Good article, good question. Love it when you're serious.

Nice topic and read. Interesting to focus on that area of the talent pool, both from scouting of individual players and the idea of market inefficiencies. Players in that group likely elicit contrasting opinions which illuminate the fundamentals of scouting theory and how each scout and GM balances competing factors.

From an organizational standpoint, mining that area of the pool must be alluring, but also quite risky for the career of scouts and GMs.

Is Ronald Guzman in the raw 'toolshed' area under discussion or is he too accomplished or refined already?

Re: Philly--I think the point you bring up is both valid and interesting to think about. That said, it's important to note that most of the amateurs a team acquires and attempts to develop fail: at least 3/4's of them, including a high % of single-digit round talent. When applied to baseball, pure athleticism can mask a multitude of sins, even to some extent at the major league level. And it also makes sense, from the viewpoint of development, to acquire players who have the capacity to learn physically and replicate the actions necessary for their chosen sport (indeed, this is what athleticism is, to an extent).

It's also important to note, though, that failure happens to good people who work hard and have talent. Sometimes, things just don't go right. Baseball is cruel like life that way. It's really effing hard.

The "intellectual joy" comment does give me pause, though, not because it is not genuine but because a boom or bust approach may not be the healthiest approach. It's important to take risks, obviously, but it's also important not to only take risks.

Very interesting stuff, Jason. I have to say, though - the utter lack of ability to find a comparable player whose tools actualized leads me to believe that some teams in the industry are not correctly "pricing" the risk inherent in these sashimi raw "assets" and are overvaluing them to some extent.

Carlos Beltrán started off pretty raw in the Kansas City organization. He was down to hitting .229/.311/.363 in his third season at age 20 in A-ball. He was taken with the 48th pick back in the day.

Adam Jones struggled in his first year of A-Ball.

While not a star yet by any means...Anthony Gose is a guy that appears to be making slow and steady progress. I think he would certainly be considered a toolshed. Great piece Jason, a lot of fun to look to the future!

Great article. I'm wondering if it is possible to deconstruct other 5 tool sashimi grade players that come up early and see if they were developmentally shorted. Maybe there aren't comps, because it takes too long? If a team has a five tool prospect, and three tools are truly valuable to that specific orginazation at that time, do they begin steering the kid towards developing a feel at the expense of a tool or two? If so, there might be five tool comps that had to cut it back to three to focus on feel? I keep thinking that some organizations tend to Stanfordize raw players to get something out of them in the near term rather than everything out of them in the long term, something that may have happened with a few White Sox propsects like gordon Beckham.

The successful toolshed stories that struggle early seem to have a feel for drawing a walk early....is Aaron Hicks one to keep in eye on?

Frank White.

Mike Cameron maybe?

While I'm not sure if I can think of a specific prototype, two of the closest in my mind (who played minor league ball in my area) during the 80s, is Jesse Barfield and Ron Gant. Of course Gant walked a little bit more and had a monster season his 4th year in the minors, but both initially struggled early on in their career and made adjustments.

Bo Jackson

Tons of players had awful first (usually partial) seasons in the low minors, but literally everyone I could think of who went on to have a Major League career showed at least some skills by their second season (usually notable power, and/or OBP). The "best" I could come up with was Bill Hall, who sandwiched a mediocre year between two awful ones before breaking out.

I think the implications for team building are deceptively complex. While it's true that most raw toolsy players don't plan out, it seems like the ones that do show some aptitude right away -- Matt Kemp, Jimmy Rollins, Mike Trout, etc. So it's not that taking flyers on these guys is bad, it's that a team usually gets a pretty early indication whether or not that player is going to pan out. So the question is, what to do with the ones who make it through their first full year without showing much?

Maybe teams should "give up" on these guys asap and give the roster spot to someone else, if another prospect at the same position comes along? Or maybe the opposite, they should play more? Like, arrange a pre-game scrimmage before every actual game or something, instead of doing drills? I feel like there's an inefficiency that could be exploited here...

Suggested reading on this subject:

"Why Michael Couldn't Hit, and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports"

(or, Why Jason Parks is Having Trouble Finding Good Examples.)

Danny Espinosa?

Torii Hunter is a guy that comes to mind only because he spent parts of three season at high A and three season at AA. He played football, basketball and ran track in high school in Arkansas (as well as baseball). Looking at his MiLB numbers it looks as though he figured things out as he moved along, but certainly took more time than might have been expected.

He certainly isn't a HOFer, but he was an All-Star certainly.

It's funny. I thought to myself, "I hope Yorman Rodriguez is that next guy." But he really hasn't struggled much until this year, and he isn't even 20 yet. He had quite a year as a 17 yo in the Pioneer League, and had just an OK year as an 18 yo in a hard to hit in Midwest League.

I hope he bounces back after a rough start to this season.

I've been in the same mind-funk over James Baldwin - I came up with the already-mentioned Mike Cameron. A more current example (although he has yet to pan out) is Trayvon Robinson.

Magglio Ordonez comes to mind.

Sometimes I doubt he'd ever put it together, but I always drooled watching Greg Halman (RIP). Man. Weird stats in first few years, but you had mix of swing-and-miss with attitude things like breaking his hand in a brawl, the massive struggles in A and AA, sandwiched around good lines.

Not a true toolshed, but Mike Morse was pretty mediocre for a while before the power that some thought might come finally showed up.

What's sort of amazing is how rare it is; we overrate the possibility of a tools prospect "getting it" and reaching his ceiling.

How about Preston Wilson? It may be stretching it to say that Wilson was a star, but he eventually put up solid numbers in the Majors during about a 6-year stretch. As a prospect, Wilson was definitely a raw power/speed player with a bad approach who struggled in the minors, until the light sort of came on.

Rickey Henderson was best friends with M.C. Hammer growing up in Oakland. He wanted to play football but his mom thought it was too dangerous. Maybe there's some insight to be gleaned in there...

Fun article, Jason. Gave me a perfectly good excuse to blow through roughly an hour searching random players minor league stats. Did anyone toss out the name Devon White in your polling of sources? He's about the best I was able to come up with, and he still doesn't feel like fits your prototype.