About 50% of the guys on that list have earned their keep. Some (Greinke, Kazmir, Hamels, Santana, Hernandez) are among the best young pitchers in the game. Others (Jenks, Cordero) have been very good young bullpen guys. The ones that have been derailed seem to have become so as a result of injuries.
That’s why there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect. Injuries are impossible to predict, and there are such a variety of injuries a pitcher can suffer.
Mark in CC
That is why they are prospects. If it weren’t for injuries and other things they would be “sure things”.
And all injuries aren’t impossible to predict. Take Scott Williamson. He was a prospect turned ROY but you knew with that motion some day his arm would fall off and it eventually did. What made him a prospect was you didn’t know if it would happen in the minors or majors.
Sorry I’m not living up to your standards, Mark. You’re correct about everything, as usual. I bow to your wisdom. You’re clearly the smartest guy in the room.
I guess that may be why you need to draft twice as many pitchers as you need. That, or be as rich as the NYY and let everyone else develop them then buy them.
David
I totally agree with you Mark. No pitching prospect is a sure thing. Prospects are just that…
Sometime if you are a BA member look through the top 100 prospects of all time. For the most part, the top pitchers pan out, as a group, far less than any other position. However, there are also far more pitching prospects than there are positional prospects.
It’d be interesting to see a per position analysis which provides a percentage of top 100 position players which reach the 25-man rosters as compared to top 100 pitchers which reach the 25-man roster. It’d also be interesting to see the aggregate and median salary of pitching prospects v. positional prospects which reach the majors as a barometer of how many positional prospects v. pitching prospects survive long enough to hit FA.
brublejr
That group overall is a pretty good list of hurlers. Too bad the Reds picked one that had all the problems and couldn’t recover.
Mark from CC
Keep plugging away. Some day you will be there.
Glenn
Ryan Wagner was the Homer Bailey of his era…Gulp!
GregD
Re: wagner & bailey – Because he was a highly rated Reds prospect?
About 50% of the guys on that list have earned their keep. Some (Greinke, Kazmir, Hamels, Santana, Hernandez) are among the best young pitchers in the game. Others (Jenks, Cordero) have been very good young bullpen guys. The ones that have been derailed seem to have become so as a result of injuries.
That’s why there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect. Injuries are impossible to predict, and there are such a variety of injuries a pitcher can suffer.
That is why they are prospects. If it weren’t for injuries and other things they would be “sure things”.
And all injuries aren’t impossible to predict. Take Scott Williamson. He was a prospect turned ROY but you knew with that motion some day his arm would fall off and it eventually did. What made him a prospect was you didn’t know if it would happen in the minors or majors.
Sorry Chad your argument is kind of weak.
Heh.
Sorry I’m not living up to your standards, Mark. You’re correct about everything, as usual. I bow to your wisdom. You’re clearly the smartest guy in the room.
That’s actually a pretty good class of pitchers. I don’t think that group makes the argument against being able to predict prospects.
All I know is that Ty Howington is a sure thing and the only question I have is, “does he break camp with the big league club?”
I guess that may be why you need to draft twice as many pitchers as you need. That, or be as rich as the NYY and let everyone else develop them then buy them.
I totally agree with you Mark. No pitching prospect is a sure thing. Prospects are just that…
Sometime if you are a BA member look through the top 100 prospects of all time. For the most part, the top pitchers pan out, as a group, far less than any other position. However, there are also far more pitching prospects than there are positional prospects.
It’d be interesting to see a per position analysis which provides a percentage of top 100 position players which reach the 25-man rosters as compared to top 100 pitchers which reach the 25-man roster. It’d also be interesting to see the aggregate and median salary of pitching prospects v. positional prospects which reach the majors as a barometer of how many positional prospects v. pitching prospects survive long enough to hit FA.
That group overall is a pretty good list of hurlers. Too bad the Reds picked one that had all the problems and couldn’t recover.
Keep plugging away. Some day you will be there.
Ryan Wagner was the Homer Bailey of his era…Gulp!
Re: wagner & bailey – Because he was a highly rated Reds prospect?