The Top-Five Brewers Prospects by Projected WAR

Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Milwaukee Brewers. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Milwaukee’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Brewers system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Milwaukee system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

5. Jorge Lopez, RHP (Profile)

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR
150	5.9	4.3	1.2	5.11	-0.5

In the projected-WAR companion piece to McDaniel’s list for St. Louis (published yesterday) the fifth-best forecast among Cardinals rookie-eligible players belonged to second baseman Jacob Wilson, at 0.4 WAR — which is to say, roughly a win better than the Brewers’ fifth-best projection. That’s not condemnation of Lopez, at all — he appears to have a promising future — but it does probably illustrate each club’s ability in 2015 to find cost-controlled injury replacements within their own respective organizations. Wilson already features the profile of a helpful bench player; Lopez, not so much.

4. David Goforth, RHP (Profile)

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR
50	6.7	3.8	1.1	4.57	-0.4

Goforth completed his conversion from a starting to relief role last year, recording all his appearances in the latter capacity for the first time since his draft year (when it’s common for college pitchers to work out of the bullpen to limit their innings). Generally, that sort of transition is accompanied by an improvement in the relevant pitcher’s stats. Research shows, for example, that starters typically produce an ERA about .15 to .25 points lower as relievers, with attendant improvements in strikeout. Goforth exhibited none of the usual benefits, however, producing a lower strikeout rate, higher walk rate, and both a worst FIP and ERA. Pitchers who throw as hard as Goforth, however, are also generally capable of a certain baseline of performance, which likely explains the relative optimism of his projection.

3. Wei-Chung Wang, LHP (Profile)

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR
50	7.3	3.2	1.1	4.19	0.0

Wang is currently projected by Steamer to work in a relief role because that’s the capacity in which he was used last year during a two-month stretch in the majors. That two-month stretch only existed, however, so that Milwaukee might satisfy the terms of the Rule 5 draft (by which means the club acquired him sneakily from Pittsburgh.) Indeed, entering the season, Wang has recorded only 47.1 innings within affiliated baseball — all of them as a starter and all of them at the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. In any case, he acquitted himself well enough for Steamer to produce the third-best forecast for him among all Brewers prospects.

2. Taylor Jungmann, RHP (Profile)

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR
150	6.9	3.9	1.1	4.69	0.2

Jungmann belongs to that same class of prospect as former Boston draftee and current Texas Ranger Anthony Ranaudo: giant, former college pitchers with pedigree whose performances have lagged behind the physical tools. Both enter their age-25 seasons now and both have received similar projections for 2015: Jungmann with strikeout and walk rates of 17.3% and 9.8%, respectively; Ranaudo, at 16.4% and 8.6%. He’s at least developed into a worthwhile replacement-level starter, according to Steamer. At his age, however, it’s getting difficult to expect any more substantial returns than that.

1. Corey Knebel, RHP (Profile)

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR
50	10.7	4.0	0.7	3.25	0.5

Knebel was actually Jungmann’s teammate at the University of Texas, the former beginning his three-year career as that school’s closer just as the latter was ending his as one of the school’s top starters. Knebel’s ceiling is lower than Jungmann’s ever was, but the attributes he does possess — a 94 mph fastball and low-80s curve that are both effective in short appearances — also translate more directly to major-league success. He was entirely effective in a brief stretch at the majors last year (8.2 IP, 28.2% K, 7.7% BB, 77 xFIP-). If he repeats those per-inning numbers over a whole season, it’s even possible FanGraphs editor Eno Sarris will learn to pronounce his name.