Gammons: Perspective on Struggling Rookie Hitters

[mabrowndog]

Peter's got a new piece up, and what caught my eye was this chart:
 

 
Gammons then cites case after case where young hitters have failed to immediately set the world afire upon reaching the majors.
 

The Red Sox are in last place, and there is open questioning of the second youngest player in the league, Xander Bogaerts. Before the season, he was the second highest-rated position player prospect on Baseball America’s prospect list. The highest, Minnesota’s Byron Buxton, has suffered two serious injuries and reached double-A, so Bogaerts was the highest rated major league rookie player.
 
Forward to Oscar Taveras in St. Louis, who is reaching base 26.3% of the time, and Pittsburgh’s Gregory Polanco, who recently went 1-for-27. George Springer has hit 20 homers in Houston but had growing pains, as has Nick Castellanos in Detroit, and Jackie Bradley in Boston fell so hard he landed in Pawtucket.
 
Jose Abreu, who is 27 and defected from the major leagues in Cuba, is the only rookie in all of baseball with more than 10 HR and 60 RBI. Brock Holt has the second highest OPS of any qualified rookie in either league. Neal Huntington in Pittsburgh knows that Polanco has all the makings of a future star, but because of injuries, Polanco had to be rushed to Pittsburgh after 64 games in triple-A, a far cry from the 204 AAA games Andrew McCutchen was allowed to experience before he took his place in center field. When Polanco was in the minors, the Pirates were often charged with holding Polanco back because of service time, when, in fact, they wanted him to be better prepared for the major leagues.

 
There's a common thread among many of the strugglers:
 

Bogaerts has 60 games of triple-A experience. Taveras 108. George Springer 75. Travis d’Arnaud 101. Jackie Bradley 83.

 
Then the Sox' manager chimes in:
 

“The gap between triple-A and the majors may be wider than it’s ever been,” says Boston manager John Farrell, whose experience includes being the Indians farm director. “There’s so much hype on some of these young players, being exposed to major league pitching at such young ages can be discouraging.” Coaches on two different teams added that not immediately fulfilling the buildup can sometimes be embarrassing because of the expectations players, fans, teams, media and the individuals themselves put on 21 and 22 year old players. “It’s also more difficult for kids who are on teams that have high team expectations,” says one club official. “It’s a lot different breaking in on a team that is in a small market and is not in contention. If you’re trying to make the jump to a team like the Red Sox or Yankees, the scrutiny from opposing teams as well as the media can be very stifling.”

 
And Farrell isn't alone:
 

Talking to more than a dozen managers, coaches and general managers, the overwhelming feeling is that it is a lot harder to adjust to hitting on the major league level than any recent period in memory. One oft-cited reason is the incredible scouting preparation. One GM says that where a decade ago teams relied on written advance reports and a little video, now young players are given no time to go unnoticed because of the enormous volume of coordinated video and preparation.  “No one is a surprise longer than a three game series,” says one GM.

Then there are all the shifts a Bogaerts or Taveras has never faced. Or the bullpens; face the Royals, and you get on time around against Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland throwing 100, 98 and 99, respectively. “What you get is two at-bats against a starter who is probably better than anyone you’ve faced in the minors,” says one hitting coach. “Then you get one or two looks at some reliever throwing 96 to 100.

Some even cite the smaller, thinner bats of today’s games. “It’s all about batspeed and showtime,” says one pro scouting director. “That leads to a ton of swing and misses. It goes back to the showcase circuits, which is carnival baseball, where it’s all about batting practice, not winning baseball games and execution.”

 
What Peter's piece doesn't delve into, however, is why these same teams are so willing to buy into the hype themselves and promote their top prospects faster than they should, or what these same execs & managers might offer as solutions to the problem. There's also no discussion of the financial motivations as teams try the squeeze the most value out of these kids during their projected peak years before they become arb- and FA-eligible, and to earn payback on some of the larger bonuses doled out when they're initially signed.
 
Still, this is one of Gammons' best write-ups in years, and reminds me of how a decade ago each and every one of his columns would spawn a new main board thread.
 
Anyway, while it's interesting to see Bradley & Bogaerts are far from alone in facing these challenges, and the myriad reasons why that may be the case, I'm not sure it's any more reassuring.

 

[Harry Hooper]

An important question is why are organizations burning up their prospects' pre-FA time being JAGs in the bigs. 

 

[glennhoffmania]

Well with Polanco, Huntington said it was due to injuries to their ML players.  With Bogaerts, you could say it was because Drew turned down the QO and they had no other SS options.  In each case there's probably a reasonable explanation for the move even if we don't agree with it.  Let's flip it around.  What would people here be saying if Boston signed, say, Peralta to a one year deal and sent Bogaerts to AAA for the whole season?

 

[zenter]

What Peter's piece doesn't delve into, however, is why these same teams are so willing to buy into the hype themselves and promote their top prospects faster than they should, or what these same execs & managers might offer as solutions to the problem.

 
Is it faster than they should? Farrell specifically cited a huge and growing gap between Triple-A and the majors. Perhaps some of these players are ready to be done with Triple-A. Where do they go if not the MLB? It's not like they'd get more out of AAA time, right?

 

[TomRicardo]

If the issue is there is a widen gap between AAA and MLB, then why would spending more time in AAA help?  If anything you are best going through suffering in MLB and adjusting.
 
To be honest Springer is the only one really hitting (still striking out a ton and has trouble stealing bases).  He had about 330 PA in AAA.
 
That said d'Arnaud is probably the best of the group right now.  He went back to AAA, adjusted his swing and has really come on since returning in late June (His OPS went from .544 to .688 in two months).

 

[joe dokes]

Peter's got a new piece up, and what caught my eye was this chart:
 
 
 
]snip]
 
 
What Peter's piece doesn't delve into, however, is why these same teams are so willing to buy into the hype themselves and promote their top prospects faster than they should, or what these same execs & managers might offer as solutions to the problem. There's also no discussion of the financial motivations as teams try the squeeze the most value out of these kids during their projected peak years before they become arb- and FA-eligible, and to earn payback on some of the larger bonuses doled out when they're initially signed.
 
Still, this is one of Gammons' best write-ups in years, and reminds me of how a decade ago each and every one of his columns would spawn a new main board thread.
 
Anyway, while it's interesting to see Bradley & Bogaerts are far from alone in facing these challenges, and the myriad reasons why that may be the case, I'm not sure it's any more reassuring.

 
 
I'll take a stab at reasons for the promotions, sticking to Gammons's evidence. If the "problem" is the scouting, pitching, etc that exists at MLB but not AAA, then staying at AAA, where those things do not exist -- advance scouting, shifts, lights-out-relieving, MLB rotations solid all the way through (or more so than AAA anyway) -- doesn't really help the hitter.
 
This could explain the different treatment of Bradley and Bogaerts.  With the latter, the team thinks he has to get used to the way baseball is played in the MajorLeagues.  With JBJ, its something more that he has to do. 
 
 
EDIT: As explained by Ricardo and Zenter.

 

[TomRicardo]

Looking over the last couple of years, outside of Mike Trout and Cuban and Japanese players no one has really had an immediate impact Jason Heyward and Bryce Harper.
 
2010 was the last time you Rookies really emerge.
 
I am not seeing anyone spending a full year (500 PA) in AAA coming up and immediately contributing (all of the guys with a season at AAA are utility guys like Solarte, Holt, and Pacheco) in the last five years.

 

[mabrowndog]

Is it faster than they should? Farrell specifically cited a huge and growing gap between Triple-A and the majors. Perhaps some of these players are ready to be done with Triple-A. Where do they go if not the MLB? It's not like they'd get more out of AAA time, right?

If the issue is there is a widen gap between AAA and MLB, then why would spending more time in AAA help?  If anything you are best going through suffering in MLB and adjusting.

 
Both of you are right about that. So here's a crazy idea:
 
Perhaps clubs investing more to raise the competitive level of AAA play would help. Sure, there would be a significant operating cost to it, which many owners would likely resist in short-sighted fashion. But the risk of having top prospects flame out mentally/emotionally after going from feast to 1-2 years of famine in the majors may be worth mitigating. So might the issue of trying to sell high-priced tickets and $12 domestic beers while offering fans lineups of 22-year-old .230 hitters with 30% K rates.
 
Provide the top minor league affiliates with some of the same bells & whistles the big boys play with (advance scouting, video analysis, etc.) and maybe these kids will get a better jump on dealing with it. Instead of just facing veteran AAAA pitchers and top pitching prospects who come into games relatively blind, allow those pitchers (and catchers, managers, coaches, etc.) to come in with better-informed game plans. It would probably benefit the minor league pitchers just as much, as I imagine the same problems cited for hitting prospects also apply to the young arms.
 
Make the level challenging enough to bridge some of the adjustment gap to MLB, but not so egregiously challenging that you end up screwing with the development of prospects moving up to AAA from AA and high-A.

 

[Super Nomario]

 
Is it faster than they should? Farrell specifically cited a huge and growing gap between Triple-A and the majors. Perhaps some of these players are ready to be done with Triple-A. Where do they go if not the MLB? It's not like they'd get more out of AAA time, right?

Bogaerts hit .284/.369/.453 in AAA; Bradley hit .275/.374/.469. It's not like they hit .330, or had ridiculous BB/K ratios or anything. If the gap is bigger between AAA and MLB, we probably need to re-calibrate what constitutes "ready" for the next level.
 
If there's a talent level gap, that's one thing, but if scouting and positioning is as big a factor as Gammons suggests, it seems like there's an opportunity for a team to spend some extra money on the same sort of scouting and coaching at the minor league level and ease the transition for the minor leaguers. What are the minor leagues for if they're not preparing the youngsters for MLB in every way possible?

 

[TomRicardo]

Another to consider is the crazy amount of pitchers being used in MLB.  Between TJS and other long term injuries, MLB are using a greater amount of pitching depth.  The depth they use is the best pitching in the minors.  This then waters down the competition in AAA.

 

[DJnVa]

That said d'Arnaud is probably the best of the group right now.  He went back to AAA, adjusted his swing and has really come on since returning in late June (His OPS went from .544 to .688 in two months).

 
He's definitely improved and he had a decent July at .272/.314/.481 but August has been a struggle again at .207/.277/.448. Luckily for him he's jacked 4 HRs to keep his SLG up.

 

[ivanvamp]

If the issue is there is a widen gap between AAA and MLB, then why would spending more time in AAA help?  If anything you are best going through suffering in MLB and adjusting.
 
To be honest Springer is the only one really hitting (still striking out a ton and has trouble stealing bases).  He had about 330 PA in AAA.
 
That said d'Arnaud is probably the best of the group right now.  He went back to AAA, adjusted his swing and has really come on since returning in late June (His OPS went from .544 to .688 in two months).

 
I agree with you and zenter.  If these guys already can handle AAA, but the gap is so large between AAA and the majors, more time mastering AAA won't help.  What these players need to succeed is, simply put, more time in the majors.  The problem is that winning teams can't afford to have more than one or, at most, two, young guys just "figuring it out" at this level.  
 
So what the model may need to be for teams like Boston is this:  raise up these young kids and trade them for guys who are established, who have already gone through these growing pains, but whose teams can't really afford their soon-to-be expensive salaries.  Those teams can afford to have the kids figure it out because they have low payrolls and low expectations.  So essentially treat the lower-tier teams as key elements to developing major-league talent.  You constantly feed them your prospects and in exchange receive back soon-to-be-expensive actual major leaguers.
 
I know this is how teams like the Yankees and Red Sox have operated in the past, but if what Gammons writes is true, maybe the old homegrown model isn't the way that a team like Boston can operate.  By the time these guys "figure it out" they may only have a few years' worth of service time available.
 
Either that or the alternative:  simply agree to suck for a few years while an entire batch of kids figures it out.  They finally start to figure it out, and then you lock them up to long-term deals for more than they should be making at that point, but for less than they soon would be making on the open market (see Longoria's contract).  The Sox can afford to have some swings and misses on those kinds of deals.  And with tons of new bodies coming through the pipeline, they can afford to have one or two a year break in.  But not half the freaking team, like it seems like they've been doing this year.
 
Personally, I'm ok with either model.  But what the Sox *can't* do, apparently, is try to have a homegrown team without going through a period of suck.  Just not possible.  

 

[OttoC]

Bogaerts hit .284/.369/.453 in AAA; Bradley hit .275/.374/.469. It's not like they hit .330, or had ridiculous BB/K ratios or anything. If the gap is bigger between AAA and MLB, we probably need to re-calibrate what constitutes "ready" for the next level.
 
If there's a talent level gap, that's one thing, but if scouting and positioning is as big a factor as Gammons suggests, it seems like there's an opportunity for a team to spend some extra money on the same sort of scouting and coaching at the minor league level and ease the transition for the minor leaguers. What are the minor leagues for if they're not preparing the youngsters for MLB in every way possible?

 
Even more to the point (and this is something that I mentioned in another thread) is that Bradley only had 61 games at Double-A. Likewise, Bogaerts had 79 games in Double-A. While he had great numbers at that level, his OPS dropped 100 points when he played Triple-A. Bradley improves just slightly at Triple-A, showing a bit more power but dropping off in OBP. In my opinion, both could have used at least a full year in Double-A (and maybe Junior was a bit over-hyped).

 

[joe dokes]

 
Both of you are right about that. So here's a crazy idea:
 
Perhaps clubs investing more to raise the competitive level of AAA play would help. Sure, there would be a significant operating cost to it, which many owners would likely resist in short-sighted fashion. But the risk of having top prospects flame out mentally/emotionally after going from feast to 1-2 years of famine in the majors may be worth mitigating. So might the issue of trying to sell high-priced tickets and $12 domestic beers while offering fans lineups of 22-year-old .230 hitters with 30% K rates.
 
Provide the top minor league affiliates with some of the same bells & whistles the big boys play with (advance scouting, video analysis, etc.) and maybe these kids will get a better jump on dealing with it. Instead of just facing veteran AAAA pitchers and top pitching prospects who come into games relatively blind, allow those pitchers (and catchers, managers, coaches, etc.) to come in with better-informed game plans. It would probably benefit the minor league pitchers just as much, as I imagine the same problems cited for hitting prospects also apply to the young arms.
 
Make the level challenging enough to bridge some of the adjustment gap to MLB, but not so egregiously challenging that you end up screwing with the development of prospects moving up to AAA from AA and high-A.

 
That might take care of half the problem....but no amount of spending will help the adjustment to what other teams do to you if the other teams aren;t doing it to you at AAA.
 
That said, "what are you doing to deal with this" is a *great* question to ask FO people.  Too bad Gammons's piece didn't come out before Luhnow and Cherington (and Farrell) took to the stage.

 

[Paradigm]

The obsession with minor league prospects is completely out of control. The "Top 100 Prospects" show on MLB Network was a dramatic countdown with commentary from former GM's hyping these players up as future All-Stars when their careers have hardly gotten started.
 
Media coverage of prospects is overblown and dangerously opaque. You can now get prospect rankings at Fangraphs, MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and Baseball Prospectus. I'm probably forgetting a few, but those are the four main players.
 
What is the credibility of the writers? Where are they getting their information from? I understand that they have regular contact with scouts, but how informed and accurate are those scouts? How diverse is the pool of scouts that you talk to? How large is the sample size before making a call on a prospect? I see writeups where prospect writers blow hot air into a Low-A prospect because they saw him throw 3-4 good innings and that means he has a high ceiling and projection for the future. What does any writer really know about Daniel Robertson, SS prospect for the A's, or Wendell Rijo, infield prospect for the Red Sox? They don't publish their sources, they don't transcribe calls with scouts. Prospect reports are like a black box -- some info comes in, and something comes out, but you don't really know what's going on in the center.
 
Another problem is that the prospect media has zero accountability. They release the 2011 rankings, then start writing about the 2012 prospects, then the 2013 prospects, then 2014 prospects. There's zero accountability when they put kids like Domonic Brown, Jesus Montero, Lars Anderson, and others at the tops of these lists. Has any prospect writer ever lost his job because he made the wrong rankings? Nope, he just releases new rankings next year and chalks up his errors to it being "an imperfect exercise" and "just a snapshot in time."
 
And the depth of analysis is superficial at best. Players can improve "if they make the necessary adjustments." High ceiling starting pitching prospects "need to better command the fastball." Pitchers with 3/4 starter ceilings are discarded to the back of the rankings in favor of kids who have no idea where the ball is going but throw hard -- "has a ceiling of a #2, but could end up in the 8th inning."
 
Baseball media companies are only going to plow more resources into prospect writing because (1) fans now need to know what's happening on the farm, (2) fans and teams recognize the financial value these prospects provide, so they focus on them, and  (3) dynasty fantasy leagues mean fans need to know the next big thing or an under-the-radar sleeper to win their league. But now it's an arms race between all of these media properties to produce the most prospect coverage possible -- deeper rankings (Fangraphs is now going to 40+), more words, etc.
 
It's going to take a while for the quality of these analysts to catch up to the demands of the insatiable baseball prospect reader. What, really, qualifies someone to publish these rankings? 
 
And ask yourself critically -- what do you really know about Manuel Margot? About Deven Marrero? About Brian Johnson? For some reason, I feel qualified to call Johnson a future #3 starter based on a couple of writeups from the always-great Alex Speier, his minor league stats, and a few blurbs in Baseball America. That's horseshit! He has so much further to go before he reaches that point.
 
edit: If you're interested in the minor leagues, I encourage you to read Where Nobody Knows Your Name by John Feinstein. It's a recently released chronicle of minor league journeymen, and it chronicles many players that we're familiar with -- Nate McLouth, Brett Tomko, Scott Elarton, Arnie Beyeler, and other managers, players, and umpires. It's a good look into how different the competition and overall life is in the minors. When you read that, it feels like a different world. Hitters are facing aging pitchers who have very little left in their arm or their shoulder but refuse to give up the dream. And you can see why a gifted hitter may not have trouble facing Brett Tomko, but will immediately struggle when he's asked to face even a pitcher like Jeremy Guthrie who has stuck around the league for a long time because he's healthy and has a good idea of what he's doing out there.

 

[Harry Hooper]

The old saw that development people have spouted for years is you don't want to promote a player so fast that their first major slump happens in the majors. Failure in baseball, and failure of extended duration is common. The idea is having gone through the (inevitable) major cold spell or two in the minors and overcome it, the player knows "I'm in a bad slump, but I've gotten through these before," and doesn't let the doubt of "Maybe I can't hit major-league pitching?" creep in. If you read JBJ's recent interview about all the advice and tinkering he was mulling through this season about his struggles, it's a strong exhibit in favor of the old slower approach.
 
 
 
Edit: darn typos

 

[Paradigm]

The old saw that development people have spouted for years is you don;t want to promote a p[layer so fast that their first major slump happens in the majors. Failure in baseball, and failure of extended duration is common. The idea is having gone through a (inevitable) major cold spell or two in the minors and overcome it, the player knows "I'm in a bad slump, but I've gotten through these before," and doesn't let the doubt of "Maybe I can't hit major-league pitching?" creep in. If you read JBJ's recent interview about all the advice and tinkering he was mulling through this season about his struggles, it's a strong exhibit in favor of the old slower approach.

 
You want a good example of this for the upcoming season? Pay attention to how the prospect gurus rank Garin Cecchini next year.
 
He's having a rough season. It happens. The tools probably haven't changed in any material way -- I'm assuming he still has a good eye, a good hit tool, some issues at third, good makeup, and a relatively bright major league future.
 
I'll bet anything he either entirely drops off every top 100 list, or falls way to the bottom because he had a down year in favor of a couple of short-season firebombs and a couple of international signings with loud tools but little else right now. If you believe in what Hoop posted here, this is a good thing -- he'll fall on his ass at McCoy Stadium instead of in front of 30K+ people at Fenway. And when he learns something like, "I should lay off of sliders that break low-and-in during two strike counts," he can test that when the stakes don't matter against Bobby LaFramboise instead of when the Sox are 5 games out of the Wild Card facing Anibal Sanchez.

 

[joe dokes]

 
 
 
It's going to take a while for the quality of these analysts to catch up to the demands of the insatiable baseball prospect reader. What, really, qualifies someone to publish these rankings? 
 
And ask yourself critically -- what do you really know about Manuel Margot? About Deven Marrero? About Brian Johnson? For some reason, I feel qualified to call Johnson a future #3 starter based on a couple of writeups from the always-great Alex Speier, his minor league stats, and a few blurbs in Baseball America. That's horseshit! He has so much further to go before he reaches that point.
 
 

 
Nothing and nothing (except as to the players, we can know their results.)
 
Fortunately, our favorite team doesn't ask the baseball Mel Kipers for help in evaluation.

 

[ScubaSteveAvery]

At the Saberseminar, Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, mentioned that they are employing shifts at all minor league levels to get players acclimated to MLB plays and scenarios. But the context was in terms of player familiarity with shifts, and not on how to get top prospects better acclimated to MLB offensively.

 

[Sandy Leon Trotsky]

 
I agree with you and zenter.  If these guys already can handle AAA, but the gap is so large between AAA and the majors, more time mastering AAA won't help.  What these players need to succeed is, simply put, more time in the majors.  The problem is that winning teams can't afford to have more than one or, at most, two, young guys just "figuring it out" at this level.  
 
So what the model may need to be for teams like Boston is this:  raise up these young kids and trade them for guys who are established, who have already gone through these growing pains, but whose teams can't really afford their soon-to-be expensive salaries.  Those teams can afford to have the kids figure it out because they have low payrolls and low expectations.  So essentially treat the lower-tier teams as key elements to developing major-league talent.  You constantly feed them your prospects and in exchange receive back soon-to-be-expensive actual major leaguers.
 
I know this is how teams like the Yankees and Red Sox have operated in the past, but if what Gammons writes is true, maybe the old homegrown model isn't the way that a team like Boston can operate.  By the time these guys "figure it out" they may only have a few years' worth of service time available.
 
Either that or the alternative:  simply agree to suck for a few years while an entire batch of kids figures it out.  They finally start to figure it out, and then you lock them up to long-term deals for more than they should be making at that point, but for less than they soon would be making on the open market (see Longoria's contract).  The Sox can afford to have some swings and misses on those kinds of deals.  And with tons of new bodies coming through the pipeline, they can afford to have one or two a year break in.  But not half the freaking team, like it seems like they've been doing this year.
 
Personally, I'm ok with either model.  But what the Sox *can't* do, apparently, is try to have a homegrown team without going through a period of suck.  Just not possible.  

 
Probably somewhere in the middle would be the best way forward (which would include some "growing pains" years though).  I mean a team like the Sox can break in 2 prospects per season at a time and allow them to struggle at the back end of the order.  If things break right, they could end up in the playoffs with a shot at a title... if things break bad, they end up at the bottom of the pack.  Things broke terribly this season... the Sox were breaking in 1 too many (Boegarts, Bradley, Middlebrooks ((who we were hoping was already broken in...))) and then having to use Brock Holt, so really 2 too many despite Holt's relatively decent season.
I'm not terribly concerned... I think both Bradley and Boegarts will Bounce Back.

 

[Flynn4ever]

There was an interesting article in Grantland last week,http://grantland.com/features/npb-mlb-scouting-foreign-baseball-players-yokohama-dena-baystars/ which goes through how Japanese (NPB) teams seek out those few foreigners who can thrive in Japan after being top level AAA players but marginal MLB players. I think this is basically what we are talking about (psychological impact of living in Japan aside) is that there should be a level, which these scouts claim NPB roughly is, in-between. Now, if MLB and NPB could work out a farm arrangement, wow, but that will not happen. 

 

[OttoC]

The obsession with minor league prospects is completely out of control.
etc.

 
Yaaay!.I've trying to get versions of this idea across for a while.

 

[Plympton91]

Is the corollary to this hypothesis that it should now be easier for young pitchers to transition to the major leagues? All that advanced scouting and shifts that make it hard for young hitters and are depressing offense more generally should ease the transition for a young pitcher, if he throws strikes I guess.

So, if the Red Sox want to break in 2 young players per year, does that suggest that they should focus on doing so on the pitching staff? That would have the added advantage of doing so in low leverage positions like 5th starter and middle relief, which can be far more fungible than the starting SS or starting CF if the rookie struggles.

Yet, the Red Sox decided to break in 3 rookies (Vazquez, Bogaerts, and Bradley) and another unproven player (Middlebrooks) all over the diamond, while initially going into the season with a veteran 5th starter (Dempster, before he retired) and 12th man in the pen (Capuano) even though they had young pitchers like De La Rosa, Webster, Britton, and Wilson with far more minor league experience than the position players.

It just makes last offseason even harder to understand.

 

[EricFeczko]

There are 43 rookies in the major leagues this year that have a minimum of 132 at-bats (small sample size, I know). The average/median wRC+ among this group is 85.7/88. Of these 43, about a third have a better than average wRC+ this year. About a third have an wRC+ below 70 (i.e. about a third are producing runs at a rate that is 30 percent below the league average for a player, after controlling for park/league effects). Conversely, only one rookie has an wRC+ above 130 (i.e. producing runs at a rate that is 30 percent greater than the league average for a player).
 
Despite the fact that the oldest rookie (Jose Abreu) has been the best hitting rookie, age does not seem to be much of a factor here; only 5 percent of the variance in wRC+ can be explained by age.
 
Perhaps rookies do not typically perform well in their first year. I think the MLB has been spoiled by the recent performances of some rookies: Mike Trout, Jason Heyward, Bryce Harper, Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, and even Manny Machado (97+ wRC), which has led many to over-predict the performance of new rookies.
 

 

[snowmanny]

  What would people here be saying if Boston signed, say, Peralta to a one year deal and sent Bogaerts to AAA for the whole season?

Why should it matter what we would be saying?
And if the answer is that in the hypothetical we would be saying the Red Sox made a mistake by leaving Bogaerts in AAA versus the reality that they actually did make a mistake by wasting one of Xander's pre-FA years on a crappy season for a last place team, then so what?

 

[EricFeczko]

Is the corollary to this hypothesis that it should now be easier for young pitchers to transition to the major leagues? All that advanced scouting and shifts that make it hard for young hitters and are depressing offense more generally should ease the transition for a young pitcher, if he throws strikes I guess.

So, if the Red Sox want to break in 2 young players per year, does that suggest that they should focus on doing so on the pitching staff? That would have the added advantage of doing so in low leverage positions like 5th starter and middle relief, which can be far more fungible than the starting SS or starting CF if the rookie struggles.

Yet, the Red Sox decided to break in 3 rookies (Vazquez, Bogaerts, and Bradley) and another unproven player (Middlebrooks) all over the diamond, while initially going into the season with a veteran 5th starter (Dempster, before he retired) and 12th man in the pen (Capuano) even though they had young pitchers like De La Rosa, Webster, Britton, and Wilson with far more minor league experience than the position players.

It just makes last offseason even harder to understand.

It would be hard to tell because the corollary assumes that rookie pitchers have an equal distribution of fielding talent behind them. The fact that not all infields/outfields are defensively equal in ability confounds the ability to test such a hypothesis. I guess we could still see if fielding dependent statistics are different than fielding independent ones.
There are 36 rookie starters in majors with qualified innings pitched (again, small sample warnings abound). I took a peek at the average/median FIP-/ERA-/xFIP-
and they are close to league average (98 to 105). As before, about a third perform better than average (i.e. 100), while two thirds perform worse, but the distribution is not as skewed as before. Except for ERA- one/two players had a measure below 70, and only one/two players had a measure above 130.  ERA- shows a slight skew (4 players had a measure below 70, 8 had an ERA- above 130), but not like the hitting did. Raw ERA (4.03) is slightly higher than league average (3.89), but not significantly so. None of the league adjusted numbers significantly differ from one another.
 
As before, age explains less than 5 percent of the variance in any of these measures. Not that age should be used necessarily as a proxy for experience.
 
Nevertheless, it does seem like rookie starters this year performed slightly better (relative to league average) than rookie hitters. Could just be a fluke, however. You could check rookies in prior years to see if this is a consistent effect or not.

EDIT: Even if it isn't a fluke, an alternative explanation is that rookie pitchers are younger and therefore throw harder than veteran older pitchers, which may compensate for a lack of experience/command/development. Such an explanation would be consistent with why fielding independent statistics also seem to be closer to league average in rookie pitchers than wRC+ in rookie hitters. Of course, such an explanation would be consistent with the hypothesis you allude to; one should promote young pitchers with less experience faster. One should also keep in mind that there's considerable variance in performance. That variance may be extremely difficult to predict based on population measures, and therefore, each individual may be best judged on a case-by-case basis.

 

[NoXInNixon]

Another problem is that the prospect media has zero accountability. They release the 2011 rankings, then start writing about the 2012 prospects, then the 2013 prospects, then 2014 prospects. There's zero accountability when they put kids like Domonic Brown, Jesus Montero, Lars Anderson, and others at the tops of these lists. Has any prospect writer ever lost his job because he made the wrong rankings? Nope, he just releases new rankings next year and chalks up his errors to it being "an imperfect exercise" and "just a snapshot in time."

To be fair, I think your expectations are a bit impossible. There are so many unknowns and variables when it comes to prospects that no one will ever be able to come up with a 100% accurate projection system. Maybe Lars Anderson was a truly great prospect, and he had a 50% chance to be a good player, 20% to be a great player, 20% chance to be elite, and 10% to wash out completely. A prospect like that is tremendously valuable. It just so happened that Lars' actual outcome was in his bottom 10% expectation. But in the long run if you have lots of prospects as good as Lars, you will turn them into a lot of very good players.
 
Or perhaps Lars was always a bum and everyone overvalued him and there was a very small chance he'd ever become a useful major league player. With a sample size of 1, it's impossible to know.

 

[Toe Nash]

Couldn't this just be a small sample size issue exaggerated by the current low offensive environment and the struggles of two players on our favorite team?
 
I'd need to see a few years' data before concluding that we need to do something about the AAA competition level or that teams are promoting prospects too fast.

 

[JGray38]

I think back to Farrell's comments about the strike zone clearly being larger this year and the disadvantage it places on organizations and players who really work the strike zone. If you learned things one way, get to the most challenging level with the best pitchers and then find the strike zone is not what it was on the way up, that's got to be a huge setback. Now you're trying to learn two difficult things at once. The fact that Abreu never played here might be helping him.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

In way over my head here, but I think that part of the rookie hitter's problems are the same as experienced hitters - most hitters are stupider than pitchers...particularly the young hitters.
 
A pitcher gets scouting reports on how to throw to a hitter in a particular situation. Are hitters so stupid that they don't already know what the pitcher knows? And do they change their approach? Well, the smart ones do (the smartest of them all even set the pitcher up), and the smart and talented ones become stars at what I assume is a greater rate than just the talented ("this is the way I hit") ones.
 
Watched the end of the Tigers/Rays game today when Martinez was up with 1 out and the game-tying run on. The Tiger announcers kept saying what Cobb as going to throw. Cobb kept throwing it (some sort of breaking change-up). I don't think a single one was in the strike zone. Martinez flailed at a couple for swinging strikes, let 3 of them go (including a wild pitch to move the runners to 2nd & 3rd) and then, wholly predictably, received another of the same pitch in the dirt, which he swung at to strike out. 
 
Advantage pitcher? Or disadvantage hitter? 
 
Why can't they teach hitting smarts in the minors so that hitters have the ability to adjust their swings/approach to the inevitably superior major league opposition (not just stuff, but pitch selection)? Maybe it's not doable, but something internal.
 
{edit: Let me try to make this more cogent. If a minor league hitter has holes in his swing, and the coaches know those holes will be well-exploited at major league levels, is there any way to train the kid to better handle the weakness in his swing versus him repeating a successful swing against minor league pitching that doesn't exploit it. Or do you need to see major league pitching in order to work your way through plate coverage? If the answer is the latter, there's no point in holding decent prospects down.}

 

[EricFeczko]

In way over my head here, but I think that part of the rookie hitter's problems are the same as experienced hitters - most hitters are stupider than pitchers...particularly the young hitters.
 
A pitcher gets scouting reports on how to throw to a hitter in a particular situation. Are hitters so stupid that they don't already know what the pitcher knows? And do they change their approach? Well, the smart ones do (the smartest of them all even set the pitcher up), and the smart and talented ones become stars at what I assume is a greater rate than just the talented ("this is the way I hit") ones.
 
Watched the end of the Tigers/Rays game today when Martinez was up with 1 out and the game-tying run on. The Tiger announcers kept saying what Cobb as going to throw. Cobb kept throwing it (some sort of breaking change-up). I don't think a single one was in the strike zone. Martinez flailed at a couple for swinging strikes, let 3 of them go (including a wild pitch to move the runners to 2nd & 3rd) and then, wholly predictably, received another of the same pitch in the dirt, which he swung at to strike out. 
 
Advantage pitcher? Or disadvantage hitter? 
 
Why can't they teach hitting smarts in the minors so that hitters have the ability to adjust their swings/approach to the inevitably superior major league opposition (not just stuff, but pitch selection)? Maybe it's not doable, but something internal.

I'm not sure your assertion that hitters are dumber than pitchers is accurate. Hitting is a much tougher ability to excel in than pitching. You have less time to think about how to swing the bat than the pitcher has to throw the ball.
 
A 90-mph fastball takes about 500 milliseconds to reach the plate after release. In order to make contact, one would need to start a swing (on average) about 200-300 milliseconds after release. A pitcher may take less than a second, once set, to release the ball. Giving the hitter less than 1,500 milliseconds to make adjustments. Of course the batter may be thinking about such things during the time a pitcher takes to throw the ball (>10 seconds), but accessing that information in order to swing the bat appropriately at the right time may be limited.

Knowing the abstract information regarding an opposing pitcher and the possible strategy is different than actually hitting. Pitchers (likely) throw faster in the majors than in the minors, the same pitcher is more likely to vary his velocity/trajectory while maintaining a stable release point. This means the adjustment period may be a bit longer for hitters than for pitchers.
 

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Great response

Thanks. Makes sense.

 

[JimBoSox9]

Just in general, the level of neglect paid to MiLB by the big clubs is by far the headscratchingist thing in baseball today. Just read a hundred articles on how pre-FA regulars are the MOSTEST VALUABLE resource in the game, then put pictures of the Pawtucket clubhouse and Oregon University's athletic facility side by side and just stare at them for five minutes. Nutrition, training, etc. there are a hundred little ways they could be making sure these guys deliver better ROTI when they hit the bigs, and no one seems to care.

 

[threecy]

To be fair, I think your expectations are a bit impossible. There are so many unknowns and variables when it comes to prospects that no one will ever be able to come up with a 100% accurate projection system. Maybe Lars Anderson was a truly great prospect, and he had a 50% chance to be a good player, 20% to be a great player, 20% chance to be elite, and 10% to wash out completely. A prospect like that is tremendously valuable. It just so happened that Lars' actual outcome was in his bottom 10% expectation. But in the long run if you have lots of prospects as good as Lars, you will turn them into a lot of very good players.
 
Or perhaps Lars was always a bum and everyone overvalued him and there was a very small chance he'd ever become a useful major league player. With a sample size of 1, it's impossible to know.

But did Lars actually wash out completely?  He's 26 years old with an .892 OPS split between AA and AAA this season after slashing his K rate.  While no longer a top prospect, it may be a bit early to declare him a complete dud.

 

[OttoC]

nm

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

The old saw that development people have spouted for years is you don't want to promote a player so fast that their first major slump happens in the majors. Failure in baseball, and failure of extended duration is common. The idea is having gone through the (inevitable) major cold spell or two in the minors and overcome it, the player knows "I'm in a bad slump, but I've gotten through these before," and doesn't let the doubt of "Maybe I can't hit major-league pitching?" creep in. 

 
When Bill Bavasi was GM at Seattle, he cited this as a reason to push players out of their comfort zone, rushing prospects through the minors. He wanted them to learn to deal with adversity at AA, not in MLB.
 
Bavasi was not a good GM, but that's what he said when addressing a bunch of USS Mariner readers.

 

[seantoo]

There are 43 rookies in the major leagues this year that have a minimum of 132 at-bats (small sample size, I know). The average/median wRC+ among this group is 85.7/88. Of these 43, about a third have a better than average wRC+ this year. About a third have an wRC+ below 70 (i.e. about a third are producing runs at a rate that is 30 percent below the league average for a player, after controlling for park/league effects). Conversely, only one rookie has an wRC+ above 130 (i.e. producing runs at a rate that is 30 percent greater than the league average for a player).
 
Despite the fact that the oldest rookie (Jose Abreu) has been the best hitting rookie, age does not seem to be much of a factor here; only 5 percent of the variance in wRC+ can be explained by age.
 
Perhaps rookies do not typically perform well in their first year. I think the MLB has been spoiled by the recent performances of some rookies: Mike Trout, Jason Heyward, Bryce Harper, Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, and even Manny Machado (97+ wRC), which has led many to over-predict the performance of new rookies.
 

A few months ago I shared the view that it should be expected that rookies struggle not only for a year but usually two years. I'm shocked that this is not common knowledge as it's been true since forever. I've stated Ted Williams line, ad nauseum, that it usually take 1,000 at bats before you can judge a batter in the majors and 500 IP for pitchers. I stated this team was rebuilding and was ridiculed for that thought. That thought led me to the idea of trading a fan favorite, which brought even more ridicule meanwhile the idea of the Sox rebuilding, "they don't do that" I was told is now accepted by the masses as a matter of course. Even by those who ridiculed the idea weeks before the trade deadline. Sure many hope we resign Lester and sign another veteran starter but so what with as many rookies and young starters in the everyday line-up, starting rotation and bullpen it's clear we are rebuilding.  The difference is by this point next season we have the prospects and money to rebuild quickly (as soon as 2016 I think we will again). There are many ways to do that and yes keeping the fan favorite very well may still happen. 

 

[Paradigm]

Just in general, the level of neglect paid to MiLB by the big clubs is by far the headscratchingist thing in baseball today. Just read a hundred articles on how pre-FA regulars are the MOSTEST VALUABLE resource in the game, then put pictures of the Pawtucket clubhouse and Oregon University's athletic facility side by side and just stare at them for five minutes. Nutrition, training, etc. there are a hundred little ways they could be making sure these guys deliver better ROTI when they hit the bigs, and no one seems to care.

 
I could not agree with this more, JimBoSox9.
 

 
 
While obviously some investment into the things you list would presumably be an advantage for a team, I think it's difficult to criticize them for not investing in facilities when they don't own the affiliate.

 
I referenced "Where Nobody Knows Your Name" earlier. One thing that shocked me was that short-season rookie ball players are (a) shacking up two to a room in shitty hotels and (b) eating the shitty continental breakfast at that hotel and fast food like McDonalds for their nutrition.
 
Major league teams don't control the physical stadium or the between-inning entertainment in minor league baseball, but they can influence probably everything else. If I ran a franchise, the first thing I'd do is hire private chefs in each of our minor league cities to deliver nutritious food to these 19 year-olds.

 

[Plympton91]

Why would a rebuilding team trade for Cespedes and Craig, while holding on to Uehara?

I think you're going to see a bunch of prospects sent to AAAA this winter; that is, traded to small market losers where they can suck for 1,000 at bats where nobody cares and near FA veteran talent coming back to Boston.

 

[OCD SS]

 
While obviously some investment into the things you list would presumably be an advantage for a team, I think it's difficult to criticize them for not investing in facilities when they don't own the affiliate. Teams work on short term contracts with their minor league teams and while there is obviously long term relationships (like Pawtucket, presumably Portland may end up being so), teams generally tend to bounce around a bit. If the Sox dropped the money to upgrade clubhouses and training facilities at, say, Salem, who's to say Salem is sticking with Boston going forward? Maybe another team swoops in when the contract is up and they offer a better deal since they can take advantage of the investment laid out by Boston. 

IIRC the Boston Red Sox/ FSG or some subsidiary do own Salem. They bought it to ensure that they didn't get caught without a seat when the music stopped and wind up with an affiliate in the PCL. Remember Lancaster? You could also look at the food/ facilities in the GCL.

Boston has long term commitments with its affiliates, long enough that if improving the facilities would pay off over just the course of their current contract they don't been need to look past the investment term.

 

[maxotaur]

 
Is it faster than they should? Farrell specifically cited a huge and growing gap between Triple-A and the majors. Perhaps some of these players are ready to be done with Triple-A. Where do they go if not the MLB? It's not like they'd get more out of AAA time, right?

But the gap is widening in part because the better players are being rushed out too soon. Thus leaving a further diminished league for the remaining players to try to hone their skills against. It's cyclical in downward fashion.

 

[TheoShmeo]

Pete Abe checks in this morning on the perhaps too quick promotions of Bradley and Boegarts.
 
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/08/22/red-sox-made-rookie-mistakes-with-bogaerts-bradley/UU8BvcvtLgZNHCaonEIdoO/story.html
 
A few things to add.
 
One, I didn't exactly realize that Boegarts has hit .160 for three months.  I know the Sox have a lot of belief in this kid but I think they need to confront that he just may not be ready yet. He needs work at shortstop and at the plate.  Sure, the move to third might have affected him, but his under performance has been prolonged enough that it's wrong to put too much on that, in my view. 
 
Two, something Luchhino has said more than once bears on all of this, I think.  LL has commented that in the post-amphetemine testing world, that there's a greater premium on young players in the game.  The assumption is that younger guys could handle the long season more easily than older players who were deprived of uppers, and that meant that the promising kids would be promoted faster.  That obviouusly begs the question as to whether the players you're promiting are ready.  And not everyone is Mike Trout, obviously.  
 
Three, it will be interesting to see how their experience with Bradley and Boegarts this season affects their thinking on Betts, Owens and other high end prospects.  Of course, two players don't make a rule, and it's not as if they're writing Bradley and Boegarts off.  But they themselves said they were re-assessing their approach.

 

[OttoC]

IIRC the Boston Red Sox/ FSG or some subsidiary do own Salem. They bought it to ensure that they didn't get caught without a seat when the music stopped and wind up with an affiliate in the PCL. Remember Lancaster? You could also look at the food/ facilities in the GCL.

Boston has long term commitments with its affiliates, long enough that if improving the facilities would pay off over just the course of their current contract they don't been need to look past the investment term.

 
Fenway Sports Management, which is part of Fenway Sports Group, owns the Salem franchise. In general, though, minor league franchises sign two or four year Player Development Contracts with major league clubs. In the case of Salem, it was actually bought while it still was contractually tied with the Astros for another year.

 

[JimBoSox9]

 
Teams work on short term contracts with their minor league teams and while there is obviously long term relationships (like Pawtucket, presumably Portland may end up being so), teams generally tend to bounce around a bit. If the Sox dropped the money to upgrade clubhouses and training facilities at, say, Salem, who's to say Salem is sticking with Boston going forward?]
 
That being said, teams have upwards of over 200 prospects in their minor leagues. Given the number that turn into a tangible asset, how much should the parent club be expected to invest in each guy? (I know you're not specifically talking about salaries, but people often cite they should be paid more). 
 
I see your point and totally agree with it, I just don't know if there's a feasible answer to it. 

 
This is all true, but I'd characterize it as less of a rebuttal then a more detailed explanation of the problem.  
 
To simplify an MLB team into a generic business system, the minor leagues are a supply chain feeding talent to the big club which then goes outward to the league and the fans as the demand chain.  There's a secondary supply chain (free agency), but it's really inefficient and you lose money almost every time you tap into it, so the health of your business is highly dependent on the efficiency of your MiLB supply chain.  A business in any other industry, faced with this scenario and possessing the means to seize control of their own supply chain, wouldn't hesitate a second to do so if they thought they could do it better.  
 
The affiliate system is a legacy of the days players were seen as unskilled indentured labor; I agree I cannot offer a feasible solution that isn't riddled with unknowns, but I do believe the next Billy Beane is the one who solves it first.  I also don't think you need a 'full' solution; longer agreements is probably a must but if you assume 240 MiLB players for a team, I don't think sinking 150K per player ($35 or so mill a year) into teams is a bad idea even if some of that sinks out five years down the road.  It's exactly the kind of money big-market MLB teams should be looking to spend - it's unrestricted (AFAIK) and doesn't have an opportunity cost beyond the cash itself.  
 
I'd add that salaries in specific are one area I'd avoid beyond minimal increases.  While it's backwards to treat prospects like interns, there's something to the idea that you want to avoid mL gigs being 'comfortable living', pursuant to the goal of producing hungry MLB players.  In my world you're providing a big chunk of room and boards; a meh living wage beyond that is fine.

 

[P'tucket rhymes with...]

 
 
I'd add that salaries in specific are one area I'd avoid beyond minimal increases.  While it's backwards to treat prospects like interns, there's something to the idea that you want to avoid mL gigs being 'comfortable living', pursuant to the goal of producing hungry MLB players.  In my world you're providing a big chunk of room and boards; a meh living wage beyond that is fine.

These are uber-competitive guys who have spent their lives refining their skills and working toward a singular goal.  The strategy of "keeping them hungry" might be a good way to breed district managers for McDonald's; in this context it's just a ludicrous proposition. 

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

But did Lars actually wash out completely?  He's 26 years old with an .892 OPS split between AA and AAA this season after slashing his K rate.  While no longer a top prospect, it may be a bit early to declare him a complete dud.

 
A 26 year old spending any time in AA is not really a prospect any more. And just last year he spent the entire year in AAA and put up a 553 OPS in 66 games. He's never gonna make it.

 

[LondonSox]

This makes Trout even more mind boggling than he already was.
(And don't forget he struggled badly in his first cup of coffee too btw)

 

[OttoC]

When they build/rebuild stadia fences to resemble Fenway Park, it probably becomes more difficult for the minor league franchise owner(s) to switch affiliations when the current contract is coming up for renewal. In the past, the Red Sox have had a number of minor league franchises sever relations, primarily, I think, because Boston wasn't supplying pennant winners/contenders for those franchises (off the top of my head there has been Lynchburg, Wilmington, Trenton). While Trenton picked up the Yankees, which was a geographical/fan base fit for them, they did not like the Red Sox organization. I spent an afternoon (with media credentials) talking with people from the front office on down at the Trenton ball park in August 2002 and not one had anything nice to say about the Red Sox. Ticket takers, workers in the souvenir and concessions stands, security, maintenance, and on up the line were happier to see them go then they were to see the Yankees coming in. Fans. The main complaint was that Boston's front office didn't seem to care whether Trenton won or lost (this was an era when the prevailing opinion in the front office was to let the kids play ball and have fun until the got to Triple-A).

 

[someoneanywhere]

 
 
I'd add that salaries in specific are one area I'd avoid beyond minimal increases.  While it's backwards to treat prospects like interns, there's something to the idea that you want to avoid mL gigs being 'comfortable living', pursuant to the goal of producing hungry MLB players.  In my world you're providing a big chunk of room and boards; a meh living wage beyond that is fine.

 
In my world, the guys I know would see your phrase "producing hungry players" and laugh. 

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Either that or the alternative:  simply agree to suck for a few years while an entire batch of kids figures it out.  They finally start to figure it out, and then you lock them up to long-term deals for more than they should be making at that point, but for less than they soon would be making on the open market (see Longoria's contract).  The Sox can afford to have some swings and misses on those kinds of deals.  And with tons of new bodies coming through the pipeline, they can afford to have one or two a year break in.  But not half the freaking team, like it seems like they've been doing this year.
 
Personally, I'm ok with either model.  But what the Sox *can't* do, apparently, is try to have a homegrown team without going through a period of suck.  Just not possible.

 
I think the key monkey wrench has been the near-total absence of contributions from experienced position players in their early prime years.
 
If you break players down into the following categories: Pre-prime (age 25 and under), Prime (26-29), Post-prime (30-33) and Decline (34 and over), here's how the three recent Sox champions have broken down, compared to this team, in terms of percentage of total PA by non-pitchers:

[table Recent Sox champions and this year's team, by age group] 2004 2007 2013 2014 Pre-prime 5% 14% 14% 24% Prime 29% 23% 35% 15% Post-prime 62% 44% 40% 42% Decline 4% 19% 11% 19% [/table]
 
Note that the relative contribution from post-prime guys, in their early 30s, has been about the same this year as in prior championship years (except for 2004, when they dominated). The difference is that both of the extremes--old guys and, especially, guys 25 and under--has ballooned at the expense of guys in their prime.
 
This is obviously not the ideal way to do it. Ideally, you wouldn't be almost doubling the contribution from the kids in any one year, and if you did, you'd be grabbing that share from the over-30 guys, especially the oldest cohort. Instead, that oldest cohort has also grown this year. The prime group has shrunk from the second largest contribution, barely behind 30-33, to the smallest. We've had more PA from guys 34 and older than guys 26-29. No wonder we suck.
 
I'm thinking that this issue may be behind the Sox' picking up Cespedes and going after Castillo. Yes, these guys have known (Cespedes) and expected (Castillo) issues as hitters, but at least we know that, given their age, we should be getting them at their best for the next few years.
 
The good news is that if the kids can somehow hang on, stick, and improve, they will be making their way through the belly of the snake to swell the prime group before too long.