Last week, the top minor-league batting projections were highlighted (link). This week, pitchers are tackled. Again, these are “in the prime” projections, not 2008 projections. For pitchers, however, there's much less of a “growth curve”, so pitchers who post good MLP's could be expected to perform at some similar level in MLB almost immediately. Pitcher growth can be expressed much more accurately as “growth spurts”, since when pitchers get better, it's almost always in a spurt, rather in the incremental manner in which hitters add to their game.
Projecting pitchers is the goal for these MLP's, at least. But, as anyone who has seen pitcher projections in the past would attest, projecting pitchers is maddeningly difficult. There are two primary factors which contribute highly to making them imprecise. First and foremost is injuries. Unlike with hitters, almost any injury to any part of a pitcher's body can dramatically reduct his ability to get maximal velocity while controlling his stuff. Those are not considered at all in MLP's, and if anyone plans to use them for reference, manual adjustments need to be made. The other factor is more complicated to explain, and can be loosely described as the “pyramid” nature of minor league talent, with there being many more players qualified to play at each lower level than the level above it.
As with a “pyramid marketing scheme”, sports are cut-throat, with players doing whatever they can to get to the top level of the “pyramid”, and staying there. Also, like a scheme, there is some fluidity to the people involved, with players on their way up, and players on their way out at any level at any given time. With better data, pitchers would be further analyzed to see how they did against the various “levels” of hitters which they faced in a minor-league season. This would separate out some of the pitchers who are able to get out “minor-league hitters” almost routinely, but don't have the pure “stuff” to get MLB-quality hitters out regularly. Conversely, pitchers who are “their own worst enemy” (usually measured in a rudimentary manner by looking at walk totals) are “penalized” less for their wildness than this wildness would actually impact them in games. This is based on the fact that one area where pitchers do show measurable growth over the years is in their control.
All caveats aside, here's a list of the top pitchers with 10+ starts in the minors in 2007. Minor-league relief pitching numbers have much less predictive value than SP numbers, so relief pitchers aren't included.
