2018 Prospect Graduations
What follows is simply a list of prospects who exceeded rookie-eligibility requirements in 2018. They are sorted into FV tiers (as listed at time of graduation) but not ranked within those tiers. Note the players whom we missed in the “Not Ranked” section at the bottom of the list. Lou Trivino (dominant reliever, probably should have been a 45 FV) and Niko Goodrum (a multipositional bat, typically a 45 FV for us) are prominent whiffs. Several of the 35 FV players were graded more highly in previous years (Fletcher, Laureano, O’Hearn, Palka) and they are a lesson in impatience and over-correction. Also take a gander at this piece from last winter, which I think has aged pretty well, especially the list of middle infielders.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
Interesting how 13 or 15 non-ranked rookies recorded at least 0.5 wins this season, with over half of that exceeding 1.2 WAR. Obviously this doesn’t control for playing time or future projection, but imo this demonstrates just how value there is to be found in unheralded players. I wonder how this compares to other rookie classes of un-scouted players?
Interesting! I think you’d have to look at a longer sample (maybe 3 years) to really know if there’s value. And you’re right, it could just be a this-year thing.
The question is where’s the value. If there’s no connecting thread that helps you identify the type ahead of time, then the takeaway is that of the >6,000 minor leaguers who never get written up on a team Top-X list, some of them will still make the majors and some smaller number of them will add real value.
I’d be surprised if this year was an outlier. It’s not accurate to say these guys aren’t scouted, it’s just that they’re not talked about much outside their own organizations. Just eyeballing the list I see at least two guys (Crick, Herrera) who were ranked here and elsewhere for multiple years, including in their teams’ top 10s, before poor performance dropped them off everyone’s radar. It’s not a huge surprise that some of those guys leverage the tools/skills scouts saw in them early in their careers to find some sort of role in the majors — generally in relief/utility.
Aside from that, I’m not really sure what lessons there are here other than that breakouts can come from nowhere (C. Villanueva, D. Rodriguez) or that some of the guys who grind it out until their mid-late 20s can show themselves deserving of big-league looks, even if they’re never exciting enough to get written up as top prospects (most of the rest of the NR names on that list).
There is some survivorship bias here. Org guy gets called up, does well in a small sample so gets more playing time and accrues WAR. Doesn’t mean they will continue to be 1-2 WAR guys – it probably isn’t their true talent level.
Most of them will fade into oblivion, while a few will outperform the scouting reports and carve out a decent MLB career.
Yarbrough an NR?
Yeeeaah that Juan Soto call is gonna look awfully light when all is said and done. He just put up 60-grade production (when prorated over 600 PAs) at the age of 19. He’s a hitting genius.
(To be fair, nobody except I think Sickels was even close to accurate with Soto, so you’re in good company)
A 60 is a really good grade… I wouldn’t call that a miss at all.
A 60 is someone who puts up 4-5 WAR, according to the authors of this piece. He more or less just did that, at age 19. Unless you think he’s reached his ceiling at age 19, that grade is light.
Ask Jason Heyward about that.
Jason Heyward was the #1 prospect in 2010 according to BA. If he had a 65 or 70 on him, then he undershot being a 4-5 WAR player in his service years. I believe someone (maybe BA) called him a young Dave Winfield.
But yes, Heyward did regress with the bat almost immediately, despite being only 21. But I would guess that generally speaking, 19 year olds who skip from AA to the majors and earn the label of “maybe the best teenage hitter in MLB history” generally improve in subsequent years.
Your expectations with regards to accuracy are outside the realm of the possible.
Nah, I don’t expect perfection. Nobody expected him to be that good so soon. But I do expect the prospect analysts to take some good-natured ribbing in stride when they gave a guy a 40 present/55 future hit tool at callup and he winds up with an OBP over .400.
Given the 60 grade, Soto is not even close to the biggest miss here. If Soto is as bad at defense as he’s looked so far, I can’t see giving him a 70 even with a do-over. So what, they should feel bad that he is more of a 65 than a 60???
Biggest miss outside of the NRs is probably Bader or Franmil Reyes. But Soto looks like a 70 from here. You know how hard it is to find players who hit that well, that early? It’s Juan Soto and Mel Ott and that’s it, and Mel Ott has a career wRC_of 156 and 8 seasons of a wRC+ above 160. If you stretch it to age 20 instead of teenagedom, you can add Trout, A-Rod, Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline, Frank Robinson, Acuna, Harper, and Correa. Granted, he’s not going to be as good as Mel Ott unless he picks up his defense, and nothing is guaranteed, but we’re likely talking about a Joey Votto-level of offense for Soto. It’s Soto’s world, and we’re just living in it.
Prospect. Growth. Isn’t. Linear.
No. He could wind up worse than that. Or, although it is less likely, he could wind up better.
I am continually astounded how many people write Soto off. Prospect pedigree is sticky, and being only the #15 prospect (or something like that) in his J2 class I think set him up to be underrated throughout the minors. The guy just did something that no one but a Hall of Famer has ever done, and he’s not an FV70? What more do you want out of a teenager?
FV60 != writing anyone off
What that means is that he’s essentially done improving. I would say that’s writing someone off, at least on a small scale.
He would have been a 70 this year, if the Nats had gamed his service time a la Vladi Junior.
You know, I would have agreed with you, except that the whole world is apparently descending to tell me that he would still be an FV60. I don’t get it.
The whole world is telling you that you are a clown and picking the most unusual hill to die on. Whether he would be a 60 or probably/maybe a 65 if he were re-ranked misses the point. A 60 grade for a low-minors player that busts through like Soto is not a “miss,” unless, as was stated earlier, you are asking for an unrealistic level of precision. There are many, many prospects on this list that have more than a “maybe a half grade” difference between last year and this year. Look at Lewis Brinson, who was also a 60 and had an atrocious season. If you took the same level of overreaction to him, I assume you’d now give him, what, a 30 grade? 20?
Main thing is that proximity matters – giving a 60 FV to a 19 year old with 96 PA above rookie ball is INSANELY aggressive.
It’s essentially saying “we think he’ll be a 70 FV if he maintains this performance at higher levels.”
You could even argue that Soto’s 2018 *justified* the grade, haha.
A 60 FV grade is a probable perennial star with HOF upside. That seems to match Soto pretty well. I don’t see Eric or Kiley looking back in 15 years and feeling too bad about this grade even if Soto passes Bonds on the all-time HR list.
That sounds like an FV70.
Kiley and Eric can explain their system better than I can but I see a 70 is labeling a guy a probable top-10 player in baseball. Also with HOF upside, but with a higher percentage of reaching it.
Put it this way: if you asked Eric or Kiley in a chat whether the 60 FV grade on Soto means they think he doesn’t have superstar upside, what do you think they’ll say?
Well, they did post something earlier today that says a 70 is someone who has between 5 and 7 wins at peak, and a 60 is someone between 4 and 5 wins during their service years. I suspect a lot of people think that Soto will continue doing exactly what he did this year for a long time without really improving, and if Eric and Kiley think that, then yes, he’s an FV60.
I’d recommend you go back and read the piece about the drawback inherent in using a single number (one of them is that people will misconstrue their prospect analysis in pretty much the way you’re doing now).
Kiley and Eric have both said in innumerable chats that their FV numbers for young players aren’t to be read as caps on their ceiling, but rather as a balancing that recognizes that younger players have a lot of variance. A 60 FV on a 20 year old permits the possibility that he’ll turn into a 70 (or even 80) big leaguer while hedging for the risk that he settles in as a 50 or lower.
If you think I’m reading this grade wrong, I encourage you to ask one of them about it in a chat.
TL:DR: I think you’re putting too much weight on FV as a definitive number and ignoring a whole lot of context and nuance that these writers have spent a lot of time explaining on this site.
I agree, the FV scores are what a player is projected to do–not a cap on the ceiling. But if they continued to project him as an FV60 after this year, what they’re essentially saying is that the guy is done improving from an overall value standpoint, because he’s very clearly a PV60.
The definition of a 60 is very clear in the piece that they published today. We don’t actually know what they think, but I’m of the mind that thinking that a 19 year old is done improving is pretty nuts. So I strongly object to that notion, and think that they deserve a little bit of ribbing over saying the guy was a PV40 on his hit tool considering what he did.
Dude…Soto had 96 PA above rookie ball when they gave him a 60 FV. At the same age, with a longer track record, Eric gave Acuna a 55.
Giving him a 40 PV on his hit tool, after 96 PA in the SAL is insanely aggressive.
This list isn’t a re-ranking. It’s a recording of these players’ latest valuation when they graduated.
It’s not their fault that Soto graduates before his appearances in the high minors could be factored into his PV.
Of the players 45 and lower, they were more right than wrong on a vaaaast majority. Of the misses that put up ~league average seasons, it seems like the big position player ones were McNeil, Bader, Fletcher, Laureano, and maybe Goodrum. That’s pretty damn good all things considered. Just looking at this, you can tell who is really hard to project… tweener pitchers and guys who build a lot of value based on defense and contact.
But the one that really cements the variability of all of this is the catchers… of four ranked as a 45 or below, three put up good seasons in Garver, Alfaro, and Stassi. Only Nido technically graduated and put up a bad season, but he was clearly rushed. The two catchers ranked 50 or above were Kelly and Cisco, who both looked meh in their shots. That’s telling to me.
Thanks for all the great work Eric and Kiley! My only suggestion would be to add the grade you would give them going forward. Take Ramon laureno for example. He recorded 2+ WAR in limited time. He’s probably at a 45+ going forward. Similar situation with Yarbrough. For guys like Brinson, he’s probably not a 60 anymore.
this is what I would like as well. Basically, any glimpse into how the value of these players has changed given their success (or failure) in their MLB time. I feel like the biggest gap in “prospect” coverage is the time frame immediately after exceeding rookie limits. They are no longer prospects so we no longer get reports on them. Frankly, I’d love an annual piece that updates each of the scouting reports on players who exceed their rookie limits. Maybe even continue that through a player’s first 2 years or his non-arb eligible years.
So, Kiley and Eric, in addition to covering the minors, college, and high school players, can you add in all players in their first 3 years of service time? Maybe we can slow the Earth’s rotation to give you more time in a day.
Adalberto Mondesi has not been covered as a prospect since probably mid-2016, and at barely 23 years old he is probably the guy I would be most interested in seeing FV and scouting report info on.
They did a piece during prospect week in February where they graded all the graduates going forward, here’s hoping they make it a yearly thing (I believe they said at the time that they intended to).
The top of the list feels very conservative on the guys that already performed like stars in the MLB. Acuña looks like one of the best players in the league already at 20 years old, a 65 feels very light for him. Also, he’s only a half grade over Lewis Brinson seems crazy, but not as crazy as Brinson having the same grade as Soto. Soto just had a wrc+ over 140 at 19 years old!!! Brinson was a full win below replacement value! I get that a lot can change with Brinson and Soto, but that type of performance difference with Soto being younger seems like it should separate them quite a bit.
It’s their grades from the beginning of the season I believe
If they had a chance to redo this, I am confident that Acuna and Soto would be 70s, and I suspect Torres would wind up around 65.
I bet they’d like a do-over on that FV50 they hung on Bader’s glove, too (this is another one that everyone missed).
I’m pretty sure Eric and Kiley don’t sit around wishing they could re-do past prospect grades after they see how prospects perform in MLB.
Short of magic or time travel (which could both be put to much better uses and also don’t exist), literally every prospect writer will have enormous misses every single year. As a reader, either you trust their process to deliver valuable information despite the inherent imprecision of their chosen subject, or you don’t. If you don’t, stop reading. What’s the point of ankle-biting?
Are you kidding? Of course they sit around and think about the guys they missed on! Not everyone, but it’s not being very reflective if they didn’t. Sometime, ask Eric about Yadier Alvarez. He’s very reflective about such things.
I don’t think it’s radical to think that if Eric and Kiley were to update their list of the guys here, they would change things.
See, I honestly don’t think they would change Soto’s FV coming into the year.
You just can’t give a 19 year old with less than a month’s experience 96 in full season ball higher than a 60 FV. Too much can go wrong.
The only player with that little experience I’ve ever seen ranked higher is Bryce Harper, who was much more athletic, had torn up the AFL that fall as a 17 year old and was, y’know, Bryce Harper.
they had Soto at a 50FV coming into the year. they bumped him up to a 60FV by the time he graduated, which i assume means some time near the end of June when he passed the point of 130 ABs.
either way, it feels like they absolutely underestimated him at some point along the way even if you don’t think he should be a 70 because of defensive drawbacks.
Shouldn’t Joey Wendle be on this list?
Great work. Which of the “NA”s do you think would have the highest FV if you were to redo today? Jeff McNeil?
I think Willie Calhoun went over 130 when you combine his 2 seasons. Always confuses me a bit with the cup of coffee stuff…
I don’t see Alex Reyes here. Did his four innings before going sproing not suffice to get him out of the “prospect” class and into the “what might have been, now a major leaguer … but …” class? I have seen different takes on that in different publications.
Reyes’ four innings took him to exactly 50.0 career IP. Rookie status is lost when you *exceed* 50, so he’s still a prospect until he records a single out next season.
Walker Buehler (55) grade was a bit light. But it probably was light because of sample size and injury. I put him at 65 right now.
Don’t think Carson Kelly has graduated yet. 117 career AB and B/R still lists his rookie status as intact.
I never thought I’d see the day when Max Stassi actually exhausted his rookie eligibility. Appeared in a Major League game every year since 2013.