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This article began as a comparison of Tigers third-base prospect Nick Castellanos and former Padres third-base prospect Sean Burroughs. Castellanos tore through the Florida State League this season, hitting .405/.461/.553 in 55 games, before being promoted to Double-A earlier this week, though his raw power has yet to manifest itself outside of batting practice.

At the same age more than a decade ago, Sean Burroughs was working on a .322/.386/.467 season at Triple-A Portland of the Pacific Coast League, two levels ahead of Castellanos’ recently-vacated Advanced Class-A assignment. Burroughs was also two levels ahead at age 19, making the task of comparing the players a challenge.

Despite posting impressive slash rates at levels he was quite young for, Burroughs rarely dominated. His .291 average in the Southern League in 2000 was only 11% better than the league average, while his on-base percentage and slugging percentages were better by just 17% and 2%, respectively.

Granted, Burroughs was 19 years old and holding his own against competition several years his senior. But in retrospect, the dominance-to-hype ratio at that point in his career appears to have been heavily unbalanced.

Burroughs put up good-not-great numbers in Double-A at age 19, but Castellanos performed better in the Midwest League, albeit against less-advanced competition, in 2011. His batting average (23%), on-base percentage (18%), and slugging percentage (14%) compared to league average were all better than the figures Burroughs posted in Double-A at the same age.

Is it possible to compare the by Burroughs and Castellanos despite the disparity in the quality of the competition each player faced at the same ages? If so, how much, if any, additional credit should Burroughs receive for holding his own against better players? More broadly, is it better for a prospect to be very good or very young?

* * *

Between 1997 and 2011, 280 players had a combined 424 seasons in which they earned at least 300 plate appearances while being at least four years younger than the average player in their league. More than 65 percent of those players reached the big leagues. The average player who did has been worth roughly five and one-half wins above replacement.

To populate the pool of “good” players who were age-appropriate for their leagues, I sought seasons where the player was no older than age 23, one or two years younger than the league average (which skews high), and had accrued at least 300 plate appearances. In order to pick out the elite performances, I filtered out seasons that fell short of the following:

( (AVG/lgAVG)*100 ) + ( (OBP/lgOBP)*100 ) + ( (SLG/lgSLG)*100 ) + ( (((SOR/lgSOR) + (BBR/lgBBR))/2 )*100 ) >= 475

A total of 453 player seasons put together by 384 unique players met the above criteria, and a little more than one-half of those players reached the major leagues.

Type

Players

Reached MLB

MLB 
PA

MLB VORP

MLB
WARP

Young

280

184

1711

55.7

5.6

Good

384

201

762

24.1

2.4

View complete "young" season pool.
View complete “good” season pool.

Unsurprisingly, the level at which a player performs portends a difference in his future major-league value. By far, more players in the young group qualified while they were in Double-A; the 209 Double-A seasons account for 49.3 percent of the total young player seasons in the study.

Type

Level

Player Seasons

MLB PA

MLB VORP

MLB WARP

Young

AAA

53

2537

75.7

7.5

 

Young

AA

209

1189

37.0

3.7

Good

AA

91

1373

39.6

4.0

 

Young

A+

92

1166

40.4

4.1

Good

A+

173

727

21.0

2.0

 

Young

A

67

964

24.0

3.5

Good

A

144

543

19.8

2.2

 

Young

A-

3

2536

37.6

4.2

Good

A-

21

426

14.3

1.2

 

Good

R

24

473

18.3

2.2

 

Only three qualifying young player seasons were had in short-season leagues—Jorge Cantu (1999), Chris Snelling (1999), and Jose Lopez (2001)—but all three of those players reached the major leagues and have had varying degress of success. Players who had qualifying seasons in Triple-A have gone on to average 7.5 wins above replacement in the major leagues, while those in Class A have experienced the least amount of major-league success, averaging fewer than 1,000 career big-league plate appearances and the lowest WARP in the study.

The players who had good seasons at age-appropriate levels fared significantly worse in the major leagues than their younger counterparts, averaging nearly 1000 fewer plate appearances and, accordingly, about 40 percent less VORP and WARP. These players have also reached the majors at a lesser rate (52.3 percent) than those in the young group (65.7 percent).

The “young” class has produced one 40-plus-WARP major leaguer, third baseman Adrian Beltre, as well as 18 others who have been worth at least 20 wins above replacement. Additionally, two out of five players have earned at least 500 career major-league plate appearances.

WARP

Young

Good

>= 40

0.4%

0.7%

>= 30

2.5%

0.7%

>= 20

6.8%

3.6%

>= 10

13.9%

7.3%

>= 5

21.8%

14.1%

 

PA

Young

Good

>= 5000

4.3%

2.9%

>= 4000

8.2%

5.5%

>= 3000

15.4%

9.1%

>= 2000

22.5%

14.3%

>= 1000

32.5%

21.9%

>= 500

40.0%

29.2%

* * *

So how should this information influence the way we evaluate Nick Castellanos and Sean Burroughs? We have the benefit of hindsight with Burroughs; he never developed the power that scouts projected for him, totaling just 17 home runs in more than 1,800 major-league plate appearances. Since spending his first four years with the Padres, Burroughs has bounced between the Diamondbacks, Twins, and Rays organizations, accumulating more than 100 plate appearances in only one season. He’s totaled 28.9 VORP and 2.7 WARP over seven seasons, falling well short of the average player from the young pool.

Castellanos didn’t qualify for the “good” pool in 2011, though he certainly would have made the cut this year if he’d hung around Lakeland long enough to collect 300 plate appearances. He has put himself in a position to qualify for the “young” group, however, with the promotion to Double-A and, if history holds true, his major-league outlook is much brighter because of it.

Thank you for reading

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stevenpsu78
6/07
Excellent work!!!!
touchstone033
6/07
I'm wondering if the Burroughs/Castellanos comparison is apt, because Burroughs was derailed by substance abuse. Can we draw any conclusions about his minor-league numbers translating to major-league performance? It's certainly a warning about "can't-miss" prospects...
bradleyankrom
6/07
That's the thing, Burroughs never had the minor league numbers *to* translate. He walked a lot, yeah, but he didn't really hit all that well outside of the Cal League. Not exceptionally well, at least.
gyoung858
6/07
Do you mean Midwest League? Burroughs only played 6 games in the Cal League (plus a few more in the playoffs).

I also wonder, like touchstone033, how Burroughs might have developed as a ballplayer had his life not been a mess.
bradleyankrom
6/07
Yes, I meant outside of the low minors, including the MWL.

Burroughs will always be somewhat of a mystery, though I don't know if it was substance abuse that prevented him from adding loft to his swing.
gyoung858
6/07
Right. It didn't prevent him from adding loft to his swing so much as from focusing on baseball at all. Very sad story... with a hopefully happy ending.

Anyway, interesting stuff. Thanks for presenting this.
alangreene
6/07
Yes. Burroughs has become a poster boy (and not in this article) for a guy who didn't develop, but there's a lot more there.

People also forget that he had 40 XBH in 500 ABs at age 22 in the majors. Oh, it's not like he was destined to be a power hitter, but he was not a slap hitter when he first came up.

For whatever reason, and the personal issues are a likely contributor, his power regressed and then his game completely fell apart.
BillJohnson
6/07
So where on the young/good continuum does somebody like Oscar Taveras fall? Currently 19 (turns 20 in two weeks) and putting up .318/.370/.588 at AA. Young AND good?
bradleyankrom
6/07
I didn't include the data in this article, but those who were both young and good often developed into superstar-caliber player.
bradleyankrom
6/07
...notable exceptions being Burroughs (1999), Snelling (2001), Hermida (2005). Those who posted (lgOPS/OPS) >= 130 while also qualifying for the young group include Adrian Beltre, Paul Konerko, Eric Chavez, Miguel Cabrera, Delmon Young, Justin Upton, Adam Jones, Freddie Freeman, Colby Rasmus, Mike Stanton, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Brett Lawrie....
bradleyankrom
6/07
er, (OPS/lgOPS) >= 130
sam19041
6/09
Nice work, Bradley. Makes me think of Fernando Martinez when he was on the Mets and maybe Wilmer Flores too.
bradleyankrom
6/10
I still like Fernando Martinez as a platoon guy in the majors, though his first trial with the Astros this year didn't go so well (1-for-15, I believe).