This week's question regards prospect evaluation. The Digest writing team was posed the following question this past week, on the heels of the First-year player draft:
How do you determine when to "give up" on a prospect, and should MLB teams be quicker or slower about trying to trade away players picked early in the draft who appear to be on a downward trend?
There were a variety of replies, from Eric SanInocencio, Gordon Berger, Jonathan Hale, Paul Bugala, Tyler Maas, and guest contributor Dean Carrasco.
Enjoy the varied opinions below, and feel free to comment. The “Tuesday Afternoon Chatter” discussions will be featured every week, and suggestions for future topics of discussion are also welcome.
Eric:
This question is hard to determine, because each individual prospect has a huge hand in determining when the "end" of their status approaches. Many factors including playing background, service time and future position come into play when making this assessment. However, in attempts to answer your question, I'll give you a quick synopsis of when that end of the rope may be.
In terms of high school draftees, I think extra leeway has to be given in terms of where their development is. Depending on what area of the country and program they played in, it seems that at least five years of control should be mandatory. If they enter the organization at 17 or 18 years of age, you'd have to let them physically mature before you can know what type of player they will become. With the 40-man roster requirements in place, the actual time they have is often dictated within that six year period. This is the right amount to me, and gives a good idea of the close to final product the "prospect" has become.
College draftees are another issue, due to the advanced stage of their career in terms of prospect status. The best college "prospects" should often breeze through the minor league system, while the solid but not spectacular players making noise within the first two to three years after they are selected. In terms of time, these picks' futures should be well known by their 24th or 25th birthday. That shortens their timetable to two or three seasons, depending on age when drafted. What I'm saying is that by age 25 they either need to be on the cusp of the big leagues, or firmly entrenched there already.
Gordon:
You waive your wand and hope for the best. Seriously, you consult your crystal ball. No, it really depends. Character issues have been always been the biggest question mark in investing in prospects. A case in point is Josh Hamilton. A scout with the Rays was quoted at the time Hamilton was drafted as saying that they chose Hamilton over pitcher Josh Beckett because of "character issues". Clearly, you can see how that turned out for the Rays.
In my experience, a lot of the decision-making comes down to after the draft, the player is signed and he has reported to his minor league club. For example, several years ago I represented a mid-round draft choice who had signed with the Toronto Blue Jays out of high school. The Jays assigned him to low Class A. The player was 18 years old. He kept getting in trouble with the team by missing curfew. It turns out that he was a bit undisciplined and fancied staying out late with the local girls. The Jays got tired of his behavior and suspended him a month into his career. He never played for them again.
There are other instances where teams give up on prospects, such as when they have a logjam at a position that he plays and where the player cannot be groomed to play another position. This is not necessary a logjam at the major league level; it may be at AAA or AA levels as well. If the player does not immediately perform as expected of a high-level pick, the team may use him to trade for another need.
Sometimes prospects seem as if they don't fit in with the chemistry on their team or with the club's philosophy, so they are shipped out for a change of scenery.
Of course, if a prospect cannot progress up the ladder and advance to higher level of competition, then it's time to cut ties.
Jonathan:
I think it's very hard for people who aren't involved day-to-day with a prospect to know when the right time is to give up on him. Sure we can track his stats at every level, but who really knows what's holding his tools back, or how likely that is to change. Maybe a player who has been incredibly disappointing just needs to learn how to hit a curveball and is showing signs of improvement that haven't translated into numbers quite yet, while another has a huge hole in his swing and doesn't listen- but for the time being is destroying mistake fastballs that aren't going to exist in the big leagues. Predicting the future of a player who is not fully developed well takes a lot more than dissecting their peripherals.
In general though, I think giving up on players with good tools should be done very rarely (unless the team has a specific reason, such as picking up someone VIA trade for a playoff run or swapping a player for a that major league club). Very rarely does a team get good value for a faded prospect, instead they end up selling low out of embarrassment and disappointment, a low-reward, high-risk venture. Without some sort of inside clubhouse information, if the team has put this much time and effort in, I think usually they may as well ride a prospect out and hope he's a late-bloomer instead of panicking, and giving in to the urge to get something, anything, for a player whose value has plummeted.
Paul:
The current economics of baseball mean that the approach to prospects varies from team to team. For example, a team like the Red Sox could more seriously consider trading prospects than a lower-revenue team. Because of its access to the free agent and international markets, Boston is less dependent on the draft and player development than lower-revenue teams.
However, a team like the Indians is more likely to be the buyer in a declining prospect trade (see Marte, Andy) or to hold onto prospects whom appear to be on a downward trend (see Crowe, Trevor; Miller, Adam; Goleski, Ryan). This tendency is probably stronger in Cleveland these days seeing how Brandon Phillips would look pretty nice at second base right about now.
More often than not, it takes the patience and dedication of an entire organization to turn a top draft pick into a productive major leaguer. Those who fall short far out number the successes. Some teams simply can expose themselves to the risk of trading a prospect too soon more often than others.
However, there's a lot to be said for organizational players who create an environment of professionalism and hustle on the farm. So, organizations that are committed to player development aren't only looking for front-line starters and middle of the order bats. For every player who makes it to the show there are dozens of organizational players who helped to get him there.
Tyler:
In a modern era that finds the MLB draft being aired on basic cable, the Internet fluttering with insight to virtually any kid who's ever stepped out on the field with any proficiency, and minor leaguers flying through the ranks at record speed, prospects are held to a higher expectation than ever before. But should all the scouting and expectations result in a scuffling prospect at the big league level, when is the right time to cut ties with the highly-touted prospect your organization once planned its future around?
Though the occurrence of a player failing to meet expectations is a familiar one, there are multiple factors that could lead to a team's rightful unloading.
Milwaukee second baseman Rickie Weeks seems to fit the criteria of a revered draftee who's failed to meet the possibly unattainable expectations placed upon him when he was taken second overall by the club in the 2003 draft. Once he reached the peak that countless fans and front office-types had anticipated since draft day, Rickie showed he was not the 30-30 bat so many were banking on, but was oft-injured and, furthermore, a liability in the field.
Three full seasons later, Weeks has yet to play a full season. He hasn't registered more than 16 homeruns or 42 RBI in a season and is presently shelved on the disabled list. If the Brewers were to try and trade him, they wouldn't get much in return; if they released him or benched him, they'd be shouldered with rushing another middle infield prospect to a post they're not yet ready to man, so they sit on him at second base and merely hope for flashes of the player they thought they drafted.
In retrospect, maybe the Brewers should have sold high on Weeks, but it was impossible to know whether his ceiling was even higher than anticipated. It never is. That's why Homer Bailey is floating in and out of Reds rotation (and Major League roster) and not underachieving for a 2007 contender. That's why Josh Hamilton and Elijah Dukes had to completely torch bridges in Tampa with their off the field behavior before they were finally sent packing.
In looking back on a team's handling of a star that never was, it's usually a would-of, could-of sort of thing, but at the time it's difficult to ship away a player you've piled years of hope, planning and expectation into and even harder to watch him finally play like the star he is for another team.
Dean:
I think bailing out early on a draft pick is generally not going to be a good gamble. There is more risk than reward to it.
The risk is that even if a player looks for all the world like a "flop" in his early career, he can easily turn it around on you. A newly drafted player is obviously competing against a higher level of baseball competition, but there is a lot more to it than that. Many of these guys have never lived away from home before, much less lived the hotel/motel lifestyle as they tour the backwoods of the country on an old bus. And as a multimillion-dollar contract beckons, the pressure ratchets up. If a very young adult isn't mature enough to handle all of this stuff perfectly right away... well, that's pretty normal. But he often can, given time. And even if the problem is strictly on the field -- the player doesn't recognize the breaking ball well, can't pitch a ball anywhere near the plate, etc. -- when we're talking about kids who are so young and so athletically gifted, there is still a good possibility that they will be able to pick up what they have to pick up.
And, what reward is there going to be if your worst suspicion is right, the youngster who is struggling is only going to get worse, and you do successfully pawn him off on some sucker? You're still not going to get much for him. Given that most folks in baseball management -- and with reason -- value a veteran highly, and see a guy in the low minors as the equivalent of a lottery ticket... you are going to get about as much for a floundering recent draftee, as you would get in exchange for a losing lottery ticket.
So, I think there is much more to be gained than there is to be lost by being patient with your recent draft picks.