Recently, I put together a calculator for my own personal use — and perhaps, eventually, the use of this site’s readers — that helps to translate (roughly) a batting prospect’s individual tool grades into wins. Lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel already provided something along these lines for Overall Future Value back in September by means of a chart, of which this is an excerpt:

Even for those of us unfamiliar with the parlance of scouting, this is fairly intuitive. A player who receives a 50 FV grade is regarded as an average player. An average player, in statistical terms, is one who produces roughly two wins over the course of a full season. It follows, then, that a player who receives a 50 FV is one we might reasonably expect to produce about 2.0 WAR in a season at the height of his talents. Players who receive better grades than a 50 are likely, by some order of magnitude, to produce more than 2.0 WAR; worse grades than a 50, less than 2.0 WAR.

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Episode 548
Nick Gordon is the Minnesota shortstop prospect selected fifth overall in the most recent draft. Jeff Hoffman is a right-hander, also among the top-10 selections of the 2014 draft, who’s currently at the end of his recovery from a Tommy John procedure. This edition of FanGraphs Audio features both of them, in conversation with lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel. (Note: Gordon’s interview begins at about the 9:45 mark; Hoffman’s, around the 17:40 mark.)

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 33 min play time.)

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Evaluating The Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Twins, Astros, Red Sox & Cubs

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

The Red Sox have the deepest list yet in this series, to go with plenty of top-end talent as well.  Be sure to read the Eduardo Rodriguez report to see more about the decision the Red Sox had to make on the trade deadline, which I and other clubs found pretty interesting.  It’s a testament to amateur scouting and development to have so many top picks (8-14 on the list are all Red Sox 1st rounders) and high international bonuses all show up on the list, without many busts. You can fault Boston for relying too much on young players in 2014, but indications are they are about to spend a bunch of money this offseason and they have among the best groups of young talent in the game.

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Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

When I started here just last month, I promised I would write a comprehensive series of articles explaining every part of the 20-80 scouting scale. This is the beginning of that series.

Background

The invention of the scale is credited to Branch Rickey and whether he intended it or not, it mirrors various scientific scales. 50 is major league average, then each 10 point increment represents a standard deviation better or worse than average. In a normal distribution, three standard deviations in either direction should include 99.7% of your sample, so that’s why the scale is 20 to 80 rather than 0 and 100. That said, the distribution of tools isn’t a normal curve for every tool, but is somewhere close to that for most.

The Basics

You’ve probably heard people call athletic hitters a “five-tool prospect.” While that is an overused and misunderstood term, they are referring to the 20-80 scouting scale. The five tools for position players are 1) Hitting 2) Power 3) Running 4) Fielding and 5) Throwing. The general use of the “five-tool” term is when all five are at least average (which is more rare than you’d think) and I generally only use it when all five are above average. It’s a shockingly small list of players over the history of baseball that have five plus tools, but if you ask around, scouts will tell you Bo Knows.

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