That we net rats as a group (there may be the odd duck here or there, like JFrom, GMoney, and Shields) are light years behind the scouts in terms of physically watching a player and knowing whether or not he can play.
Similar to the High schoolers they have to call, I am also tremendously impressed with the international scouts who tell the club which 16 year old to fork 2 million bucks to and which not. In many cases they don't even get games in which to evaluate players just the physical stature and some batting practice or bullpen sessions! How in the world someone can tell a Piminteal (SP?) or a Triunifel from a hole in the wall I do not know, but they usually nail it pretty well. I can;t really think of the last Mariners Highly touted (and paid) International signing that DID NOT at least make it to and contribute in the majors. Even a "failure" like Yuni is a everyday SS in the AL!
Interesting also they we tend to trust the international scouts more. No one blinks an eye when Carlos "he may actually be 21" Triunifel is rank NUMBER 1 in the system with literally NO RECORD in organised baseball, but a D1 QB with muscles for miles, who is starting to show major power, and IMPROVED defense (he moved UP the defensive spectrum, when was the last time THAT happen?) And he gets most ly a "Meh, yeah I guess he is top 10 in the M's system, a system BTW that is terrible. I'd put him at 7 or 8"
Definitely some no cheering in the press box stuff gong on, but also our own biases to 1.) STATS! and 2.)!STATS
Which is my cleaver way of saying we perfer a prospect that has exciting stats (STATS!), next we perfer a prospect that has NO stats (!STATS). Woe be to the prospect who has great tools, and athletisism with less that amazing stats though ;)
== JH ===
I've been a bigger Tui fan than most, but he's been almost 100% impossible to evaluate with anything resembling reliable metrics because of his awful development path and then his 2009 injury.
..................
Right.
Sabermetricians ... meaning, pretty much everybody on the 'net who didn't play professional baseball and who offer opinions on minor leaguers :- ) ... are used to using player's past performances to predict them going forward.
This can't always be done. The reductio ad absurdum is the high-school player taken high in the first round. His numbers mean nothing. So why can pro scouts tell who the first-rounders are? Because they're very good at what they do. Let's admit that.
You and I could NOT, in a million years, go to a high school baseball game and tell who was a 1st-round June pick -- vs some other awesome-looking player who goes in the 5th round.
Roger Jongewaard CAN do that.
And his opinion on Matt Tuiasosopo: that Tui's talent category was comparable to Ken Griffey Jr's.
He might be wrong. But let's acknowlege that as part of the discussion.
............
The Mariners as an organization, and baseball as an industry, had Matt Tuiasosopo as a 1st-round talent in the 2004 draft. He slid because of signability issues, and then got 1st-round money.
No performance record was used. Performance records weren't the key on Tui. What was the key, was the same giftedness that is on display now.
............
I think you're overstating his ceiling considerably based on a handful of games and the fact that he's a D1 quarterback playing a game that rarely sees athleticism of that type, but 2009 didn't give us enough of a record to evaluate him on.
What's Donavan Tate's ceiling? He hasn't played pro ball at all. Where's his record?
The Padres just gave Donavan Tate $6.2 million based on zero sabermetrics. Why?
What's Matt Hobgood's ceiling? We have literally zero to go on, in terms of games played. How do the Orioles evaluate him well enough to lay out the millions, like they did?
..............
We shouldn't be trying to evaluate Tui primarily on his record, in the first place. Your paradigm, IMHO, is mistaken.
I've been soft-pedaling his ceiling. He could easily hit 35+ homers and be a cleanup hitter. That is a very realistic possibility. It's certainly more likely for him than for any other player in the M's minor leagues.
Why did D-O-V even mention his 9 homers and 9 doubles in August? It's the icing on the cake as to where he is. It's like a Justin Verlander going to AAA and throwing seven shutouts in a row.* Okay, the cake's ready now.
.............
I can see Tuiasosopo figuring things out and becoming a solid or even great major league regular, but he needs to show sustained success before I'm willing to call him a good bet to do so.
Fair enough. :- )
For me, I don't need to see anything more, and haven't, since last September. This March was overkill. This August was long after-the-fact. The scouts in the business don't speak in terms of recognizing the Matt Tuiasosopo's of the world at this stage, boys. They've got to recognize talent a whale of a lot earlier than that.
Any scout worth his salt would have had Tui nailed a year ago, at minimum. Obviously Wakamatsu and Zduriencik had him nailed in March 2009.
.
=== Taro ===
I wouldn't call Tui one of the best prospects in baseball, but I do think he's in that #2-4 range in the Mariners' system and has the most potential to surprise.
...............
Surprise who? :- )
The M's have been taking flack for fast-tracking Tui, for how long now?
We owe an apology to the M's for scoffing at them for their opinions on, and promotions of, Tui early on. Seriously. They were three years ahead of us, right?
..................
#2-4 range.... I might take Ackley over Tuiasosopo, yeah. We said so earlier. Ackley, from what we can tell, might be the best HIT prospect to come into the AL since Joe Mauer, and he's one step away from the bigs. I'm not saying Tui is THAT golden (though Roger Jongewaard did).
Tui, if he went into an amateur draft right now, would go about #5 overall. Ackley would go #1-2-3 in almost any draft.
But Tui would be the #1 player in a lot of orgs. Check that in a coupla years.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
especially that comment about 15- and 16-year-olds in Latin America. I honestly can't begin to imagine how they do that.
Wasn't Beltre one such find?
BTW, after 20-30 years of using sabermetrics as a "walker" to help me learn how to hobble around "scouting" players physically .... such as, watching HR development patterns over the years, against Piazza-Boone templates, to reach an opinion on Tui...
I can't fathom in a million years how you would separate one HS superstar from another.
Having seen maybe 250,000 pitches from the CF camera, I fancy that I can tell what is a good changeup and not, but ... to go see Matt Tuiasosopo over a weekend or two? Against 84 mph fastballs? And recognize that he's better than the ten other WA state players who looked just like he did?
I guess it's a flash here and there they see, a bit of batspeed here, a bit of fighting off a slider there, and they visualize the bansai tree.
It's not something that even most pro scouts are particularly great at, much less us non-athletes on the 'net :- )
#2-4 is probably where the debate is at.
Personally, ya, hes far and away the #2 prospect in the organization (especially if he plays an average 2B which it looks like he can).
Are there a couple of specific names you have in mind, as to the guys who would battle Tui for the shoulder position alongside Ackley?
Well most consensus ranking have Saunders and Triunfel at #2 and #3.
I'd take Tui before both though.
I like Saunders' chances to have a big-league career, but am having trouble visualizing how he'd ever be an impact player.
I mean, you could throw out four scenarios by which Saunders became a 6.5 runs per 27 guy, but I'd call them all huge upsets.
But of course, a AAA guy who has a good chance at being a league-average outfielder, that's a whale of a prospect, in absolute terms.
Yer spot on.
Although there are some other factors at work as well that help with scouting the young 'uns.
Listened to a coach of a D1 athletic program talk about recruiting one time... He thought one of the best indicators for a kid's athletic upside was the mother's athletic aptitude. He didn't see nearly as much of a link with the father. He recounted an anecdote where (IIRC) he met the mother of a potential recruit. Started chatting, finds out she decided to try running a couple years ago, and oh just happened to start winning marathons a year or so in to it... LOL!
We all know that just because Michael Garciaparra is Nomar's brother, he's not necessarily going to hit like him. But the genetics are a strong indicator. Tui's got something going for him in that department.
Fascinating. Going to keep an eye on that.