As perhaps indicated by the piece I published here in the fall concerning the relationship between scouting grades and wins, one of my particular interests — and, I would argue, one of the more compelling frontiers of baseball research currently — is the examination of how a prospect’s scouting profile relates, in a concrete and objective way, to the production that might be expected of him at the major-league level. My assumption is that many, if not all, professional organizations have a means by which to assess such a thing — perhaps some in a less, others in a more, formal way. The bonuses they extend to amateur players indicate that some manner of valuation exists. For the public, however, the process by which such valuations are established is rather opaque.
The intention of this post is to add very, very slightly to the extant body of research on this topic. It (i.e. this post) has its genesis in a pastime that probably won’t be unfamiliar to the reader — namely, flipping through the pages of a Baseball America Prospect Handbook (a text with regard to which I’ve documented my emotional emotions elsewhere). As the reader will probably know, for each organization, the editors of Baseball America identify which prospects within that organization feature the best of this or that tool: Best Hitter for Average, Best Power Hitter, Best Strike-Zone Discipline, etc.
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