We’ve added a column on THE BOARD called “Current Level” displaying the most recent minor league level the prospect has played at or has been transacted to.

The process of programmatically determining a prospect’s current level is slightly less straight forward than it might seem. For example, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is currently a Blue Jays non-roster invitee, so his Minor League Baseball stat page has him listed as Blue Jay, but he hasn’t played a MLB game.

To mitigate problems like this, we are using a combination of our game logs and MLB’s transaction list, along with some logic to determine the prospect’s level. Here’s the summary of the logic:

• If the prospect hasn’t played in the majors, he cannot have the majors as his level.
• We look at the most recent minor and major league games the player has played and find the game with the most recent date.
• We look at the most recent transaction MLB has listed.
• We compare the transaction and last game to determine which is more recent and use that for level, with consideration of the MLB debut.

This logic will prevent prospect non-roster invitees in Spring Training from displaying as being at the major league level. The transaction and game log approach will provide some robustness against any errant transaction data. Since this is programmatic, there isn’t any judgement on whether an assignment is temporary, like a rehab stint would be.

If you notice any errors, there could be a delay because the data processing runs overnight, but if it persists, please let us know.