Yesterday, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Boston Red Sox. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Boston’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Red Sox’ system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.
Below are the top-five prospects in the Sox’ system by projected WAR. To assemble this collection of players, what I’ve done first is to utilize the Steamer 600 projections made available at the site. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.
Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.
Note also that no Steamer projection has been produced for Rusney Castillo, although work both by McDaniel and also Dave Cameron suggests that something in the 2-3 WAR range probably constitutes a reasonable expectation. (Credit to reader Alex for asking.)
5. Henry Owens, LHP (Profile)
| IP |
K/9 |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
FIP |
WAR |
| 150 |
8.2 |
4.5 |
1.0 |
4.41 |
1.1 |
Owens and other left-hander Brian Johnson are projected to produce almost precisely the same WAR figures per 150 innings in 2015, the former expected to record more strikeouts; the latter, to better prevent walks. That both pitchers are projected more optimistically than the higher-ranked Eduardo Rodriguez (5.05 FIP, 0.0 WAR per 150 IP) isn’t particularly surprising: as noted by McDaniel, the current optimism regarding Rodriguez is based largely on his body of work after having been acquired by Boston this summer — not a large enough sample, that, to compensate for his more pedestrian numbers from previous years.
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