Kole Calhoun and the Best Non-Prospects

Every Angels player, I’m sure, loves Mike Trout, but every Angels player is also competitive, and on some level self-interested. No one wants to be so consistently over-shadowed, so I’m happy for Kole Calhoun today, as he gets a few moments to himself. Calhoun has long been tremendously underrated, but now he’s in the news thanks to a new multi-year contract extension that’ll set him up for life. It’s nothing that sexy, at least not for anyone not already a member of the Calhoun family, but this is one opportunity for Angels fans to think about Calhoun without also thinking about the guy who plays beside him.

You can’t really write about Calhoun without writing about how he’s under-appreciated. He’s under-appreciated as a big-leaguer, but it dates back further than that. When he was in the minors, Calhoun was never really on any major prospect radar. Neil Weinberg investigated that a couple years back. And in 2010, Calhoun was an eighth-round draft pick. The Angels selected 12 players before him, and their combined WAR is -1.1. Cam Bedrosian is nice, but he’s no above-average everyday outfielder.

Thinking about Calhoun always reminds me that he wasn’t a prospect. And that always makes me think about other good players who weren’t prospects. I did some analysis on this topic in February of 2015, and I’d like to re-visit that real quick. Who are the best players around right now who weren’t thought of as high-quality prospects when they were younger?

As then, I’m making use of the Baseball America all-time top-100 lists. That’ll be my authoritative source. Of course, BA isn’t perfect, and of course, there are good prospects who aren’t top-100 prospects, but that should capture all the best prospects, and then some. Anyone who never made a top-100 list wouldn’t have counted as a blue-chipper. Maybe you’d prefer guys who never made a top-200 list, or guys who were never even in an organizational top-10, but I’m working with what’s easily available. It’ll do.

As for my measure of present ability, I went into our depth-charts projections and pulled out every player projected to be worth at least 2.5 WAR in the majors in 2017. For now, this is based just on Steamer, because ZiPS hasn’t yet been folded in. When I did my initial analysis, I used a WAR cutoff of 3, but back then I was looking back on performances, and now I’m using projections, which are always regressed. So, to boil it all down: 2.5+ WAR players. Top-100 prospects. Should be easy enough to understand.

For the year ahead, there are 140 players projected to be worth at least 2.5 WAR, from Mike Trout down to Ivan Nova. Of all those players, 98 of them showed up at least once in a top-100 list, meaning there’s a 30% overall rate of good “non-prospects.” It might not surprise you that the distribution isn’t so even if you break things down further.

Of the 12 players projected to be worth at least 5 WAR, 11 showed up in a top-100 list. That yields a prospect rate of 92%.

Of the 24 players projected to be worth between 4 – 4.9 WAR, 18 showed up in a top-100 list. That yields a prospect rate of 75%.

Of the 58 players projected to be worth between 3 – 3.9 WAR, 40 showed up in a top-100 list. That yields a prospect rate of 69%.

And, of the 46 players projected to be worth between 2.5 – 2.9 WAR, 29 showed up in a top-100 list. That yields a prospect rate of 63%.

The better the player, the more likely the player was to have been a good prospect. That’s not by any means a total shock, but we’re still seeing some strong representation from the non-prospect player pool. Now we can dig into the title subject a little bit better. Kole Calhoun is a good player, and a very good player for one with his own background. But by this method, he ranks just 24th among the best projected players who never appeared in a top-100 list. Players like Calhoun are somewhat unusual, but it would be a stretch to call them rare. The best non-prospects are even better than he is.

You know who many of them are. Calhoun himself is sandwiched between Brian Dozier and Joe Panik, in terms of projected WAR for former non-prospects. Those are middle infielders who developed surprising bat-to-ball skills. But now here’s the full top 10. These are the highest Steamer-projected WAR figures for 2017, among those players who never once featured in a BA top-100 list.

1. Josh Donaldson, 6.0 WAR
2. Corey Kluber, 4.9
3. Paul Goldschmidt, 4.2
4. Kevin Kiermaier, 4.2
5. Jose Quintana, 4.2
6. Dallas Keuchel, 4.1
7. Kyle Seager, 4.0
8. Jose Altuve, 3.9
9. Jacob deGrom, 3.9
10. Robinson Cano, 3.8

Justin Turner just barely missed, as did Jonathan Lucroy. But this is an impressive crop, and Donaldson is very easily the leader. Kluber is comfortably in the second position, first by a good margin among pitchers. It’s of some note not to see Matt Carpenter, since he’s been one of the faces of this group, but that just goes to show how deep it really is.

I doubt I need to educate you much about these backgrounds. Donaldson’s a converted catcher. He topped out as the Cubs’ No. 7 organizational prospect going into 2008. Kluber never showed up on a top-10 list for the Padres or the Indians. Goldschmidt never showed up on a top-10 list for the Diamondbacks. Kiermaier topped out as the No. 10 prospect, once, in the Rays’ system. Quintana never showed up on a top-10 list. Keuchel never showed up on a top-10 list. Seager topped out as the No. 9 prospect, once, in the Mariners’ system. Altuve never showed up on a top-10 list. deGrom topped out as the No. 10 prospect, once, in the Mets’ system. Cano was actually the Yankees’ No. 2 prospect going into 2005, but he still didn’t make the top-100. There was a large canyon between him and Eric Duncan.

Five of those 10 were never even organizational top-10 guys. They’re maybe the best peers for Calhoun, who was never a top-10 guy himself, despite coming up in a mostly empty system. What we see is that Calhoun isn’t alone. Not by a long shot. Which is kind of a bad thing and a good thing. It’s a bad thing, because it means our young-player analysis still has a ways to go to improve. But it’s a good thing, because, ultimately, you never know who’s going to break out. They’re all so incredibly talented, all the players in all the systems. There’s nothing wrong with a baseball that keeps things surprising.