Spring 2011 Top 30 Prospects With New Ratings

By On February 24, 2011 · 31 Comments · In Prospects

Yesterday, I announced a new prospect rating system that I wanted to use to rank Yankee prospects. There are significant changes from my list half a year ago, mostly because the rating system forced me to more logically think out the rankings, but also because some offseason news changed my opinions slightly.

To refresh: the numerical rating is called the Talent Rating, and it stands for a player’s reasonable ceiling. The letter rating is called the Risk Rating, and it stands for how likely they are to become MLB regulars at that Talent Rating. Full details are at the link above.

I would like to reiterate: I received a lot of questions about what the rating system represents on twitter yesterday. They are entirely qualitative – that is, they represent my opinion about the prospects. I tried to be consistent – for example, all young pitchers without a full season of pitching were rated High risk of injury, and the distance ratings roughly correspond with minor league level – but some of my own bias did turn up. I’ve been doing this prospect blogging thing for five years now, so my gut and hunches absolutely play a role. What the system is intended to do is to more clearly define what my opinion about a prospect is. Matt and Sean and others here have internally discussed ways to systematize it, but that involves a lot of math which I’m not particularly good at.

Here’s the list:

Remember that with any list, a lot of prospects are interchangeable. Graham Stoneburner is sitting at #14 with a 7.0D, and JR Murphy is at #21 with the exact same score. That should be a signal that everyone in between is relatively equal in terms of value. The rough tiers are 1-5, 6-13, 14-22, and 23-30. Jeremy Bleich just missed at 31, along with roughly 15 honorable mentions that I ranked. When it comes time to preview individual minor league clubs, those players will show up.

I don’t want to speak too much about individual players, though I’d be happy to answer questions in the comments section.

Thoughts? Is the system worth keeping?

Update - A lot of people have asked about how I rate injury risk. like anything else qualitative, the end result is just my opinion about how likely the player is to suffer a career-threatening injury. However, I tried to be very consistent with the criteria I used. For example, I rated all the young pitchers who have yet to pitch a full season as High, but all the young position players in similar spots as Moderate. That’s a preference, but I think it holds up to history.

I rated guys like Brett Marshall and David Adams as High risk, because they have both recently suffered very severe injuries, and I want to see them play significant time without hitting the disabled list.

The low risk ratings went to older guys who had either held up after multiple full seasons, or had pitched quite a few innings in the past two seasons.

I hope that clears things up.

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31 Responses to Spring 2011 Top 30 Prospects With New Ratings

  1. says:
    February 24, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    E.J.,

    I very much like the idea of a ranking system. Not so sure I’m sold on the letter and number mix. But the concept is excellent. Great job.

    Reply
  2. Tweets that mention Spring 2011 Top 30 Prospects With New Ratings | New York Yankees blog, Yankees blog, A blog about the New York Yankees | The Yankee Analysts -- Topsy.com says:
    February 24, 2011 at 1:36 pm

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Larry Koestler and Larry Koestler, moshetya. moshetya said: New post: Spring 2011 Top 30 Prospects With New Ratings http://bit.ly/hdeTHp [...]

    Reply
  3. says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    Again i like it the concept and the system as a whole but now that i see the rankings on larger scale i tend to agree with Dick about the letter/number combo.

    And, for me at least, it’s not as much having a problem with what it stands for as i find it kinda blah to read. Perhaps something as simple as a hyphen between the number grade and the risk rating could do wonders for it’s literacy.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Reply
  4. AndrewYF says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    Isn’t Gary Sanchez starting the year in Charleston?

    Reply
  5. says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    Also, the injury risk bit has been a hot button issue on twitter, which you’re aware of i’m sure. So I, like others, wouldn’t mind getting a more detailed explanation of how you came up with your injury risk conclusions.

    Reply
  6. Ted says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    You are complicating something that doesn’t need complicating.

    Reply
  7. EJ Fagan says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Injury explanations added to the post. Discuss.

    Reply
  8. Bryan says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:02 pm

    I think it’s a great idea. Rankings without specifying reasons for rankings don’t inform the same way as this. Unfortunately making rankings under this system would require a lot more work. The first thing I thought of was you needed to provide small captions why the risks were as they were.

    All in all its something I hope will catch on.

    Congrats.

    Reply
  9. Moshe Mandel says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    Question, EJ. Doesn’t the first part of your injury risk criteria run into the distance risk category?

    Reply
    • EJ Fagan says:
      February 24, 2011 at 3:09 pm

      Yeah, I mentioned that yesterday. Theoretically, distance risk is unnecessary, because all it really represents is general uncertainty over time. But I think its important when assessing the overall riskiness of a prospect, and can be separated from general injury risk. Basically, Dellin Betances and Gabe Encinas are High injury risks for very different reasons, and that’s only possible by noting the distance risk.

      Reply
  10. DW says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    You stink! Your hatred for NUNEZ is disgusting!

    Reply
    • Moshe Mandel says:
      February 24, 2011 at 3:33 pm

      Tell us how you really feel.

      Seriously, though, I would have Nunez higher, but I get the ranking. Not much ceiling there at all.

      Reply
      • EJ Fagan says:
        February 24, 2011 at 3:49 pm

        He’s also dramatically overrated on the defense side of things. Lots of tools, not a lot of innate talent. He’s a bench player.

        Reply
        • T.O Chris says:
          February 24, 2011 at 7:46 pm

          Yeah I really never see Nunez being more than a bench player i his career, I was actually kind of surprised to see some Braves fans kicking around trades for Lowe that almost had Nunez coming back to them.

          Reply
  11. EJ Fagan says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    I’d like to add something that’s a bit long for twitter: I really don’t think the injury risk ratings should be all that controversial. Injury risk is really easy to assess. The guys who have proven themselves to be healthy for a long period of time are Low. The guys who are completely unproven or coming off a major injury are high. Everyone else is moderate. Its really that simple.

    I actually think its a lot plainer to see than Talent Risk, which involves me weighing questions like, “What are the chances that Jesus sticks at catcher? What would his Talent Rating be if he does not? How much of a risk is Adam Warren’s poor secondary pitch arsenal? Did Melky Mesa break out for real, or are the strikeouts going to come back? Injuries are a lot less squishy.

    Reply
  12. Sean P. says:
    February 24, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    I think part of the injury problem is that you can break it down in different ways. Some guys are prone to tons of injuries like Christian Garcia. But a guy who has not had a major injury in his entire life like David Adams and then gets a freak ankle break does not deserve to have the same ranking. An ankle break is not like arm surgery obviously- it’s just a freak thing that no one seriously expects to hinder him- not BA, BP, or Klaw.

    I understand it’s just you guessing basically on this stuff and injecting your opinion as are most prospect lists. I think the only reason there’s a bit of a push back on this thing is because instead of just “Oh man how can X be higher than Y?” now there is “Oh man how can X be higher than Y and how can Z’s injury rating be lower than R’s and what in God’s name is W’s talent rating higher than Q’s?” Just more to question.

    I personally will really look forward in the future to making this even marginally objective because I think that could have a lot of potential. It’s a nice, easy to digest system.

    Reply
  13. DW says:
    February 24, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    Fagan you’re useless when it comes to this! Why waste your time?

    Reply
  14. The Yankee Analysts Top 30 Prospects | River Avenue Blues says:
    February 24, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    [...] a heads up, E.J. Fagan over at The Yankee Analysts recently posted his list of the top 30 Yankees prospects. His top five matches my top five exactly, [...]

    Reply
  15. mbonzo says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Nice list EJ. I really like the risk possibilities which is something I rarely see. One problem I have with it though is the amount of pitchers that are low injury risk. I personally think very few pitching prospects could be considered low injury risk just because of the nature of the position.

    Reply
    • EJ Fagan says:
      February 24, 2011 at 10:47 pm

      I definitely agree with you on that. If you read yesterday’s post explaining the rankings, I specified that I was talking about relative risk rather than overall risk. There’s tons of uncertainty in the safest of prospects.

      Reply
  16. EJ Fagan says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:43 pm

    Note that Moshe just pointed out that I forgot to include Laird due to a copy and paste error. He’s a 6.0 B, slotted in between Adams and Stoneburner. I’ll fix the graphic tomorrow morning.

    Reply
  17. The scouting scale explained | New York Yankees blog, Yankees blog, A blog about the New York Yankees | The Yankee Analysts says:
    February 25, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    [...] light of the recent release of EJ’s excellent Top 30 list (and new grading methods) and Baseball America’s Top 100, I thought this would be an [...]

    Reply
  18. YankeesVine » Blog Archive » New Ratings’ Top 30 Yankees Prospects says:
    February 25, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    [...] New Ratings’ Top 30 Yankees Prospects [...]

    Reply
  19. Looking at Eduardo Nunez | New York Yankees blog, Yankees blog, A blog about the New York Yankees | The Yankee Analysts says:
    March 1, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    [...] [...]

    Reply

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