Steamer Projects: Kansas City Royals Prospects

Earlier today, polite and Canadian and polite Marc Hulet published his 2014 organizational prospect list for the Kansas City Royals.

It goes without saying that, in composing such a list, Hulet has considered the overall future value those prospects might be expected to provide either to the Royals or whatever other organizations to which they might someday belong.

What this brief post concerns isn’t overall future value, at all, but rather such value as the prospects from Hulet’s list might provide were they to play, more or less, a full major-league season in 2014.

Other prospect projections: Arizona / Baltimore / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York NL / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Toronto.

Steamer Projections: Kansas City Batting Prospects
Below are the current 2014 projections for select Kansas City batting prospects. All projections have been prorated to 550 plate appearances (and 450 for catchers) for sake of uniformity. Defensive figures (denoted by Def) account both for positional adjustment and UZR, and are presented relative to league average. Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts in 2013. Prospects are listed in order of projected WAR. The symbol # denotes the relevant prospect’s ranking on Hulet’s list. Figures might diverge slightly (although not signficantly) from those which appear on player pages.

Steamer Projections: Kansas City Pitching Prospects
Below are the 2014 projections for select Kansas City pitching prospects. Projections for starting pitchers have been prorated to 150 innings; for relievers, to 50 innings. Prospects are listed in order of projected WAR, which has been calculated by using kwERA — that is, an ERA estimator which utilizes only strikeouts and walks — so as to remove the vagaries of park effects, and probably also because the author has no idea what he’s doing. Listed ages are as of June 30, 2014. The symbol # denotes the relevant prospect’s ranking on Hulet’s list. Figures might diverge slightly (although not signficantly) from those which appear on player pages.

Notes
• Given the relative youth of Kansas City’s top field-playing prospects — and also that they’ve played mostly at the lower levels of the minor leagues — it’s not entirely surprising to find that Steamer’s computer math regards the majority of them as unlikely to produce any wins above replacement level in 2014. Third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert is the closest to major-league readiness, it would appear.

• Among pitchers, one finds a different state of affairs. Hard-throwing right-hander Kyle Zimmer and other hard-throwing right-hander Yordano Ventura would both appear to be candidates to provide not no major-league value this year.

• “What we need is scouting video of Hunter Dozier set to the theme from 1978 film The Deer Hunter!” the public announced last July — in response to which considerable demand, the author supplied the following video: