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Back in the late ’90s, the so-called Trinity at shortstop—Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez—provided the most memorable concentration of young talent at a position since Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider graced center field in the ’50s. They also heralded a golden age for shortstops cut more from the Cal Ripken cloth (big, athletic, and offense-minded) than the Ozzie Smith one (small and speedy, with an emphasis on defensive skill). These days, the class of elite shortstops is much more thin—Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes might be Trinity-level talents, but from there it’s a sizable step down to the likes of J.J. Hardy and Troy Tulowitzki.

Perhaps we should blame the Trinity. Consider for a moment the well-known Defensive Spectrum: 1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS-C. The positions to the left are easier to defend but carry higher offensive demands, while those to the right prioritize defensive skill over offense. As players age, they tend to drift leftward; many a superstar was drafted as a shortstop but gravitated to a less-challenging position as his body and hitting skills developed. The success of the Trinity may have spurred more experimentation with big-bodied shortstops at the amateur levels, but not all could stick. “Everyone dreams of these big athletic shortstops as the next A-Rod/Nomar types, or even a more modern version like Tulowitzki,” observes BP’s in-house prospect maven, Kevin Goldstein. “What they often end up with is a third baseman, like an Evan Longoria.”

Goldstein notes that only three players with the legitimate tools to stick at shortstop have been drafted over the past three years, and that the 2009 draft class isn’t shortstop-heavy. Neither is his recent Top 100 Prospects list; of the nine shortstops on the list, Goldstein counts just four as likely to remain in position, including 20-year-old Elvis Andrus, who’s already starting for the Rangers.

Instead, the high-end young talent appears to be concentrated in a couple of other right-spectrum positions, catcher and center field. One way to illustrate this is via PECOTA‘s Upside scores. While primarily used for assessing prospects—any player above 100 is an excellent prospect, with a strong chance of a long, star-caliber career, and prospects above 50 generally still have solid shots at stardom—the scores are handy for aggregating future contributions for all players along our forecasting system’s six-year horizon. Upside credits players only for performance above league average at their position, including defense as well as offense. Among a player’s top comparables, if one performed better than average, then twice his number of runs above average are counted toward his Upside. If he was below average, in the minors, or pounding sand somewhere else, his performance is counted as zero.

For this piece, I’ve defined “young players” as those in their age-26 seasons or younger, which is to say on the sunny side of their age-27 seasons. It’s more accurate to speak of hitters peaking between the ages of 25 and 29, but drawing a line to include or exclude the entirety of that group is unwieldy, and in the end I simply gerrymandered the classification to include both Ramirez (25) and Reyes (26), whom PECOTA forecasts as having two of the four highest upside scores (677.1 and 517.4, respectively). That makes for a group of 57 young hitters with Upside scores above 100, and another 87 with scores in the 50-100 range. The distribution is striking when viewed in the context of the Defensive Spectrum, particularly among the upper tier:


Upside   DH   1B   LF   RF   3B   CF   2B   SS   C
100+      2    3    3    8    8   11    4    7  11
50-100    0   10    6   10   11   13   10   16  14
Total     2   15    9   18   19   24   14   23  25

In a year where Matt Wieters trails only Ramirez with an Upside score of 623.4 to top our prospect list, it’s not terribly surprising that the numbers confirm the notion that we’re in a heady time for young catchers, particularly in the Senior Circuit. Last year, Geovany Soto (235.4) won the NL Rookie of the Year honors, Chris Iannetta (155.5) broke out after fizzling in 2007, Pablo Sandoval (177.4) enjoyed a scalding-hot cup of coffee with the Giants, and Jesus Flores (115.4) assumed the Nationals‘ starting job just one year after being plucked from the Mets in the Rule 5 draft. But that’s without getting to the top of the crop: Brian McCann (321.4) and Russell Martin (270.4) score even higher among NL backstops. Admittedly, Sandoval’s future behind the plate seems fleeting; he’s currently starting at third base while backing up Bengie Molina, whose contract expires at season’s end. The Giants organization also has Buster Posey, who ranked ninth on our prospect list despite just 45 professional plate appearances; Posey’s 66.5 Upside score, merely a sketch based almost solely on draft position and bonus size, is only the tip of the iceberg, so expect him to score higher next time around. The American League boasts two-time batting champ Joe Mauer (344.9), Dioner Navarro (102.8), and Kurt Suzuki (a very close 98.6) among established starters, Wieters (who could arrive next month), and Jarrod Saltalamacchia (110.0); Salty’s teammate, Taylor Teagarden, only scores 26.1. Beyond those fresh faces, the Yankees‘ 19-year-old Jesus Montero rates well (186.9), but is still far off in the distance.

The center fielders as a group are somewhat less established. Grady Sizemore (349.9) is the cream of the crop, but he, B.J. Upton (178.8), and Chris B. Young (147.6) are the only ones who entered 2009 with more than one full season in the majors already under their belts. Matt Kemp (228.9), Adam Jones (203.8), Jacoby Ellsbury (183.2), Carlos Gomez (178.5), and Lastings Milledge (151.8) are in their second full years, though the last was recently farmed out. Cameron Maybin (237.4) is starting for the Marlins, while the CardinalsColby Rasmus (97.2) and the RockiesDexter Fowler (82.3) are breaking in as part-time players. The PiratesAndrew McCutchen (114.9) is expected to arrive this summer, while the TwinsBen Revere (251.6) is still in High-A.

Third basemen and right fielders are better represented than either middle-infield spot, though both include converts from adjacent positions. Top-ranking David Wright (436.6), the aforementioned Longoria (317.6), and Ryan Zimmerman (224.9) all played some shortstop as amateurs; Zimmerman did so on the same traveling high school team as Wright, who manned the hot corner, and Upton, who played second base. Along with a trio often maligned for various shortcomings—Alex Gordon (135.6), Edwin Encarnacion (124.0), and former shortstop Mark Reynolds (115.8)—are migrant Royals prospect Mike Moustakas (149.8), who moved off short last year, and Cardinals prospect Brett Wallace (105.1), whose beefy build and lack of defensive prowess have gotten him dubbed “The Walrus”; His future lies at an easier position, goo goo g’joob. Among the right fielders, it’s worth noting that Jay Bruce (214.0), Elijah Dukes (208.9), and Hunter Pence (126.8) all broke in as center fielders.

The middle-infield situation is slightly less dire than I initially presented. Among shortstops, Hardy (254.6) and Tulowitzki (188.6) score more than respectably, and one can safely pencil in the unrelated Beckhams, Tim of the Rays and Gordon of the White Sox, to at least join the above-100 tier, along with Jed Lowrie, Stephen Drew, and Yunel Escobar. Their situations are analogous to Posey, though Gordon Beckham may be bound for second base eventually.

As for the keystoners, it’s actually not surprising to find them so sparsely represented since they’re often regarded as damaged goods within the prospect sphere—lacking the arm to play shortstop or the bat to play third, and prone to premature aging, too. It’s a long way from reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia (319.0) to the top tier, but nonetheless the oft-maligned trio of injury-prone Rickie Weeks (173.5), hacktastic Jose Lopez (160.7), and streaky Robinson Cano (156.3), and another sizable drop down to fragile Howie Kendrick (90.9), and would-be Indians shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera (85.6); had we drawn the line at second basemen in their age-27 seasons, Kelly Johnson and Ian Kinsler would have beefed this bunch up.

Which illustrates that there are plenty of inefficiencies here, including this accounting process. While we may not be blessed with an obvious Trinity, why worry when there’s so much else to enjoy?

A version of this story originally appeared on ESPN Insider Insider.

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colhogan
4/29
in regards to top shortstops at the top, what about rollins, not far behind Hanley and Reyes
jjaffe
4/29
While I could quibble with that MVP award on his mantle, Rollins is certainly a quality performer who ranks among the game's top shortstops. But he's in his Age 30 season, which was far beyond the realm of consideration for "young talent" here.
PWHjort
4/29
Why do you think Escobar is bound for 2B?
jjaffe
4/29
I don't. Our editor misinterpreted the admittedly hazy sentence which I originally submitted (it's now been fixed).

When I wrote was "Their situations are analogous to Posey, though the latter may be bound for second base," I meant Gordan Beckham, the second of the two Beckhams mentioned half a sentence earlier. For some reason I thought that repeating his full name was an awkward construction so I chose "the latter," but expecting anyone else to understand that I was referring to the fourth out of a laundry list of seven shortstops as such is pretty ridiculous. Score that E-6 on my end.

As noted in both our BP09 capsule and Kevin Goldstein's Top 100 rundown, G. Beckham is likely bound for the keystone in part because the Sox appear committed to trying Alexei Ramirez at short and in part because scouts don't hold his defense in the highest regard and believe that his tools would play better at second.
aquavator44
5/01
Escobar, not Beckham.
aquavator44
5/01
Nevermind, I see what happened there.
TGisriel
4/29
Not much discussion of right fielders. Can't help wondering what the score of 25 year old Nick Markakis is.
jjaffe
4/29
Alas, I was up against word count issues - the ESPN version of this piece ends after the center fielders, mainly because I shot a hole in their theory regarding the ascendence of second basemen because I focused mainly on da youts.

With space an issue, I didn't delve too deeply into the right fielders at all. Markakis (159.7) ranks fifth among the young RFs in upside, though he's the most established. In addition to the aforementioned Bruce and Dukes, Jason Heyward (208.9) and Justin Upton (202.2) are ahead of him, and Michael Stanton (148.3), Pence and Travis Snider (116.6) round out the group. Looking at his score and his projection, I think he's being undersold considering his much improved plate discipline last year, so I'll take the over.
mattymatty2000
4/30
What's a yout?
SaberTJ
4/30
Go rent My Cousin Vinny
mdupske
5/01
Did he say yout?
seanpotter
5/01
Why are the Upsides listed on the PECOTA player pages slightly different than those listed here?
jjaffe
5/01
The ones I used are taken from the 3/14 version of the PECOTA spreadsheet available to subscribers. I just spot-checked 15 of the ones in the article and 13 match what's on the player cards, Heyward and Wright being the exceptions. For Heyward, I apparently copied Dukes' figure instead of his own (210.4) - in a line that ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor of the article proper. For Wright, it's just a typo (433.6 is the right number).

Any other discrepancies?