Top Prospects of the NECBL by the Numbers

A map of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

Other Lists
Cape Cod League
Northwoods League
Coastal Plain League

With August very much here, the nation’s collegiate summer leagues — many of which have probably hosted at least one future major leaguer — are coming to an end.

Below are the players to have performed most ably in this year’s edition of the New England Collegiate League. Offensive production (represented as the totally made-up SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average) is essentially a version of wRC+, except using the three main defense-independent inputs (home-run, walk, and strikeout rate), all regressed duly*. Pitching performance (represented by the also entirely made-up SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention) is calculated using a version of kwERA, with regressed strikeout and walk rates as the relevant inputs.

*By the method outlined here.

The idea here is not to suggest that the following players are/were the actual best prospects from the New England Collegiate League this summer. Outlets like Baseball America and Perfect Game will certainly do a much better job of that. Rather, it’s to (a) represent as accurately and responsibly as possible the best performances of the New England Collegiate League season and to (b) acquaint ourselves with those top performers.

Here are the top hitters from this year’s New England Collegiate League, as determined by the methodology explained above. Positions are those listed by team. Click on a player’s name for his New England Collegiate League player page.

Notes
• One of Danny Collins’s (Laconia, Troy) top abilities is his one of hitting home runs. With 19 of them, he bested second-place finisher Yale Rosen (Newport, Wash. St), 11th in the NECBL with a 121 SCOUT+, by seven. His 12 home runs this past spring were the third-highest total in the Sun Belt Conference.
• Mike Papi of Keene is the highest-ranking freshman on the SCOUT leaderboard. Of note also is that he played, as a freshman, at an elite baseball program this spring — namely, at Virginia, where he posted a 15:17 walk-to-strikeout ratio in 130 plate appearances. While listed as an infielder here, Papi actually played most of his games this summer — or, at least, most of the recent ones — in center field.
• Dylan Moore (Keene, Cypress Community College) is another freshman and also the only player among the top-10 batting leaders to’ve played shortstop consistently.

And here are the pitchers:

Longer, Single Note
While not as dominant as Sean Manaea in the Cape League — and probably with less in the way of pure stuff — 6-foot-4, 215-pound left-hander Alex Haines (Vermont) was decidedly the best pitcher in the NECBL this summer, posting a 54:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 40 innings over nine appearances (seven starts). He struck out 108 in just 70.0 innings as a sophomore this past spring for Seton Hill (with an -i-, not an -a-) in Pennsylvania. Any report on Haines’ velocity is surprisingly difficult to find on the internet, although, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he threw an 84 mph fastball as a 16-year-old.