Spec, cool stuff.
I would like to see the numbers for college guys only. (I imagine that many of the 120 were college guys)
If a guy spends 4 years in college, it's likely his first year in the minors is at 22
3 year guys are probably 21.
College (or more than two years of it) may automatically slow down the age arc thing for guys that weren't top picks. Seager, at 22, was at A+ for example. Brendan Ryan at age 22 was in A ball. So was Jason Bay.
For example, bump Pizzano up to High Desert this year and he's on that track.
I wonder if there exists an anti-college bias, in the sense that scouts and organization make college guys "prove" that the college game reliably established their hitting credentials?
Anyway,
Neat stuff. Thanks.
moe
In the course of recent analysis of Dario Pizzano (26intheMix) , I mentioned that one of the negatives about Pizzano is that he is 22 and still in the Low-A Midwest League.
But I realized that was more of a belief than something I had actually verified, so it was obviously time to dip into the Spectometer data base.
"Spectometer," by the way, is just the cheesy term I use for my home-grown stats. I do, however, have a database of 120 hitters whom I define as having "Made It Big" as MLB hitters (OPS+ 110 and above) with all of their minor-league stats. I also have all Mariners prospects from 1999-on.
That way I can look at issues two ways: What are the minor-league attributes of successful hitters who've "made it"? and How do those attributes show up in a pool of hitters, most of whom didn't "make it"?
It was that approach that brought me to the "Three Numbers": Plate Skills, Production and Composite (for hitters); and Command/Control, "Stuff" and Composite for pitchers. And "age-arc" had always been part of the equation, particularly for hitters.
But I had not specifically analyzed the issue of hitters who were age-22 and still in Low-A or below.
***
And it turns out it's not just Pizzano. Others in the same category include Stefen Romero (Talk40 #11), Daniel Paolini (Talk40 #26) and the red-hot Jabari Blash (Watch List). Also Patrick Kivlehan (Talk40 #33), but he has a note from his parents excusing him (out of baseball for more than three years playing major-college football).
***
When we ran through the database looking for Bona Fide Successful MLB Hitters who spent the entire age-22 season at Low-A or below, we found six out of 120.
Three were easy to classify as hitters with obvious power ability, who were dealing with high strikeout rates:
All would go on to multiple 20+ HR seasons in the majors, but all started with "raw" Plate Skills. That would be the right profile for Blash, but not the others.
The other three?
Of course, those guys all ended up having MLB power as well, but in the minors they were more the slow-fuse guys who didn't get put on the fast track (as in the Pizzano, Paolini, Romero cases).
But ... Rauuuuul, at that time, was trying to make it as a catcher. If he had been focusing on only hitting, he may have been at a higher level. So he's not the best case.
That leaves the latter two as the Holy Grail for these types of hitters. Proof that it is possible. You can be a hitter on a corner position with Plate Skills but non-obvious power, and make it all the way to the majors from Low-A at age 22.
But that's two out of 120 ... 1.67%.
Never tell me the odds.
Continued ...
Comments
Randy Winn spent all of his age 22 season in low-A. He had a pretty good career.
Chone Figgins spent his age 22 season in high-A - repeating the level after a .585 OPS performance the previous year there. Basically a death knell, only nobody told him. You know who else repeated the Cal League at age 22? Mike Piazza.
Edgar Martinez missed your age-22 cutoff by a few months, thank god, spending his entire age 21 season in A-ball, and he was an international FA with no college excuse. He almost ruined his career...
The low minors are where moderately-talented college players start. Really talented ones start in the high minors.
Wait, let me re-phrase that: the low minors are where moderately-thought-of college PROSPECTS begin their careers. Don't forget that. If the talent guys didn't think much of you, you'll start lower and have to prove em wrong.
Ben Zobrist didn't even GET to A-ball until he was 24. Didn't exactly derail his career. Dan Uggla spent half his age-22 season in the MWL.
But they had to earn it. Plenty of good hitters at 21-22 years old spent time in A-ball. Not all of them were promoted out of it in a timely fashion either.
And several of them struggled. But go find out who had their first major league seasons at age 25-26 and went on to decent careers. THAT's the list of low minors successes you want for comps to weird cases like Kivlehan's (Zobrist is like that, a guy who had a weird pre-pro career that shifted his arc). Or for "grit" players who had to scrap to climb the ladder.
Marlon Byrd, David Murphy, Todd Frazier...
It happens, man, I promise. It doesn't mean you should EXPECT it, and age is a factor (far more with hitters than pitchers as far as being older in the league, as you say) but a guy from a tiny school not reknowned for its baseball (Pizzano and Paolini) who might have suffered an injury that revoked a scholarship or forced them to change positions (Paolini again) or who gave up baseball for several years (Kivlehan) are exactly the type of guys you would mark with an asterisk as the kind of hitters to watch despite their ages.
~G
If baseball-refernce is correct I could confirm a few of these I remembered as older/slower developing.
Kevin Seitzer
Mark Grace
Kirby Puckett (22 Rookie Ball, 23 High A Cal League)
Turned out to have pretty good careers!
Han couldn't even do the Kessel Run in 18 parsecs. He could barely smuggle in the Low-A Transgalactic League.
(It turns out that Harrison Ford was already 34 when they made the first Star Wars -- I just looked it up. Maybe that '70s haircut makes him look younger.)
It happens, Moe, that all six of the "exceptions" were from college or junior college (Ibanez and Hafner), but only Hawpe was from a "major" baseball school -- LSU. Howard: Missouri State; Willingham: North Alabama; Youkilis: Cincinnati.
High school kids are probably "up or out" by 22.
So, Gordon's right to look for the "storyline" -- smaller school, injury, change of position, etc.
But it's also true that development staff have a pretty good record of spotting the most talented guys and placing them at a higher level right out of college. Not 100%, but a good record.
The conclusion is not that there's no hope (maybe Obi-Wan Zduriencik is their only hope!). Just that it's a negative indicator unless outweighed by something else.
In the Mariners' case, it's worth noting that the High-A level doesn't seem to add a whole lot of value. Hitters can perform better at that level based entirely on the park factors of the league. In fact, if Patrick Kivlehan was at that level now and hitting as well as he is currently in the MWL, he would probably have more home runs, but at the same time we'd be looking at him skeptically and wondering what his true talent level really is.
That's the problem with being stuck with High Desert as a park. It messes up your pitchers and gives your hitters illusory prowess. Kivlehan's problems are in understanding the strike zone. He was a strikeout fool last year for the first have (35:1 K:BB ratio to start his career - I'm NOT kidding, those are the exact numbers) before taking a few walks. His Ks have actually come way down to well into the reasonable area now, but if he was hitting HRs on what should be shallow fly outs? It would give him the wrong impression.
I definitely want Kivlehan learning in a pitcher's league, even if that means he stays there the whole year.
Pizzano has a good enough eye that I'm not worried about High Desert messing it up. I'd expect a promotion for him in a month or two. They usually wait til after the All-Star votes are made. It's a nice feather in a kid's cap to get to go to an All-Star game, and if he doesn't make it the first time, well, as guys are promoted and so can't attend they pick other guys. Dario Pizzano, MWL All-Star is a nice thing to give him if you can, and doesn't hurt anything. He's not bored down there and taking laps around the league or anything.
~G
In the Cal league, we'd be telling him, "Nice hit, kid. Don't get cocky."
Jabari Henry is 22, so he has long odds, but what kind of odds does a 21 year old like Marcus Littlewood have? Does that one year make a vast difference in Marcus's favor, even if his numbers aren't nearly as interesting? My guess is no, Jabari's dominance makes up for his additional year, but I'd be curious if we should be focusing on the teenagers at that level, and keep a half eye on the 20 somethings.
Remember Littlewood did the catcher conversion, so his timetable is maybe a bit different. The problem he has right now, I think, is that he's losing AB's to Tyler Marlette. You have to wonder what sort of a chance a guy has at the major league level when he isn't even the best player at his position on his minor league team.
Twice now, I think, they've lost the game of musical chairs.
If anyone has a few million sitting around, we could buy the team and move it to San Luis Obispo. Just have to get Cal Poly to share its park.
Seriously. Let me know. Can we "crowdsource" it or something?
Or even guys who start at Low-A and get promoted during the age-22 season. It's the guys who spend the entire year in Low-A that are rare.
But there is only one Iron Law: very, very few prospects actually make it.
The general idea here, though, is that guys with a good shot at the majors usually will not get placed in Low-A at age 22 unless there's a "story" there.
I'm impressed with both of them so far. Littlewood's had a bumpy path with the mid-stream catching conversion and some injuries, but he's a switch-hitter who knows how to take a walk, so there's big upside there if he can get it going. When they drafted him, they liked him as much as they liked Franklin. They were wrong, but that doesn't mean he's relegated to "bust" yet.
And there's no shame in losing ground to Marlette, who's got major helium right now -- hitting the ball light years better than he did his first two seasons: .337/.402/.505.
I think the goal should be to get out of the California League altogether, and the best way to do that would be to buy one of the affiliates in the Carolina League or the FSL.