Steamer Projects: Miami Marlins Prospects

The polite and Canadian and polite Marc Hulet has published today his 2014 organizational prospect list for the Miami Marlins.

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 Marlins 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.

Steamer Projections: Miami Batting Prospects
Below are the current 2014 projections for select Miami 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: Miami Pitching Prospects
Below are the 2014 projections for select Miami 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. 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
• Both the scouting reports and also the projections included here suggest that center fielder Jake Marisnick is an asset defensively. His capacity for becoming an average major leaguer now depends on the development of one or more of his offensive skills. Of those, there appears to exist the most optimism regarding his future power. The prorated line above projects Marisnick to hit 10 home runs and post about a .125 ISO. Were he to hit 18 home runs, though, in that same plate-appearance sample — thereby producing about a .175 ISO — that would make him more like a 2.0- or 2.2-WAR player. Whether he’ll actually do that is — not unlike this weird rash on the author’s thigh — is one of life’s great mysteries.

• Projecting Austin Barnes‘ defensive value is difficult. He’s been deployed somewhat equally at catcher (worth +12.5 runs for every 550 PA, approximately) and second base (+2.5 runs) over the last two seasons. Mostly, what the author has done is to close his eyes and type a reasonable and round number. More starts at catcher for him would result in greater defensive value by rate, but would also probably limit his overall playing time.

• Miami appears to have a small cadre of young pitchers (including Adam Conley, Anthony Desclafani, Brian Flynn, Andrew Heaney, and Justin Nicolino) upon whom they could call to start and prevent runs passably well. Of those, Steamer appears most optimistic about the left-handed Conley. A second-round pick out of Washington State in 2011, Conley has been able to preserve strikeout-and-walk differentials of about 16-17 percentage points across multiple levels.

Here’s video of Conley from August, which footage appears to include at least his fastball and changeup (the latter for a full-count strikeout):