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Live every week like it's Prospect Week

2281_tiny by DanUpBaby on

The stars have aligned such that this is Prospect Week: John Sickels released his eagerly awaited Top Twenty Sunday night, and Kevin Goldstein is due to release his top eleven for Baseball Prospectus on Wednesday. The major surprises on the Sickels list, I think, are Bryan Anderson at eight and Clay Mortensen at 17. 

Anderson I agree with. As I said when I was ranking prospects at my old gig, I'm terrified of prospects with one skill who run out of the others too soon: the control pitchers who stop striking people out completely at AAA, the power pitchers whose walk rates go up as they climb the system, and in this case, the contact hitter who can't punish mistakes in the high minors.

What's worrying about Anderson is that he's not making any progress at his secondary skills as he moves through the system; they're actually deteriorating. Look at Anderson's isolated power trend through the minors:

YEAR LG G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG ISO
2005 R 51 154 51 8 1 6 .331 .383 .513 182
2006 A 109 381 115 29 3 3 .302 .377 .417 115
2007/8 AA 122 469 147 20 1 8 .313 .358 .412 099
2008 AAA 73 235 66 13 2 2 .281 .367 .379 098

Of course these are still really good numbers; he's been young for every league. But even the players who hit around .300 with low ISOs hit for some power in the minors—they had enough to burn that, by the time they hit the Major Leagues, they were still capable of doing enough damage to keep the bat from getting knocked out of their hands. 

Here's a frivolous, arbitrary, but vaguely pertinent Baseball Reference P-I list: at least 400 PA, .280 or better batting average, .100 or worse ISO. That gives nine players, two of whom should be intimately familiar to you right now. There are some examples, there are some counterexamples; Alexi Casilla's a very well-regarded young second baseman, and he never managed an ISO higher than Anderson's, and neither did Yadier Molina—who was, for what it's worth, rushed through the minors—or Ryan Theriot. But Aaron Miles put up a .150 ISO in AAA. Anderson's not a speedster like Casilla or Juan Pierre, either. 

I haven't done a study on it any more thorough than that P-I search, but here's my concern, in the form of a baseless generalization: in general, the pitchers who get by with fringy strikeout rates, the hitters who get by without hitting for any power... they weren't already That Guy in the minors. Aaron Miles hit 34 doubles one year; Brian Bannister struck out a ton of bush leaguers. Andyrsyn's still got a lot of time to show off some doubles power, but this system is finally deep enough that a guy who needs time to develop can do it in the back of the top ten. 

Another thing that's going to be interesting to watch as prospect rankings come out from all of the usual sources: the placement of David Freese and Allen Craig, the bat-first third basemen currently chasing one-another around the high minors. Sickels, a long-time fan of Craig, has them at 12 and 14, with Freese taking the lead. Future Redbirds has a great roundtable discussion up today concerning the two; their recent Top 20 had Craig at 12 and Freese at 7. 

One final thing about Sickels's list: I like that he includes a lot of Honorable Mentions at the bottom of the list. In a superficial way, they're confidence-boosters: they say, "This prospect isn't top 20 material, Dan, but you're not wasting your time by checking his stats every night. Someone who actually knows how to value prospects shares your interest."

That's why I was so sad to see Thomas Pham, my tools goof white whale, not make the cut. He's so fast! He hits for such power! He's so incapable of doing anything else! If he'd made the honorable mentions I'd have held out a little more hope for a Daryl Jones-style breakout season; now my nightly look at his spot in the box score will take on a more mournful air. 

On an unrelated note, I was very happy to learn that the blogger formerly known as the 26th Man—I'd link to The 26th Man, but suffice it to say that after some spammers grabbed the domain name it is less about baseball and more about sexual deviancy—is back writing about the Cardinals as the Five O'Clock Blogger. At the moment he's soliciting advice on the Lineup of the Damned, a project designed to construct Cardinals fans' least favorite lineup of all time, and he'd like some VEB input.

He picked Kenny Lofton, based on his antics in the 2002 NLCS. After minimal deliberation—which is, I think, the right kind of deliberation for this kind of project—I've decided on Carlos Zambrano. His mini-feud with Jim Edmonds, culminating in a home run follow-through that was long and majestic even by JIm Edmonds standards, was a great moment in mustache-twirling history, and every rivalry needs its villains. 

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My Hall of Fame Ballot

2281_tiny by DanUpBaby on

So I was talking it over with the BBWAA, the other day—we keep in touch—and if I'm reading this restraining order correctly it seems I've been denied a Hall of Fame ballot for the fifth year in a row. It's alright: I've been jilted before. No need to launch protests on my behalf, unless you'd really like to, or you are—or are someone close to—Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Mark McGwire, or Alan Trammell. I can fend for myself. But look at the note someone's attached:

Dear Mr. Up,

You write about one team on a blog that often employs fictional characters and framing devices, which does not currently fit the criteria necessary for BBWAA membership. And if we were to count backward from our ten year eligibility requirement we would have to include the Chicago Bulls newsletter you wrote when you were eleven, with hand-drawn pictures of John Salley on it. We've already taken it up with the rules committee, and—as you're no doubt aware—they ruled 4-1 against. 

Please stop contacting us. I've instructed the mailman to stop delivering letters written on Ray Lankford stationary. 

Yours firmly,

The BBWAA

P.S. We appreciate the Ripper Collins anecdote. It was delightful!

Would you look at that! I don't think I need to spell it out for you, but I will: they've offered me a ballot, so long as I fill it with nobody but Cardinals. It's an expertise thing, and I understand. Since it's Monday, and we've talked more about Aaron Miles than anybody needs to, I've decided to reproduce here the ballot I'm just about to send (anonymously, as per the terms of the order) to the BBWAA.

Since things seemed a little restrictive as is, I decided to make the ballot available to all players, regardless of their eligibility or active status, who are no longer members of the Cardinals. I hope my contact inside will understand. I'm going in order of time spent away from St. Louis. That means we start with...

"PARISIAN BOB" CARUTHERS
Y G GS IP W L K BB HR ERA
1885 53 53 482.3 40 13 190 57 3 2.07
1886 44 43 387.3 30 14 166 86 3 2.32
1887 39 39 341 29 9 74 61 6 3.30
1888 44 43 391.7 29 15 140 53 4 2.39
1889 56 50 445 40 11 118 104 16 3.13
9 Years 340 310 2828.7 218 99 900 597 59 2.83

"Parisian Bob", who earned his nickname from a bit of savvy trans-continental contract negotiation in 1885, played for Chris von der Ahe's American Association St. Louis Browns from 1884 to 1887, leading the proto-Cardinals to three straight pennants before the eccentric von der Ahe went bust and had to sell off his stars.

Of course, what do you do with these stats? Pitchers in his day threw from a pitcher's box fifty feet away from home plate and could basically take a running start. Teams had two starters—Caruthers platooned with "Scissors" Foutz, who was also sold to Brooklyn—and DIPS theory and everything else you've ever used to evaluate pitchers is more or less out the window in an era in which home runs were usually on balls in play and nobody struck out. Caruthers won a lot of games, had low ERAs, and was one of the four or five best pitchers in baseball for most of his career, which in this case means four years. Borderline Hall of Fame stuff, with such a short career, but any Parisian Bob fan knows there's a kicker due right about now:

"PARISIAN BOB" CARUTHERS THE HITTER
Y G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG
1885 60 222 50 10 2 1 .225 .289 .302
1886 87 317 106 21 14 4 .334 .448 .527
1887 98 364 130 23 11 8 .357 .463 .527
1888 94 335 77 10 5 5 .230 .328 .334
1889 59 172 43 8 3 2 .250 .408 .366
9 Years 705 2465 695 104 50 29 .282 .391 .400

Yep: Caruthers is the forgotten two-way player. He led the league in wins in 1885, OPS in 1886. His career OPS+ is 133, his ERA+ 123. Nine years is a short career, but it would've been a lot longer if he'd split his duties up the Rick Ankiel way instead of doing things all at once. Put together, you have a guy who, at his brief peak, had an arguable case as both the best pitcher and the best hitter in the American Association. (And while his nickname is not as cool as "Scissors", it's still kind of cool.) A definite Yes. 

TED SIMMONS
Y G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG
1975 157 581 193 32 3 18 .332 .396 .491
1976 150 546 159 35 3 5 .291 .371 .394
1977 150 516 164 25 3 21 .318 .408 .500
1978 152 516 148 40 5 22 .287 .377 .512
1979 123 448 127 22 0 26 .283 .369 .507
21 Years 2456 8680 2472 483 47 248 .285 .391 .437

Famously kicked off the ballot in 1993, he might be the most concrete example, along with Fred McGriff and—gulp—Tim Raines, of a player who ruined his image by sticking around "too long." Simmons spending three years as Ozzie Virgil's backup on some awful Braves squads didn't make his peak any less impressive, but it pushed it three years further away from his first Hall of Fame ballot.

That's just about the only explanation I can come up with for how a player so well-regarded in his own time—an eight time all-star—can receive so little Hall of Fame attention, but Simmons was in a bad place anyway; he was a hitting catcher with a shaky defensive rep, and there really isn't any template for what that kind of player has to do to make the Hall of Fame. His numbers wouldn't merit induction if he were a corner outfielder, and for much of the Hall's history its voters have been basically unable to adjust its perceptions beyond that for offensive-minded players at other positions. Another Yes. 

KEN BOYER
Y G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG
1958 150 570 175 21 9 23 .307 .369 .496
1959 149 563 174 18 5 28 .309 .384 .508
1960 151 552 168 26 10 32 .304 .370 .562
1961 153 589 194 26 11 24 .329 .397 .533
1962 160 611 178 27 5 24 .291 .369 .470
15 Years 2034 7455 2143 318 68 282 .287 .349 .462
SCOTT ROLEN
Y G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG
2000 128 483 144 32 6 26 .298 .370 .551
2001 151 554 160 39 1 25 .289 .378 .498
2002 155 580 154 29 8 31 .266 .357 .503
2003 154 559 160 49 1 28 .286 .382 .528
2004 142 500 157 32 4 34 .314 .409 .598
13 Years 1620 5906 1665 410 35 272 .282 .370 .501

I had a lot of trouble with Ken Boyer. Basically, if he's a Hall of Fame third baseman, he's the line; his career isn't all that long, his peak isn't all that high, and his case is dependent on how highly you value his defense. I'm on the fence. Hopefully the BBWAA will send me another Secret Cardinals-Only Ballot next year, so that I'm able to keep pondering the question, but for now I've got to say No. 

I put Scott Rolen here because I figured the Monday after New Years is a great time to make everybody sad. He has a higher peak than Boyer already, but his shoulder is going to be a big, crumbling question mark for the rest of his career. As the most astonishing defensive player I've personally witnessed, I always hoped he would continue gliding toward the Hall of Fame so that it would be easier to boast to my hypothetical children about watching him play. We could look at the plaque, on our hypothetical Cooperstown trip, and I could say: Yep. Arm like a cannon. He'd start diving before a ball was hit, and then he'd throw it to first base before he caught it. A hot corner robot, he was. But that's going to be a tough road now; barring a few more comeback years like 2006, he's going to hit the ballot on a Ted Simmons-y note. 

MARK McGWIRE
Y G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG
1996 130 423 132 21 0 52 .312 .467 .730
1997 156 540 148 27 0 58 .274 .393 .646
1998 15 5 509 152 21 0 70 .299 .470 .752
1999 153 521 145 21 1 65 .278 .424 .697
2000 89 236 72 8 0 32 .305 .483 .746
16 Years 1874 6187 1626 252 6 583 .263 .394 .588

Yes. To pillory McGwire and the other nineties sluggers for something nobody cared about at the time is moving the goalposts a little too much for my taste. Lots of people used steroids, we'll never know who did and who didn't, and that's the way baseball was at the time. People seem to want to let the dust settle, or wait for things to clear up, but it's not going to get any clearer than it is now: Major League Baseball tacitly accepted steroid use from the late 80s to the early aughts. That we feel guilty about it now is no reason to whitewash the things that happened in that decade. I hate to use a football analogy, now or ever, but if you're going to throw the challenge flag you should do it before everybody's moved on to the next play. 

In that context, McGwire hit home runs at an unimaginable pace. He made single at-bats into appointment TV. He put baseball back at the front of the sports page, where it belongs. It was a lot of fun. 

JIM EDMONDS
Y G AB H 2B 3B HR AVG OBP SLG
2000 152 525 155 25 0 42 .295 .411 .583
2001 150 500 152 38 1 30 .304 .410 .564
2002 144 476 148 31 2 28 .311 .420 .561
2003 137 447 123 32 2 39 .275 .385 .617
2004 153 498 150 38 3 42 .301 .418 .643
16 Years 1925 6612 1881 414 25 382 .284 .377 .528

It's funny; when I started putting out my intermittent Jim Edmonds Hall of Fame apologia, I always had to deal with the specter of Andruw Jones, who was undoubtedly going to put up absurd counting stats on the back of his early start and overtake Edmonds, who at that point was beginning his swift decline from the incredible peak illustrated in the table. That seems kind of quaint, now that, to facilitate a trade, Jones and the Dodgers are arranging to have his salary paid out in the form of a lifetime subscription to the State Quarter of the Month club.

Anyway, a vote for Jim Edmonds is the ultimate vote for peak performance. He's played nine full-ish seasons, and they're all Hall of Fame caliber. Aside from that you've got two bad half-seasons in 1994 and 2007, a fragment in 1999, and two pretty good ones in 2006 and 2008. But the real case zooms in even further than that: for five years, his first five with the Cardinals, Jim Edmonds was one of the best center fielders ever. It's debatable whether or not he's a Hall of Famer on the whole, and it would help him to stumble over 400 home runs and 2000 hits before he hangs them up, but from 2000 to 2004 he was historically great. As I've been writing about since 2005: Yes. 

So that's what I've got. I'd like to thank the BBWAA for giving me special voting privileges; these Cardinals for providing so many enjoyable moments over the years; and the Law Offices of Boyer, Boyer, and Boyer, for letting me know that I'll have the opportunity to appeal the BBWAA's order as soon as the Hall of Fame ceremonies are over. 

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