The Winter Conferences at all times 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 Pink Sox for 4 prospects. The very best of that group, Kyle Teel, occurs to play catcher, the identical place as Chicago’s prime prospect Edgar Quero. They even have the identical future worth grade of fifty, which is the cutoff for prime 100 prospects.
The Guardians made an additional commerce to keep away from doubling up on comparable archetypes, sending Spencer Horwitz to the Pirates for 3 younger pitchers, however the White Sox simply stored each catchers. I heard plenty of murmured questioning of that call as I walked across the Dallas lodge that briefly hosted the middle of the baseball universe. However I feel 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 give you 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.) One in every of them would journey the bench regardless of being an above-average contributor, a poor resolution for a staff that’s attempting 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 identical choice. Teel was our 42th-ranked prospect on our up to date Prime 100 record in 2024, a sophisticated all-around catcher who we anticipate to succeed in the majors in some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent two years. Quero was our Fortieth-ranked prospect, and also you’re by no means going to imagine this, however he’s a sophisticated all-around catcher who we anticipate to succeed in the majors in some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent two years.
What makes these two conditions totally 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 similar time, although, which signifies that one is obstructing out the present-day worth of the opposite. Provided that the Guardians are centered on making the playoffs in 2025, that doesn’t actually work. Then again, Teel and Quero aren’t useful to the White Sox due to what they’ll do in 2025; for them, it’s extra concerning the future.
While you hear “Prime 100 Prospect,” don’t take that as a ultimate proclamation on what a participant shall be. For instance, our 2019 Prime 100 record had a delightfully diverse midsection:
2019 Prime Prospects, 46-56
Your future worth isn’t 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? Undoubtedly. Do gamers enhance or worsen in unpredictable methods? Completely. Is that this randomness? Destiny? Unforeseeable laborious 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 truly flip into as main leaguers is much from sure.
That’s all pretty apparent, however the magnitude issues. If the unfold of outcomes is slender, if most prospects much like Teel and Quero flip into broadly comparable main leaguers, possibly worrying about them blocking one another is affordable. If the unfold is extensive, or if the almost definitely final result is failure, that’s much less clear. Estimating that distribution of outcomes isn’t simple, nevertheless it’s actually doable.
I made a couple of assumptions to get a tough concept of how this appears to be like in actual life. First, I assumed that the White Sox try to compete three years from now – I needed to choose a quantity, and that one felt like an inexpensive center estimate. Subsequent, I made a decision that I’d take a look at projected WAR per 600 plate appearances as an estimator. Lastly, I needed to choose 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 record in a given 12 months.
I needed to keep away from having the info 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 relatively 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 research. I’d need to make assumptions about what number of innings equate to 600 plate appearances, and so they don’t appear clearly corresponding to hitting prospects, so I’m holding the 2 separate. That also gave me 158 observations, loads sufficient for my functions right here.
My first commentary: 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 stable hitting prospect by no means materializes into somebody you’ll be able to depend 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, roughly; 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 street. That’s the most important inhabitants, and in addition the central final result. Loads of stable prospects grow to be stable gamers, nothing roughly.
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 prime, projected for almost 6.5 WAR per 600 PA in 2025. Listed here are the info I used, in a really stripped-down model, for those who really feel like enjoying alongside at house.
Let’s attempt that chart once more, this time with some odds on it:
Now that we have now a distribution, we will take into consideration what the White Sox are doing slightly extra clearly. Any particular person 50-FV prospect has a 17% likelihood (on this information set, at the very least) of ending up as a participant projected for greater than 3.0 WAR three years down the street. However in case you have two prospects enjoying the identical place, there’s a one-in-three likelihood (31%) of creating an All-Star-caliber choice, assuming their improvement is, broadly talking, unbiased.
While you put it that method, what the White Sox are doing makes extra sense. Having a 31% likelihood of creating a catcher who’s a borderline All-Star or higher sounds loads higher than a 17% likelihood. Even higher, the chance of smash decreases considerably when you’ve gotten two catchers as a substitute 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 potential to compete within the playoffs – every are mainly enjoying a roster spot quick in comparison with their opponents. And what are they speculated to do about it? Good catchers are laborious to accumulate. You’ll be able to’t simply transfer somebody over from an identical defensive place. The very best ones principally don’t make it to free company. Should you begin with a nasty scenario, and might’t in some way persuade the Braves and A’s to ship you William Contreras for nearly nothing (hello Milwaukee!), you’re out of luck.
With one prime catching prospect, the info recommend that the White Sox can be a nasty final result – 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 an absence of choices at catcher. The chances of that occuring dip to 18% for those who as a substitute have two 50-FV catchers to develop. So let’s take a look at our chart one final time, this time with the results of two 50-FV prospects on the similar place:
Nobody needs to plan on failure. It could 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 a great team-building technique; it’s essential to have backup plans and redundancy. Unstable gamers at far-away timelines are dangerous, and I don’t see something improper with managing that threat by focusing 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 improper with having extras for those who’re not attempting 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 good concept. The place they play issues lower than how good they’re, and doubling up could be useful for those who’re attempting to keep away from leaving a gap in your roster. Variance is actual – the great groups account for it of their decision-making.