The Winter Conferences all the time function trades, however two stood above the fray final week. First, the Guardians traded Andrés Giménez to the Blue Jays in a two-part transaction that briefly left Cleveland with three lefty-hitting first basemen. Then the White Sox traded Garrett Crochet to the Purple Sox for 4 prospects. The most effective of that group, Kyle Teel, occurs to play catcher, the identical place as Chicago’s high prospect Edgar Quero. They even have the identical future worth grade of fifty, which is the cutoff for high 100 prospects.
The Guardians made an additional commerce to keep away from doubling up on related archetypes, sending Spencer Horwitz to the Pirates for 3 younger pitchers, however the White Sox simply stored each catchers. I heard lots of murmured questioning of that call as I walked across the Dallas resort that briefly hosted the middle of the baseball universe. However I believe each groups have been appearing rationally, and that worrying about Teel and Quero overlapping is foolish. I can’t show it for you – however I did provide you with some information that can hopefully sway your opinion.
Cleveland’s case was easy. Steamer tasks Horwitz as a 2.5 WAR/600 PA participant. It tasks Kyle Manzardo as a 1.8 WAR/600 PA participant. Josh Naylor? Steamer has him down for two.4 WAR/600 PA. Three gamers for 2 positions — first and DH. (Sure, Horwitz has performed second base, too, however he actually shouldn’t be a second baseman, and I don’t assume the Guardians would’ve used him there.) Considered one of them would trip the bench regardless of being an above-average contributor, a poor choice for a crew that’s making an attempt to maximise its assets. One thing needed to give.
Then again, there are the White Sox. They, too, traded a younger star, and one of the best participant they bought again performs a place the place they already had an analogous choice. Teel was our 42th-ranked prospect on our up to date Prime 100 checklist in 2024, a refined all-around catcher who we count on to achieve the majors sooner or later within the subsequent two years. Quero was our Fortieth-ranked prospect, and also you’re by no means going to consider this, however he’s a refined all-around catcher who we count on to achieve the majors sooner or later within the subsequent two years.
What makes these two conditions completely different? Time. These three two-win first basemen? That’s what they’re proper now. All three can’t play within the majors on the identical time, although, which signifies that one is obstructing out the present-day worth of the opposite. Provided that the Guardians are targeted on making the playoffs in 2025, that doesn’t actually work. Then again, Teel and Quero aren’t invaluable to the White Sox due to what they’ll do in 2025; for them, it’s extra in regards to the future.
Whenever you hear “Prime 100 Prospect,” don’t take that as a last proclamation on what a participant shall be. For instance, our 2019 Prime 100 checklist had a delightfully assorted midsection:
2019 Prime Prospects, 46-56
Your future worth is not any assure of the place you’ll find yourself. There are tons of uncertainty. You’ll be able to consider a 50-FV prospect as extra of a distribution of attainable future outcomes:
You’ll be able to quibble over what precisely this implies. Are our estimates imperfect? Positively. Do gamers enhance or worsen in unpredictable methods? Completely. Is that this randomness? Destiny? Unforeseeable onerous work and confidence? One thing deterministic that we merely don’t have the instruments to detect but? I don’t have a solution for you. The purpose is that whereas the label we’re placing on each White Sox catchers now is identical, what they’ll really flip into as main leaguers is much from sure.
That’s all pretty apparent, however the magnitude issues. If the unfold of outcomes is slim, if most prospects much like Teel and Quero flip into broadly related main leaguers, perhaps worrying about them blocking one another is affordable. If the unfold is broad, or if the most certainly consequence is failure, that’s much less clear. Estimating that distribution of outcomes isn’t simple, nevertheless it’s definitely doable.
I made a number of assumptions to get a tough thought of how this appears to be like in actual life. First, I assumed that the White Sox are attempting to compete three years from now – I needed to decide a quantity, and that one felt like an inexpensive center estimate. Subsequent, I made a decision that I’d have a look at projected WAR per 600 plate appearances as an estimator. Lastly, I needed to decide a pattern of real-life gamers to make use of as comparisons. I used all of the place gamers with 50-FV grades on our Prime 100 prospect checklist in a given yr.
I needed to keep away from having the information overly corrupted by the shortage of a 2020 minor league season, so I settled on utilizing three years: prospects from 2019 projected for 2022, prospects from 2021 projected for 2024, and prospects from 2022 projected for this upcoming season. In plain English, I took our prospect lists and checked out how the gamers who got a 50 FV developed over the next three years. I used projections slightly than outcomes as a result of not all of those gamers bought full enjoying time, so small-sample variance would swamp the outcomes in any other case. Equally, I made a decision to not restrict my pattern to catchers with 50-FV rankings as a result of there merely weren’t sufficient of them.
I selected to exclude pitchers from this examine. I’d need to make assumptions about what number of innings equate to 600 plate appearances, they usually don’t appear clearly akin to hitting prospects, so I’m retaining the 2 separate. That also gave me 158 observations, loads sufficient for my functions right here.
My first statement: There’s an actual likelihood of failure; 33 of the 158 hitters with a 50 FV have been projected for 0.5 or fewer WAR per 600 plate appearances three years later. A few of these guys by no means made the majors. Some did and underperformed. Roughly 20% of the time, in different phrases, your strong hitting prospect by no means materializes into somebody you possibly can rely on.
One other 20% of the prospects (34 out of 158) have been projected for between 0.5 and 1.5 WAR per 600 plate appearances three years later. That’s a pleasant rotational participant, kind of; 2.0 WAR per 600 PA is the league common. Talking of that, one other 40% (64 out of 158) projected for between 1.5 and three.0 WAR three years down the highway. That’s the most important inhabitants, and likewise the central consequence. Loads of strong prospects grow to be strong gamers, nothing kind of.
The highest finish is extra diffuse. There are 21 gamers between 3.0 and 4.0 WAR, 5 within the 4.0-5.0 vary, after which Gunnar Henderson alone on the high, projected for almost 6.5 WAR per 600 PA in 2025. Listed below are the information I used, in a really stripped-down model, in case you really feel like enjoying alongside at dwelling.
Let’s attempt that chart once more, this time with some odds on it:
Now that we now have a distribution, we will take into consideration what the White Sox are doing a little bit extra clearly. Any particular person 50-FV prospect has a 17% likelihood (on this information set, no less than) of ending up as a participant projected for greater than 3.0 WAR three years down the highway. However when you have two prospects enjoying the identical place, there’s a one-in-three likelihood (31%) of growing an All-Star-caliber choice, assuming their improvement is, broadly talking, unbiased.
Whenever you put it that manner, what the White Sox are doing makes extra sense. Having a 31% likelihood of growing a catcher who’s a borderline All-Star or higher sounds quite a bit higher than a 17% likelihood. Even higher, the chance of spoil decreases considerably when you may have two catchers as an alternative of 1. Contemplate the Padres and Rays. They’re good groups, frequent playoff contenders with loads of star-level performers. And but, over the past three years, they’re twenty third and twenty fourth in catcher WAR.
That unquestionably hurts their skill to compete within the playoffs – every are principally enjoying a roster spot brief in comparison with their opponents. And what are they alleged to do about it? Good catchers are onerous to accumulate. You’ll be able to’t simply transfer somebody over from an analogous defensive place. The most effective ones largely don’t make it to free company. Should you begin with a foul scenario, and may’t one way or the other persuade the Braves and A’s to ship you William Contreras for nearly nothing (hello Milwaukee!), you’re out of luck.
With one high catching prospect, the information counsel that the White Sox could be a foul consequence – a backup or full washout – roughly 43% of the time. Think about exiting a rebuild that took you half a decade and resulted in some completely depressing groups, solely to have your new contender hamstrung by a scarcity of choices at catcher. The chances of that taking place dip to 18% in case you as an alternative have two 50-FV catchers to develop. So let’s have a look at our chart one final time, this time with the results of two 50-FV prospects on the identical place:
Nobody desires to plan on failure. It will be nice if each prospect panned out. However that simply can’t occur – it’s not even mathematically attainable. There are solely so many wins to go round. Hoping your guys pan out isn’t an excellent team-building technique; it’s vital to have backup plans and redundancy. Risky gamers at far-away timelines are dangerous, and I don’t see something incorrect with managing that danger by concentrating on an thrilling prospect like Teel.
Possibly I’m preaching to the choir on this one. It feels fairly easy to me: Prospects fail, so there’s nothing incorrect with having extras in case you’re not making an attempt to place them in your main league roster proper this minute. However the idea of blocking is overused amongst prospects. Getting good gamers is a superb thought. The place they play issues lower than how good they’re, and doubling up might be invaluable in case you’re making an attempt to keep away from leaving a gap in your roster. Variance is actual – the great groups account for it of their decision-making.