February 15, 2006

Lies, Damned Lies

PECOTA Takes On Prospects, Part Two

by Nate Silver

One of the advantages of writing your introduction last is that you can eschew the verbosity if your column is running 4,000+ words. Let’s get started.

First Basemen: Real Prospects

Player                            WARP     Upside     Comb
1. Prince Fielder, 1B, MIL (22)   18.5     224.1      409.6

2. Mike Jacobs, 1B, FLO (25)      16.0     129.3      288.9
3. Jason Stokes, 1B, FLO (24)     14.8     123.0      270.6
4. Justin Huber, 1B, KCA (23)     15.2     117.1      269.3
5. Ryan Garko, 1B, CLE (25)       14.9     108.2      257.2
6. Conor Jackson, 1B, ARI (24)    15.2      94.2      246.2
7. Daric Barton, 1B, OAK (20)     13.6     103.4      239.1
8. Kendry Morales, 1B, LAA (23)   12.1     113.0      233.6
9. Ryan Shealy, 1B, COL (26)      12.8      91.5      219.7

10. Wesley Bankston, 1B, TBA (22) 11.4      67.8      181.3

11. Garrett Jones, 1B, MIN (25)    9.8      58.4      156.1
12. Mike Aubrey, 1B, CLE (24)      8.7      49.6      137.1
13. Casey Rogowski, 1B, CHA (25)   9.6      38.7      134.2
14. James Loney, 1B, LAN (22)      9.4      39.8      133.8
15. Brandon Sing, 1B, CHN (25)     8.5      44.9      130.3
16. Larry Broadway, 1B, WAS (25)   8.7      41.7      128.8
17. Chip Cannon, 1B, TOR (24)      8.0      36.8      117.2
18. Chris Duncan, 1B, SLN (25)     7.2      36.0      107.8
19. Scott Thorman, 1B, ATL (24)    7.3      32.9      106.1

Prince Fielder’s presence atop the list will surprise nobody, especially those who grew up watching him take batting practice with his daddy at Tiger Stadium. Fielder is less one-dimensional than his father at the plate, with a good batting eye and an ability to go the other way. Throw in the obvious power potential, and his pure offensive upside is as high as any prospect in the game. What may or may not be surprising is that PECOTA also identifies a fair amount of risk in Fielder. Take a look at his Five-Year Performance chart, and you’ll see that the gap between his 75th and 25th percentile EqA forecasts is very large, particularly as we advance. Much of that, needless to say, is because of his body type. You’ll see the adverb “surprisingly” a lot in connection with Fielder (“a surprisingly good athlete,” “surprisingly nimble around the bag”), but the fact remains that we’re in uncharted territory when it comes to a prospect with this combination of bat and braun.

In any event, while Fielder is number one at his position with a bullet--or a burger--it’s beyond him where the controversy ensues. In particular, you’re going to see both Conor Jackson and Daric Barton place higher on some other lists.

The fundamental issue with both players is how much power they’re going to develop. Jackson posted one of the more impressive untranslated statistical performances in all of baseball with a .354/.475/.553 line at Tucson, but it’s also one of the stranger ones, featuring 38 doubles against just eight home runs. It’s become something of a cliché in prospect analysis that a young player’s doubles “turn into” home runs down the line. But is that really the case?

Let’s do a little bit of thinking about doubles. When people talk about doubles turning into home runs, they’re probably thinking about a double that hits high off the wall, when only a little bit more muscle would get it out of the park--a Green Monster double. But this is really only one of three common types of doubles:

• First, we have "power doubles," doubles that either hit off the fence or go over the outfielder’s head, but don’t quite make it out of the park.

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