EDIT: Now with Adrian Nieto!
Due to the Top ## prospect lists coming out from sites like BA, Fangraphs, larry's head, I decided it would be an interesting exercise to try and come up with an entirely stat-based formula to rank a list of White Sox minor league players. Thanks to whomever it was who made that one comment that one time that gave me enough motivation to do this.
In creating this ranking list, I considered a player's age, current league, position (barely), OPS, BB/K, XBH/AB and gave small consideration to SB and CS numbers. A scaled difference between a players age and the league average age was used as a multiplier of a sum of points obtained from other statistics to obtain the final score. The average ages for each league were found on Fangraphs, and were as follows:
Level | Rank | Average Age | |
Rookie SS | 0 | 19.4 | |
Adv Rookie | 1 | 20.9 | |
A | 2 | 21.2 | |
A+ | 3 | 22.4 | |
AA | 4 | 23.8 | |
AAA | 5 | 25.5 | 28.2 |
MLB | 6 | 27 |
The average age of AAA players was dropped to 25.5 from 28.2 due to the existence of older, organizational, non-prospect players right-skewing the average, and the average age of MLB players was taken to be 27 as an arbitrary age at which I felt a player should no longer be considered a prospect (that, and 27 seemed to fit the overall increase trend between levels).
Players got points added to the pre-multiplied total based on their most common position(s), with catcher being worth the most at 9 points, followed by SS at 8, down to 1B at 2 points (not quite a 9,8,7,...,2 scale but close enough). Thus, concerns about Tim Anderson staying at SS or Micah Johnson staying at 2B were not considered. This is based only on what has happened in a player's MiLB career, with no projection.
When available, I considered a player's past three seasons to get a better idea of an overall trend. However, since adaptation is a rather common thing in the minors, I considered both a straight average and a weighted average (most weight given to the most recent year) of the past three years. I also used a consensus top prospect, Wil Myers, to make sure this wasn't giving me total crap.
Before the table, a few things to note: if a players was at multiple levels in a single season, I had to take an average of the points they obtained at each level. The average was weighted by how many ABs he had at each level. Also, I considered age at the beginning of the season only. I realize this gave some added points to those with April/May birthdays, but I didn't think of it at the time. Lastly, I noticed that high-average, low-walk, low-power players got a bit of the shaft in this scale, but I felt that minor league Juan Pierre's with less speed really aren't that valuable, and thus just decided to leave them screwed.
Lastly, I ordered these players by "Composite Rank," an average of a players 2013 rank and their 3-year weighted average rank. To the list (non-comprehensive -- 22 players I was curious about + Myers + Chris Curley to appease/piss off a certain someone).
Player | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | Average | Wght Avg | 2013 Rank | Avg Rank | Wht Avg Rank | Composite rank |
Wil Myers | 81.96 | 110.97 | 91.36 | 94.76 | 96.33 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1.5 |
Marcus Semien | 54.33 | 72.9 | 93.19 | 73.47 | 79.95 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Matt Davidson | 72.61 | 84.18 | 86.42 | 81.07 | 83.37 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2.5 |
Avisail Garcia | 47.7 | 56.76 | 79.85 | 61.44 | 66.79 | 4 | 9 | 6 | 5 |
Rangel Ravelo | 68.23 | 60.82 | 72.22 | 67.09 | 67.76 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Jacob May | 71.84 | 71.84 | 71.84 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | ||
Trayce Thompson | 61.65 | 66.76 | 61.30 | 63.24 | 63.18 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7.5 |
Courtney Hawkins | 71.2 | 57.69 | 64.44 | 63.09 | 11 | 7 | 8 | 9.5 | |
Miguel Gonzalez | 52.5 | 49.59 | 62.93 | 55.01 | 56.75 | 7 | 17 | 13 | 10 |
Adam Engel | 57.61 | 57.61 | 57.61 | 12 | 13 | 10 | 11 | ||
Adrian Nieto | 56.97 | 49.12 | 59.84 | 55.31 | 55.79 | 9 | 16 | 15 | 12 |
Andy Wilkins | 60.58 | 59.68 | 54.73 | 58.33 | 57.36 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 12.5 |
Tyler Saladino | 76.26 | 65.06 | 53.31 | 64.88 | 61.05 | 16 | 6 | 9 | 12.5 |
Micah Johnson | 53.75 | 57.07 | 55.41 | 55.74 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 14.5 | |
Dan Black | 46.29 | 50.62 | 58.36 | 51.76 | 53.77 | 10 | 21 | 20 | 15 |
Carlos Sanchez | 54.02 | 69.58 | 50.20 | 57.93 | 57.30 | 19 | 12 | 12 | 15.5 |
Josh Phegley | 54.4 | 55.12 | 53.93 | 54.48 | 54.41 | 15 | 19 | 19 | 17 |
Jordan Danks | 61.73 | 65.49 | 49.25 | 58.82 | 56.74 | 20 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
Joey DeMichele | 56.34 | 53.19 | 54.76 | 54.45 | 17 | 18 | 18 | 17.5 | |
Keon Barnum | 64.47 | 47.93 | 56.20 | 54.54 | 21 | 14 | 17 | 19 | |
Tim Anderson | 53.08 | 53.08 | 53.08 | 18 | 20 | 21 | 19.5 | ||
Keenyn Walker | 36.13 | 59.93 | 39.69 | 45.25 | 45.85 | 23 | 23 | 22 | 22.5 |
Chris Curley | 39.24 | 43.14 | 41.19 | 41.58 | 22 | 24 | 24 | 23 | |
Jared Mitchell | 46.75 | 62.08 | 27.91 | 45.58 | 42.44 | 25 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
Sammy Ayala | 32.5 | 30.09 | 31.30 | 31.05 | 24 | 25 | 25 | 24.5 |
Apparently, Rangel Ravelo.
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