As soon as all of the blurbs for a prospect checklist have been written, I comb again by way of the large spreadsheet that populates what readers see on The Board and double test its many fields for errors and inconsistencies. Two information factors I’ve saved manually since 2017 are the heights and weights of the prospects who’ve handed by way of that area. At instances, this has felt nonsensical — there are heights and weights on our participant pages, they usually might simply be pulled into the equipment that pumps out the tables that accompany the write-ups you see on our lists. However gamers’ measurables, particularly within the minors, are sometimes clearly unsuitable, and so for a bit over a half decade, I’ve used my very own judgment to make guide changes in instances when what’s listed is clearly incorrect.
This has principally meant manually adjusting gamers’ weights as they’ve gotten older and larger, as a result of even when gamers are on massive league rosters, there’s generally radical imprecision round their precise specs. Relating to heights, nevertheless, I’ve overwhelmingly deferred to these on minor league participant pages except there was an egregious under-reporting (I feel Oneil Cruz was the final one I manually fudged). As soon as the 2023 minor league season started, my pre-publication checks revealed a wierd sample: Many minor league gamers, principally hitters, have been abruptly listed on minor league participant pages as being one or two inches shorter than my earlier information indicated, and a few of them had shrunk by as many as 4 inches.
Whereas incorrect heights and weights are prevalent, widespread change to them throughout the complete participant inhabitants was unusual and struck me as most likely having a trigger. I’m going to point out you the checklist of adjustments to gamers’ heights and go over potential explanations for a way and why this has occurred (and why so many heights have been unsuitable within the first place), however first let’s speak about why this is a crucial element.
Participant measurables are a fundamental biographical staple in each sport, wherever you look, spanning many years. “How massive is that participant?” is a basic query any sports-watching individual may ask when dimension (and what it permits) is commonly a element of success. Skilled sports activities franchises ought to publish correct biographical data for its personal sake.
In up to date baseball, participant top was maybe as necessary a variable as ever this 12 months as a result of, for a part of the season, it was getting used to find out the strike zone for the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) at Triple-A. Groups additionally use measurements in participant analysis. They’re on each hard-copy roster handed round at showcase occasions and backfield video games, serving to to determine and assess gamers who are sometimes in anonymous jerseys. They’re additionally generally a variable in additional goal technique of evaluation, like professional scouting fashions that use listed heights as considered one of their many inputs.
I’ll discuss extra about every of those key areas later within the piece, however proper now, readers ought to take into account some caveats. First, the one gamers included on this pattern are those that have been ranked on a prospect checklist in a previous 12 months after which have been ranked once more in 2023. I solely had trigger to replace heights and weights if a participant remained on an inventory this 12 months, and I used to be solely capable of log a change after I had a earlier top and weight in my information to match it to. Gamers who have been completely new to The Board weren’t included. It’s doable the heights of gamers for whom I didn’t preserve a earlier report have modified and gone unnoticed. Conversely, gamers who was once on The Board however aren’t any longer, like graduates or gamers who fell off of prospect lists, aren’t captured right here, although lots of their heights have additionally modified. I save the biographical information of the prospects who fall off The Board, and whereas I didn’t comb again by way of the 1,000 or so ex-prospects I’ve saved to search for extra adjustments, a fast look revealed that lots of them additionally shrank by one or two inches.
One other caveat to remember is that I’m only a man, a fat-fingered fool able to mis-entering somebody’s top in my spreadsheet within the first place. That’s not an inexpensive clarification for the size of the adjustments you’re about to see, however it could be why any particular person participant’s top is considerably totally different than earlier than. You should use the Wayback Machine to test my work, and in lots of instances the disparities I present under might be cross-checked utilizing the listed heights and weights in staff media guides in comparison with what’s listed on present participant pages. There’s additionally a lag between when a participant’s measurables are up to date, and after I discover that replace and alter them in my database. It’s doable that not all of those adjustments really occurred in 2023, however as an alternative are ones I missed within the 12 months or so prior.
Any considered one of these might simply be an information entry flub on my half, however not all of them. We’ll get into some potential explanations for this phenomenon shortly, however first, right here’s a really massive (sortable) desk of top adjustments. Participant heights are listed in inches:
Adjustments in Prospect Top
Top in Inches
To unravel how this sweeping development got here to be, I reached out to a number of participant growth executives and sources with Main League Baseball (all of whom spoke on background for this story) to find out how and when gamers are measured, how these measurements come to be displayed on the web, and if both course of had modified due to changes to the ABS zone at Triple-A and within the Low-A Florida State League this season.
In response to all events, MLB despatched personnel to groups’ camps throughout 2023 spring coaching to formally measure minor leaguers in order that they may use correct heights to attract the vertical boundaries of the ABS zone. Earlier reporting by Baseball America indicated that 27% of a participant’s listed top decided the underside of his strike zone, whereas 51% of that top decided the highest. Latest writing from The Athletic’s Jayson Stark revealed that gamers and different events believed this technique led to a higher-than-desired strike zone, so MLB rapidly modified course and just lately despatched groups a memo notifying them that the Hawk-Eye optical monitoring know-how put in at each Triple-A ballpark to facilitate ABS would now be figuring out and utilizing checkpoints on hitters’ our bodies to attract the highest and backside of the zone. This started on September 5.
Throughout reporting for this piece, I discovered particulars concerning the new zone which can be ancillary to my participant top venture however I feel shall be of curiosity to readers. Hawk-Eye is presently utilizing the criminal of the hitter’s rear knee to attract the road on the backside of the strike zone, and, as Stark has already reported, one baseball above the belt to attract the highest. Hawk-Eye is now taking a snapshot of the hitter’s physique place in the mean time the baseball is halfway throughout the plate (the identical location used when evaluating umpire efficiency) and is then using a rolling common of these snapshots throughout the hitter’s 50 most up-to-date plate appearances to find out the hitter’s zone.
The zone shouldn’t be dictated or impacted by a batter’s stance previous to the pitch being delivered, so hitters can’t artificially shrink their zone with a wider stance that compresses the hole between their knees and belt, nor are gamers who use a extra upright stance punished with a bigger zone for doing so.
Again to the subject of shrinkage. There have been conflicting accounts of the unbiased spring measurement course of. MLB sources indicated to me that an effort was made to measure as many minor leaguers as doable in every group. However whereas my sources with groups that practice in Florida all corroborated this, my sources with groups that practice in Arizona had a extra combined expertise, as some within the Arizona contingent stated that solely gamers who might moderately be anticipated to make it to Triple-A have been measured, not these within the very low minors. One govt with a company that had a number of lower-level minor league gamers’ heights change informed me they solely recalled MLB measuring their staff’s upper-level hitters; a number of participant dev of us in Arizona claimed that not all of their minor leaguers have been measured.
Along with each Triple-A affiliate using ABS in 2023 — the Pacific Coast League has been utilizing ABS since Opening Day, whereas the Worldwide League started using it April 25; half the video games make use of full ABS, whereas the opposite half make use of an ABS-aided problem system — most groups with coaching complexes in Florida even have a Low-A Florida State League affiliate that has used ABS to some extent over the past a number of seasons. It was more likely that prospects passing by way of Florida-rooted farm techniques would play at an affiliate utilizing ABS sooner or later in the course of the season. Apart from Cincinnati (which has an FSL affiliate in Daytona), minor leaguers in Arizona-based orgs don’t encounter ABS till they’ve reached Triple-A, so I can see the logic behind MLB wanting to gather a really full information set in Florida, however being comfy with a extra restricted, exact, and easier-to-obtain set in Arizona. Nonetheless, there are such a lot of lower-level hitters from Arizona-based orgs who shrunk that I feel it’s honest to conclude MLB obtained as many hitters as they may.
Sources indicated that whereas MLB measured the gamers, the groups have been then given the measurements and tasked with inputting them into eBIS, the portal by way of which MLB transactions are carried in and out which official biographical data is saved. If a rehabbing massive leaguer performed at an ABS affiliate, it was left to the membership to replace his top data to adjust to ABS. I might discover no situations during which a rehabbing massive leaguer’s measurements modified throughout a Triple-A or FSL task, which might point out there was non-compliance on this space if MLB did in actual fact ask groups to measure their very own rehabbers. However I wasn’t in a position to make use of archive.org to test for adjustments to the participant pages for each rehabber from the height-driven ABS period; I gave up after 17 fruitless tries, all from late April, after I thought the request/mandate to measure rehabbers would nonetheless have been new sufficient to be adhered to.
Sources with the league point out that for minor leaguers, the heights and weights we see on-line are coming from inputs in eBIS, whereas for main leaguers, these heights and weights are imagined to be coming from the staff media guides. However whereas the media guides themselves usually seem up to date, MLB’s participant pages and on-line rosters are sometimes not, generally leading to vital discrepancies.
Whereas I feel it’s honest to say that the record-keeping round gamers measurements on the massive league degree is relatively lax for a serious professional sport, I additionally assume there’s sufficient right here to conclude that, whereas possible nonetheless imperfect, the listed heights for present minor league hitters are extra correct than earlier than, and possibly extra correct than they are going to ever be once more, for the reason that MLB pilot program to gather participant measurements possible received’t proceed now that listed top now not looks like it’s within the combine to dictate the ABS strike zone.
Having decided the method by which gamers are measured – and the way these measurements are reported – let’s take into account why so many heights appear to have beforehand been inaccurate.
Eradicated Clarification: Groups lowered gamers’ listed heights in try to achieve a bonus in a world of ABS.
Until membership personnel have been knowingly inputting lower-than-accurate heights into eBIS after the MLB pilot program handed over measurements, the order of operations right here prevents us from concluding that groups tried to do that, juicy as it could be. As long as we belief that MLB’s measurements made their approach onto the participant pages, any team-driven inaccuracy, intentional or not, needed to happen prior to groups being informed that height-drawn zones have been being put in place.
Potential Clarification No. 1: Newbie gamers have tended to overreport their heights, groups weren’t compelled to replace them till this 12 months, and now lots of them are correct.
As a result of an amazing majority of the adjustments are only one inch, this strikes me because the likeliest clarification for why so many people shrunk. Or extra particularly, why anyone particular person shrunk. Up till MLB’s temporary pilot program, there doesn’t seem to have been any regulation round the way in which the heights and weights of gamers at any degree have been reported. MLB maintains participant pages with biographical data for many beginner gamers, and it’s comprehensible that it might be troublesome to make these pages universally correct as a result of they’re coping with gamers from every kind of various faculties, all around the continent. In the meantime, the switch portal presents its personal problem for maintaining information like this updated and correct.
Whether or not or not groups may very well be bothered to each measure their newly-acquired (drafted, signed or traded) gamers and replace eBIS appears to have been extremely variable. But it surely’s fairly cheap to assume that gamers who have been measured with their sneakers on (and who could have embellished their top by an additional inch sooner or later prior to now) would lose two inches after they have been formally measured, barefoot, by MLB personnel.
Potential Clarification No. 2: Groups had both beforehand been derelict in reporting their very own gamers’ heights, or had been overreporting their gamers’ heights deliberately, maybe to affect opposing groups’ professional scouting fashions.
As a result of there are clear tendencies occurring right here — some golf equipment have gamers extra constantly shrinking two inches or extra, whereas others have virtually none in any respect — some model of this clarification (during which groups have been knowingly disseminating incorrect measurements for no matter cause) most likely applies to at the very least just a few groups. From earlier conversations I’ve had with scouts and executives, I deduced (and later confirmed) that participant top is commonly a variable in professional scouting fashions. It most likely has a small impression — these fashions have many, many inputs — however I do know of a commerce during which a staff obtained a participant who turned out to be a lot shorter than his listed top, and the way in which the mannequin would have in any other case projected him was totally different sufficient that he would have fallen behind different candidates within the mannequin had it identified he was 5-foot-7. Hilariously, the listed top on his participant web page (he plateaued on the higher ranges and has fallen off prospect lists) has not modified; he’s nonetheless listed as a number of inches taller than his precise top.
If groups know that their very own mannequin primarily “NPs” (which means, assigns a non-prospect grade) gamers who don’t meet a sure top requirement, they’ll deduce that different groups’ fashions may as properly and fudge the heights of their very own guys to spice up their worth in commerce discussions. This can be why a number of the shortest gamers in my pattern skilled the most important adjustments in top. League-wide report maintaining has most likely been messy sufficient on this realm that it isn’t a good suggestion for groups to belief listed heights as an enter of their fashions in any respect.
Potential Clarification No. 3: Gamers, together with some who had beforehand overreported their very own top, discovered a strategy to be as small as doable in the course of the official measurement course of.
One thing like this, or another sort of vital measurement error, needs to be the reason for a few of these three- and four-inch changers, proper? Each two fewer inches of top meant 17 sq. inches of space could be shaved out of your strike zone; the one inch of vertical zone multiplied by the 17-inch width of the plate. It could be tempting to face with terrible posture for 30 seconds when you’re measured as a way to have a meaningfully smaller strike zone all 12 months. It’s doable MLB personnel prevented hitters from doing this with an in-the-moment “tsk tsk,” however provided that they have been attempting to measure dozens of men and rapidly transfer on to the subsequent camp, it’s possible some sleight of backbone occurred.
Despite the fact that I feel methodology (sneakers on or off, slouched or no) and single-inch exaggeration are largely in charge for a lot of this phenomenon, the gamers whose heights modified considerably deserve some case-by-case evaluation. Listed below are screengrabs of the four-inch shrinkers and some choose three-inch changers, adopted by my totally unscientific ideas on every case.
Brooks Lee was listed at 6-foot-2 on his faculty participant web page and upon entry into professional ball, however is now listed at 5-foot-11. Compelled perspective is contributing to him wanting practically even with Jason Vosler on this picture, and when you account for the thickness of his helmet, I assume I purchase that he’s 5-foot-11.
Carlos Colmenarez’s hole appears to have been brought on by an information entry error on my half. MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez had him written up as being 5-foot-10 in his beginner stories, and Colmenarez’s participant web page upon entry into professional ball additionally had him listed at 5-foot-10. He’s clearly just a few inches shorter than Jonathon Lengthy.
Tyler Black is listed at 6-foot-2 on his Wright State participant web page (the supply of my preliminary Board enter previous to him being drafted) and was 6-foot-1 within the Brewers media information coming into the season. Earlier than I discovered about MLB’s pilot program, his 2023 shrinkage to 5-foot-10 felt suspect to me, as a result of Black was one of many gamers who appeared most apt and keen to make use of the ball/strike problem system within the 2022 Arizona Fall League. Walks are a considerable a part of his ability set. It was powerful to discover a passable second to screengrab Black upright and shut to a different participant on the sphere, so I’ve included two above. He additionally stands subsequent to Pedro Pagés and Andy Thomas, each listed at 6-foot-1, a number of instances in my video from final 12 months. I’m discovering it fairly powerful to really gauge how tall this man is.
Brennen Davis was listed at 6-foot-4 coming into the 12 months and, whereas it was frustratingly troublesome to discover a helpful second to screengrab, I don’t assume his present listed 6-foot top passes the odor take a look at. Watch as he crosses house plate and is greeted by Sergio Alcántara, who’s someway listed at 6-foot-4, a full seven inches (!!) taller than his earlier listed top, which completely needs to be an error somebody made inputting his top into eBIS. Each Davis and Alcantara (significantly, seven inches?) seem prone to be information entry errors, perhaps even ones that have been swapped with each other.
Listed below are the 2 brief kings. The hole between them and their counterparts in these images is so massive that it’s powerful to gauge precisely how a lot top distinction there’s between them, however I wager each of their present listed heights are correct.
…
For a serious skilled sport, the quantity of imprecision round fundamental back-of-the-baseball-card data is disappointing, regardless that it seems MLB’s pilot program typically made listed heights within the minors extra correct. I do know the overwhelming majority of baseball followers, even the nerds who learn this web site, don’t particularly care whether or not or not these heights are correct, however for these of us attempting to make use of data like this to raised perceive the sport and its gamers, it’s irritating and considerably troubling.
There are alternatives for MLB to gather correct heights and weights of gamers coming into professional ball on the Draft Mix and through USA Baseball and PDP actions, however in keeping with a supply with the league, the knowledge from the Mix shouldn’t be uploaded onto the league’s draft tracker nor to participant pages. Discovering a strategy to make that occur is the best and cleanest approach for us to at the very least begin with right measurements because the gamers enter professional baseball.
I can’t supply a terrific resolution for the issues with inaccuracy that happen after gamers have assimilated into professional ball, nevertheless. Previously, reporting heights and weights was left to the groups to finish on a kind of honors system, and whether or not golf equipment would publish correct data has different considerably based mostly on the care and competence of the folks tasked with doing it for every org. Persevering with a model of the MLB-led 2023 program that resulted within the adjustments proven right here, the place gamers are measured by an unbiased entity each spring, seems unlikely. It’s doable there’s a tech-based resolution that may be facilitated by Hawk-Eye, however for now, the desire of every particular person staff to place forth correct details about their gamers is what I anticipate will proceed to drive the heights and weights we see on the web.