You Could Look It Up: ... (02/24)
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February 24, 2006 Lies, Damned LiesAny Such Thing?"There's No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect" has become such a catch phrase that even pitching prospects are using it. Of course, the pithy phrase can't be entirely true. If not for pitching prospects, where would major-league pitchers come from? Does a stork, his beak shaped like Leo Mazzone's nose, swoop down from the heavens to deliver fully-formed pitchers to the majors? Everything in prospect analysis is relative. Pretty much everyone agrees that some discount needs to be applied to pitching prospects. Baseball America isn't treating Mike Pelfrey like he's Justin Upton, and rest assured that we wouldn't trade Matt Cain for Trevor Plouffe. But figuring out exactly what the discount rate should be is something that hasn't really been resolved. Traditional prospect analysis almost certainly isn't discounting enough, and I've come to believe that Baseball Prospectus isn't discounting enough, either. Although the amateur draft has seen a substantial correction--perhaps even an overcorrection--pitching prospects are still treated in trade talks like they're black chips at the Bellagio. PECOTA needs to tackle this question head on, and the results are going to be a little shocking. Before we get into the detail, however, we should take a step back and think about those things that make developing pitchers different than developing hitters.
This is the best understood and least disputed plank in the TNSTAAPP platform. PECOTA addresses the injury question by means of an Attrition Rate, which tracks substantial drops in playing time among a player's comparables. Attrition Rate is an imperfect measure--it will reflect a drop in playing time for reasons unrelated to injuries, such as being moved to the bullpen or a utility role, or being traded to Japan. Still, it ought to provide us with some useful information. Following are the PECOTA attrition rates in 2010, five years out from today, for the hitters and pitchers ranking in Baseball America's Top 50 list. We've excluded players like Pelfrey and Troy Tulowitzki who haven't played a significant amount of professional ball. Player Attr. Delmon Young 13% Brandon Wood 27% Jeremy Hermida 24% Stephen Drew 48% Lastings Milledge 38% Prince Fielder 15% Howie Kendrick 17% Andy Marte 23% Ryan Zimmerman 20% Ian Stewart 43% Conor Jackson 24% Jarrod Saltalamacchia 33% Andy LaRoche 27% Carlos Quentin 36% Nick Markakis 39% Chris Young 31% Joel Guzman 29% Felix Pie 35% Daric Barton 28% Billy Butler 28% Hanley Ramirez 35% Carlos Gonzales 26% Russell Martin 42% Neil Walker 35% Erick Aybar 12% AVERAGE 29% Player Attr. Francisco Liriano 30% Chad Billingsley 44% Justin Verlander 35% Matt Cain 47% Jon Lester 37% Scott Olsen 36% Joel Zumaya 58% Jon Papelbon 67% Bobby Jenks 48% Homer Bailey 56% Philip Hughes 37% Anibal Sanchez 43% Anthony Reyes 42% Mark Rogers 65% Adam Loewen 58% Adam Miller 64% Dustin McGowan 41% AVERAGE 48%There's room for debate about the attrition rates attached to particular players. PECOTA does not know about a guy's injury history--it can only make inferences, and some of its inferences are going to be better than others. Regardless, the overall trend is plenty clear: PECOTA's attrition rates are 66% higher for pitchers than they are for position players.
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Team Health Reports: Washington Nationals
