Yesterday, Sean offered some commentary about the success rate of prospects:
Entering 2011, the Yankees farm system is in pretty good shape. With a lot of the consensus top 10 picks in the AA- AAA range, many Yankee fans have high expectations. While I think that optimism is certainly well founded, I also think we should keep things in perspective. Prospects fail. That isn’t a controversial statement or an overly negative platitude recited by baseball fans, it’s just a fact. Over at Royals Review, Scott McKinney put together a fantastic study looking at 14 years of Baseball America’s top prospect lists to determine the relative success and failure rate of prospects. The conclusions are a real splash of cold water:
- About 70% of Baseball America top 100 prospects fail.
- Position player prospects succeed much more often than pitching prospects.
- About 60% of position players ranked in Baseball America’s top 20 succeed in the majors.
- About 40% of pitchers ranked in the top 20 succeed in the majors.
- About 30% of position players ranked 21-100 succeed in the majors (with the success rate declining over that ranking range from about 36% to about 25%)
- About 20% of pitchers ranked 21-100 succeed in the majors (with the success rate declining over that ranking range from about 22% to about 15%)
- Prospect success rates have not improved much over time and there is little data to support the contention that prospects are more likely to succeed now than they have in the past.
It should be noted that success is defined as “averaging over 1.5 fWAR per season, adjusted for a few seasons to ease into the majors”. This is a relatively high bar roughly set to the major league average. Players who are classified as busts may be bench players, or below-average regulars. I think it is a reasonable standard to set when talking about top-100 prospects (we have high expectations for anyone on the list), but puts the 70% failure rate in a little more context.
The number is a little bit jarring at first, but I think it makes a lot of sense. What is the chance that Manuel Banuelos becomes an above average starting pitcher in the major leagues? 30% sounds about right. How about Dellin Betances? 20% sounds about right there too. But take them all together, and you have a pretty good result: according to this study, there is a 60% chance that one of the Killer B’s becomes an average or better starting pitcher, a 12.8% chance that at least two will work out, and a 2% chance that all three will. At least if my math is right.
I’ve been a fan of the minor leagues long enough to know that those aren’t terrible odds. We’ve got a better than odds-even chance that around 2012 or so, one of the Killer B’s will be a successful, average or better contributor in the MLB rotation. And on top of that, we have reason to believe that our guys will defy the odds. BA’s rankings include quite a few players in the low-minor leagues. I have to believe that they have a significantly smaller rate of success than players in the high minors, like most of the top Yankee prospects. Furthermore, other top rankers have put Banuelos in that magical top-20 category, so he may be a better bet than he appears.
Once you throw in Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova, David Phelps, Hector Noesi, Graham Stoneburner, Adam Warren, et al, the future of the Yankee starting rotation starts to look pretty sound. Odds are, the Yankees have at least 2 or 3, if not more, productive future major league starting pitchers sitting in the high minor leagues right now. To me, that’s pretty good news.
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Just to reinforce your math a bit, you suggest about 50% odds that one of the Killer B’s becomes a better than average starter, which was exactly the yield of above average starters that are now playing for the Yankees from the Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain crop.
Put another way, reality backs up the odds as you’ve calculated them.
The odds that at least one of the 3 Killer B’s is a success (as defined by McKinney) is roughly 2/3. I get that by observing that McKinney seems to be saying that a top 100 prospect has a roughly 1 in 3 chance of succeeding, or a 2 in 3 chance of not succeeding. The event that all 3 Killer B’s fail can be quantified as roughly 2/3 x 2/3 x 2/3, or 8/27, which is roughly 1/3. This is assuming that success for any player is independent (in a probabilistic sense) of success for any other player. That assumption strikes me as not quite true, since each of the Killer B’s will be competing with the others for playing time and coaching attention, but the degree of dependence is probably small, so it makes sense to disregard it.
Ok, I just want to clarify: this is what I intuitively came up with, but trying to do actual math led me in the wrong direction. Also, I blame my 7th grade math teacher.
I think we can move on from this chart. I think this has been mentionedlike three times in the past two days. Can we discuss A: How perfect Liriano would be for the rotation B: what it would take, my offer would be Joba/Brackman/Warren/Adams. Put CC and Liriano back to back in the rotation, I like that idea,
Please tell me Cashman will call the Twins.
Cashman will call the Twins but I don’t know if Twins are going to be willing to talk about middle reliever (Joba), a 25 year old AAA flame-thrower whose results still haven’t backed up his talent, a potential back of the rotation starter and a possibly someday league average second baseman coming off a really big injury.
I’d make that trade, not sure if the Twins would though. It’d be hard to trade your best pitcher and tell your fans that you were only able to get a middle reliever and the Yankees 5th best prospect but what do I know
I say Joba to the Twins could be a potential front of the rotation starter and or potential closer. He is back inthe midwest out of NY B/S.
Brackman-6’10 flamethrower coming much the way Randy Johnson did and the same potential.
Adam Warren universally liked prospect with front of the rotation potential
David Adams: Here I can be flexible-Twins want a ss/2b type-
I do not think its a bad offer at all
You can’t trade Joba with starter value when you have said for months “he isn’t a starter anymore”, the line was drawn in the sand and since you went out and signed Soriano over letting Joba be the setup man his value plummets further.
Teams aren’t going to trade for Joba and give you value of what he might be some day they are going to give you value on what he is right now, which is a middle reliever who no longer possess a 100 MPH fastball that once made him special. He may be able to start or close for the Twins but why would they let the Yankees know that when they have all the leverage? It’s not like Liriano has to go here.
Also Brackman doesn’t have anywhere near the upside of Randy Johnson, first of all Randy is left handed and therefore autmatically has more value as a rare power lefty and second Brackman no longer throws the cheese that once had him labeled a RH Randy. Yes he still throws hard but 93-95 isn’t the 100 MPH Randy was hitting all the time and even if Brackman is learning a slider he doesn’t have Mr. Snappy.
It was mentioned twice. We’ve had a number of posts on Liriano prior to that. There’s nothing new on Liriano, so it isn’t likely to be posted on again, but there is always an off-topic thread in the toolbar for any sort of trade ideas you might have.
Well ok but it is a shame: The perfect(next to King Felix) pitcher for the rotation is now available and the Yankees have done nothing. I think there should be some outrage, Liriano would put the Yankees over the Sox today. Make the freakin call Cashman, get something done while there is a chance(I know he can’t hear me).
How do you know he hasn’t? If the deal you are suggesting was available, I bet he would have already made it.
Again I knw what I suggested might be a reach, but why do these things tend to drag? You need the guy he is 27 and left handed power pitcher-I mean what the heck else do you want? I feel bad for the NYY fans shell out good money and have to sit through a Mitre start? I hope this deal gets done it would cnage everyone’s outlook on this team.
Relax. The Yankees are likely to make a move for a starter at some point before the playoffs start, but Cashman will likely take his time and try to find a reasonable deal. As a fan, this is exactly what you should want. And to echo Moshe’s comments: Who know what is going on behind the scenes. It is totally possible that the Twinkies are asking for the moon right now.