There are a lot of reasons to assume that right-handed Boston Red Sox prospect Michael Kopech is well positioned — or, at least, as well positioned as any young pitcher can be — not only to reach the majors but also to experience some success while there. The velocity is one reason why, obviously. He reportedly hit 105 mph on multiple radar guns earlier this summer. He was sitting at 93-97 during instructional-league play last month. He’s recorded an average fastball of 98.7 mph in the Arizona Fall League. Provided his arm remains attached and in mostly serviceable condition, he appears certain to serve at least as competent reliever.
There are other promising indicators, though. Objective ones. Consider: Kopech was selected 33rd overall in the 2014 draft. Research by Matthew Murphy indicates that players taken between 31st and 35th overall as amateurs produce about two and three wins over the course of their team-controlled years. As for his status as a prospect, specifically, one finds that Kopech was ranked 89th on last year’s edition of Baseball America’s top-100 list. The most recently updated iteration of Kevin Creagh and Steve DiMiceli’s work on prospect valuation suggests a pitcher ranked between 75 and 100 on BA’s list is likely to contribute something like three or four wins before reaching free agency.
Two or three or four wins might not seem like a great result over half a decade, but that’s also just an average figure. There’s a lot of attrition baked into it, a lot of zero-win seasons. The point is that, on average, a pitcher with Kopech’s profile ends up contributing in the majors. That has considerable value.
There’s one more promising indicator for Kopech, though, and it’s not necessarily one you’d expect — namely, his performance so far in the Arizona Fall League, where he’s recorded the highest strikeout rate among starters. Given the circumstances under which it’s played, there are multiple reasons to discount the numbers coming out of the AFL. It’s a developmental league, first of all. The mandate isn’t really for prospects to “win” as much as it is to improve. Plus there’s also the fact of the inflated run environment, which is probably the product of an imbalance in the quality of pitching and hitting prospects and also the product of the weather in Phoenix. Finally, there’s an even more basic reason why to approach Fall League data with some caution: the samples are small. There are only about 30 games in an AFL season — or, the equivalent of a month’s worth of regular-season major-league play. The dangers of extrapolating too much from a single month of data are manifest.
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