Baseball America top 100 prospects

[Dave B]

Probably a little too early to tell with most of last year's draft class other than SS.

good thing. or else wtfizzo

matzek, 23
green, 52
white, 65
james, 78
miller, 50
mier, 73
gibson, 61
mitchell, 55
trout, 85
jackson, 74

unfortunately, i had the time to look this up. fortunately, mozilla has some easy to use searching

[drunk jerk during olympic hockey intermission/]sign-a-bil-ity clap clap clap clap clap[drunk jerk during olympic hockey intermission/]

[DPMOmaha]

good thing. or else wtfizzo

matzek, 23
green, 52
white, 65
james, 78
miller, 50
mier, 73
gibson, 61
mitchell, 55
trout, 85
jackson, 74

unfortunately, i had the time to look this up. fortunately, mozilla has some easy to use searching

And, until they get to the bigs, does it really matter?  If Storen lives up to the selection and turns into the closer it looks like he could be and we all hope he will be, it will be well worth the pick.  I don't know how realistic it is to project a crop of players after half a season where several of them have even less than that.  It's probably not worth losing sleep over yet.  I've been pretty pleased with most of what Rizzo's done thus far.

[Dave B]

jus' sayin' because knorr pointed out bowden's flaw and it got me thinking surely with our renewed focused on such matters we wouldnt possibly make those same mistakes.

to be fair, though, the new scouts werent scouting at the time of the 2009 draft. so i guess we shouldnt expect a more efficient draft until 2010.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Dave, if you think I'm defending Rizzo in any capacity, you're mistaken.  I've blasted him on this forum recently, and I also blasted him back when he took Storen over Matzek.  I still think that will end up being a mistake, but I hope I'm wrong.

[Dave B]

Dave, if you think I'm defending Rizzo in any capacity, you're mistaken.  I've blasted him on this forum recently, and I also blasted him back when he took Storen over Matzek.  I still think that will end up being a mistake, but I hope I'm wrong.

no. just after you brought it up, i looked to see if there were any "mistakes" this year, because now we have a gm who is supposed to be doing things right. rizzo, bowden, who cares? i'm just waiting until we start winning however it happens

[JCA-CrystalCity]

If you do not think a closer is as valuable as a #3 starter, then you are going to downgrade prospects who are likely to peak as a closer.  that is BA and that is Storen.  If you value closers and a high likelihood of appearing in MLB, then you rank Storen in the top 50, like MLB.com.  They had him 1 slot ahead of Crow.

[tomterp]

If you do not think a closer is as valuable as a #3 starter, then you are going to downgrade prospects who are likely to peak as a closer.  that is BA and that is Storen.  If you value closers and a high likelihood of appearing in MLB, then you rank Storen in the top 50, like MLB.com.  They had him 1 slot ahead of Crow.

Inspired by your post, I dumped the BP Pitcher by VORP rankings for 2009, to see how the top relievers ranked among all pitchers.  If you accept VORP is a proxy for "value", the answer is a resounding YES, that closers (or any reliever) can be as valuable as #3, or even #2 starters, though none cracked the top 30.  But a boatload were in the top 124 of all pitchers (went down far enough to include the first Nat), which makes them #3 starter equivalent or better (starters ranking from 61-90 by VORP:

Note:  This list is simply those pitchers with 0 starts, ranked by VORP.  Probably some with a handful of starts that were excluded.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Inspired by your post, I dumped the BP Pitcher by VORP rankings for 2009, to see how the top relievers ranked among all pitchers.  If you accept VORP is a proxy for "value", the answer is a resounding YES, that closers (or any reliever) can be as valuable as #3, or even #2 starters, though none cracked the top 30.  But a boatload were in the top 124 of all pitchers (went down far enough to include the first Nat), which makes them #3 starter equivalent or better (starters ranking from 61-90 by VORP:

Very interesting.  That's definitely different from my own conventional wisdom.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

You cheated.  There are a boat load of middle guys (jamesian relief aces, not closers) who pitch in higher leverage situations! I said closers. 

That is really neat stuff.  Still, the absolute elite performers from 2009 had 4 closers (1 set up guy) out of 30 teams in the #2 starter range. Also, we can't be too sure about whether Bailey is a one hit wonder.  I'm disturbed to see Lyon rated that high.  A pitcher like Storen I don't see projected to be Papelbon / Rivera / Nathan by anyone, so that knocks him down to the #3 by VORP range.  There is probably a longevity estimate, too, in the thinking that a closer prospect is < a #3 starter prospect. Without reading the top 100 write ups, I'd be curious how many projected relievers are above #91.  Don't count Feliz.

[blue911]

Inspired by your post, I dumped the BP Pitcher by VORP rankings for 2009, to see how the top relievers ranked among all pitchers.  If you accept VORP is a proxy for "value", the answer is a resounding YES, that closers (or any reliever) can be as valuable as #3, or even #2 starters, though none cracked the top 30.  But a boatload were in the top 124 of all pitchers (went down far enough to include the first Nat), which makes them #3 starter equivalent or better (starters ranking from 61-90 by VORP:

Note:  This list is simply those pitchers with 0 starts, ranked by VORP.  Probably some with a handful of starts that were excluded.

Was the cut off, 50IP?

[tomterp]

Was the cut off, 50IP?

No, I went as far down as I had to go to find a Nat.  So it was a "first Nat" cutoff.

[blue911]

No, I went as far down as I had to go to find a Nat.  So it was a "first Nat" cutoff.

What was Daniel Bard's rating? (His base numbers are at least as good as Takashi Saito's is why I ask.)

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Was the cut off, 50IP?

No, I went as far down as I had to go to find a Nat.  So it was a "first Nat" cutoff.

Looking at that list and the IP, it does look like BP used a 50 inning cut.  Bard went 49 and change.

[PANatsFan]

Storen gets points for readiness for the show, makeup, and projectability.