that have tried and failed; and a rosier projection that comps the player to more success stories. So, I’m concerned with two things: how a player might hit if he lives up to that +10 runs above replacement number, and how he might hit if he gets to +20. However, one note that I’d like feedback on: I don’t think we should assume a lower number of plate appearances in our projection for the former. Since we are discounting a player in the first two columns for the likelihood of not reaching the Majors, I don’t think we need to double-dip when calculating wRAA. It’s essentially what a one-season snapshot in two different paths would look like.

I’m getting predictably long-winded, so I’m going to save you from the specific wOBA-generating math and use some round numbers. It’s essentially: does Brown’s power develop, or doesn’t it?

Paths   BR  UZR  Rep  PAdj    WAR   
Rosy   +25   +0  +20  -7.5    3.8
Mean   +10   -5  +10  -3.7    1.1

One day, I want to get to this point more scientifically, but I think you get the point. I think prospect analysis has a lot of value when we can call Domonic Brown a 1.1/3.8 WAR talent and understand what that means relative to other prospects. Hopefully we aren’t far away.

On Tuesday, R.J. Anderson wondered aloud if Eric Hinske could serve as a mentor for Jason Heyward with the Braves this season in a similar capacity that he did with Evan Longoria and the Rays in 2008. Longoria credited Hinske for provoking his nine-year extension that has been cited in many circles as the best contract in baseball. Yesterday, when Chipper Jones told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “I will be shocked if [Jason Heyward] doesn’t break camp with us,” I’m hopeful the Braves will follow the Evan Longoria example with Heyward in another capacity: service time.

Longoria famously waited two weeks for a call-up at the start of the 2008 season, with Joe Maddon slotting Willy Aybar into the third baseman slot until Longoria got the call on April 12. The reason was clear: Longoria would serve only 170 service days with the Rays that season. By Major League rule, a player is a free agent after six full seasons, which are constituted by 172 service days. By waiting two weeks, the Rays bought themselves another year of controlling Longoria.

On the opposite side of the coin is the Detroit Tigers, who were so enthused by Rick Porcello’s Spring Training a year ago that they started the season with the top prospect in their rotation. Porcello would post a 6.42 FIP in April, but was consistent enough to remain with the Tigers all season. As a result, Porcello will be a free agent after the 2014 season. The Texas Rangers, who waited three weeks to call up Derek Holland (for a Longoria-like 170 service days), will have control of Holland through 2015.

There is simply no argument to be made that the marginal value gained by playing Jason Heyward over Matt Diaz for three weeks in April is worth losing Heyward’s rights for the 2016 season. Yes, calling him up on April 25 will mean that Heyward will be a “Super Two”, and thus, eligible for arbitration a year early. But arbitration contracts are still discounts over free agent ones, and I can already promise you that Heyward’s first free agent contract will be a big one. Without delving into the Heyward vs. Strasburg argument, the Braves should certainly take note that Nats GM Mike Rizzo has already written off his right-handed star beginning the season in Washington. If you think it’s because they want some minor league seasoning for him, you’re crazy — they just want an extra year of not dealing with Scott Boras.

It should not matter that the Braves’ biggest star of the last decade is excited to play with the team’s biggest prospect. Chipper Jones will be gone in 2016, and Jason Heyward could still be there. Maybe Eric Hinske can step in and set Chipper straight, too.

Thanks to Dave Cameron for helping me make sense of baseball’s ludicrous service time rules.

Chase Headley was not born to play the outfield in the Major Leagues. Before the 2008 season, Kevin Goldstein ranked him atop the Padres farm system as a Five-Star Prospect. However, if there was a reservation, it was this: “Headley is not much of an athlete. He’s a below-average runner, and while he makes the plays he gets to, his range falls a bit short.” This, as you can imagine, did not translate well to the spacious left field in PETCO Park. In 196 games in left between 2008 and 2009, Headley cost the Padres 16.7 runs in the outfield. It didn’t work.

The former second-round pick produced 14.5 runs above replacement for the Padres last season, but at the expense of 7.2 fielding runs below average, and a -4.9 run positional adjustment. Major League organizations will always make room for a good bat, so when Headley hit .305/.383/.556 in 65 games to start the 2008 season, it was time to make room. In a perfect world, he would have learned and improved in the outfield, but it was not to be. With Kevin Kouzmanoff due for a raise in his second season of arbitration, we have to give the Padres credit for recognizing the Headley-the-outfielder experiment didn’t take. Given that he produced +0.6 UZR in 225 innings at third base filling in for Kouzmanoff last season, San Diego knew Headley would be significantly more valuable at the hot corner.

In our positional adjustments at FanGraphs, the difference between a left fielder and a third baseman is 10 runs over a full season. Considering that Headley is probably a -10 defender in the outfield, and we’ll call him a conservative -2.5 defender at third base, the difference rises to 17.5 runs. If Headley plays as often as he did last season, and shows no offensive improvement from ages 25 to 26, his WAR will jump to 2.7 in 2010. Which, you’ll notice, is exactly what Kouzmanoff produced in his three years at the hot corner in San Diego. Back to the position where he was drafted, Headley should begin to make good on Goldstein’s two-year-old Five-Star ranking.

*****

Kyle Blanks is, best as I can tell, one of the three heaviest baseball players to ever spend a sixth of a season (27 games) in a Major League outfield. Adam Dunn and Dmitri Young are his peers in the +275-pound club, and they are not good outfielders. In the UZR era, they combine for something like -17.5 UZR/150 in the outfield. Blanks was something better than this in his limited 2009 sample (-10.3 UZR/150), but he’s no great shakes in the outfield. And the strange thing is, he kind of is at first base. Blanks was the 2005 JuCo Defensive Player of the Year, and he managed to garner positive scouting reports throughout his minor league career.

This season, Blanks will begin the season playing outfield everyday in PETCO Park. If he makes good on the Fans Projections and produced 14 batting runs above average, but sticks in the outfield as a -7.5 defender, we’re looking at a 1.8 WAR player. But, he also stands to replace Adrian Gonzalez if the Padres send him east at the trade deadline. If we consider that first base is five runs less in a position adjustment than a corner outfield spot, Blanks will have to be -2.5 or better at first base to offset the downgrade in the defensive spectrum. Considering the scouting reports, this seems like an apt goal, and gives the Padres a nice replacement for their best hitter.

*****

The Padres did what they had to last season to get their four best bats into their four corner spots. But, as a result, Chase Headley and Kyle Blanks contributed less wins above replacement than what they would have at their natural position. While a Major League organization needs to be concerned with the best value added for their team, prospect analysis must be concerned with how potential changes might affect a player’s production. I do not believe we should evaluate prospects in a vacuum, but instead recognize how a player’s situation could alter his WAR output.

As best I can tell – using the B-Ref Play Index – there have been nine catchers in history to play at least 50% of their games at catcher carrying Jesus Montero’s size. If we needed something else besides scouts’ wishes to project a move from behind the plate, precedent is clearly behind that notion. The problem is, in the Yankees organization, the only other position available is Designated Hitter, as Mark Teixeira is firmly entrenched at first base until 2016. And deservedly so.

The overwhelming rhetoric is that Montero can support a move to any position, even one that only asks its occupants to hit the ball far and often. His size, his power, his contact skills were near historic levels last season, as he split his age-19 season between High-A and Double-A. However, to be thorough, I went through the Baseball America archives and looked for top 25 prospects that were only ranked on the prowess of their right-handed hitting. I tried to self-edit the players that drew even modest praise for their athleticism or defensive ability, eliminating Drew Henson and Derrek Lee (Andy Marte and Miguel Cabrera) for attempts at even-handedness. In 20 years of ranking prospects, I found 11 similar examples: Billy Butler, Conor Jackson, Brian Dopirak, Jason Stokes, Mike Cuddyer, J.R. House, Pat Burrell, Paul Konerko, Dave McCarty, Tim Costo, Todd Zeile.

This is surely not the most inspiring list for Yankees fans, who probably wonder why Frank Thomas could not have been ranked higher by BA in 1990, or why I eliminated Cabrera. But I think it does a nice job of highlighting the potential risks we have with Montero, and also shows the obvious All-Star upside as well. Two examples stick out as the most poignant: Billy Butler and Paul Konerko. Both are bad-bodied mashers, and Konerko is a guy who had to move from behind the plate young in his career. Butler and Montero split their age-19 seasons between High-A and Double-A, with these results:

Name      PA    K%   BB%   XBH%   BABIP
Butler   549  17.9   8.9   12.9   .374
Montero  379  12.4   7.4   11.4   .352

This is defining XBH% as XBH/PA, so these are big-time power numbers. I didn’t include Konerko, who didn’t take off until his age 20 season. But, I think Yankee fans would be happy if Montero followed Konerko’s path for his age-20 and -21 seasons, in Double and Triple-A, respectively.

Konerko   PA    K%   BB%   XBH%   BABIP
Age 20   572  15.2  12.8    9.6   .313
Age 21   560  10.9  11.4   12.3   .305

Now, let’s fast forward into Butler and Konerko’s Major League reality, using B-Ref’s per 162 games feature, accounting for Butler’s career up to this point, and Konerko’s first seven full big league seasons (1999-2005):

Name      PA   2B  3B   HR   BB   SO   BABIP
Butler   653   42   2   18   51   93   .318
Konerko  656   30   1   32   60   81   .285

Pick the middle ground, and I think this gives us a nice idea of what Montero might be able to do offensively. He’ll align closer with Butler in terms of BABIP and BB, closer with Konerko in strikeout rate and extra-base hit allotment. Overall, a player in the .290/.350/.500 range for his team-controlled seasons. Essentially, the player Konerko was in 2002 is what I envision for Montero. This .369 wOBA would have put him on par with Robinson Cano in last year’s Yankee lineup. He would be worth about 25 batting runs above replacement.

That is, choosing the Butler/Konerko path for Montero – which I think nicely middles the Dopirak/Stokes path and the Thomas/Cabrera path – means that Montero is +25 runs, +0 fielding, +20 replacement and -15 for positional adjustment. Overall, we’re looking at a 3-win player.

You’ll have to look 82 places lower in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list to find the Yankees catcher of the future, Austin Romine. But what if Romine spends his team-controlled years getting 520 plate appearances (17.3 above replacement) from behind the plate (+9.7 positional adjustment). If my projection for Montero holds water, and Austin Romine can manage to put up a .340 wOBA and average defensive performance — no stretch at all for a top 100 prospect — then Austin Romine projects as a more valuable asset to the New York Yankees than Jesus Montero.

There are alternate realities for Jesus Montero, in which he gets traded and becomes a plus defensive first baseman down the road. There is a reality that he manages to stay behind the plate, and becomes something resembling Mike Piazza. There’s another where he splits time between back-up catcher and designated hitter, almost negating a positional adjustment in the process. This is a big season for Jesus Montero. If he shows scouts that he won’t do too much damage catching 50 games a season, his value as a top ten prospect stands. But if he stays in this organization, and moves from behind the plate like many scouts believe, Montero quickly becomes one of the game’s most overvalued prospects.