How Do Prospect Grades Translate to Future Outcomes?

Good day, and welcome to Prospect Week! (Properly, nearer to Prospect Fortnight — as you possibly can in all probability inform from the navigation widget above, the enjoyable will proceed effectively into subsequent week, together with the launch of our High 100.) I’m not your common host – that’d be Eric Longenhagen – however to not fear, you’ll get all of the Eric you possibly can deal with as he and the group break down all issues minor leagues, faculty baseball, and MLB draft. I’m simply right here to set the stage, and in assist of that aim, I’ve some analysis to current on prospect grades and eventual main league equivalency.

When studying protection of the minor leagues, I typically discover myself questioning what all of it means. The Future Worth scale does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of a prospect in a single quantity, however it doesn’t translate neatly to what you see if you watch a giant league recreation. Craig Edwards beforehand investigated how prospect grades have translated into surplus worth, however I wished to replace issues from an on-field worth perspective. Fairly than have a look at what it will value to switch prospect manufacturing in free company, I made a decision to measure the distribution in potential outcomes at every Future Worth tier.

To try this, I first gathered my knowledge. I took our prospect lists from 4 seasons, 2019-22, and checked out all the prospects with a grade of 45 FV or increased. I separated them into two teams — hitters and pitchers — then took projections for each participant in baseball three years down the road. For instance, I paired the 2019 prospect record with 2022 projections and the 2022 prospect record with 2025 projections. On this means, I got here up with a future expectation for every participant.

I selected to make use of projections for one key purpose: They allow us to get to a solution extra rapidly. In Craig’s earlier examine, he checked out outcomes over the following 9 years of main league play. I don’t have that sort of time – I’m attempting to make use of latest prospect grades to get on the means our group analyzes the sport immediately. If I used that methodology, the final yr of prospect lists I might use can be 2015, in Kiley McDaniel’s first time period as FanGraphs’ prospect analyst.

One other advantage of utilizing projections is that they’re naturally immune to the sample-size-related points that all the time crop up in workout routines like this. A number of accidents, one bizarre season, a comparatively small prospect cohort, and you possibly can be some unusual outcomes. Ought to we knock a prospect if his taking part in time bought blocked, or if his group gamed his service time? I don’t suppose so, and projections allow us to ignore all that. I normalized all batters to a 600 plate look projection and all pitchers to a 200 innings pitched projection.

I made a decision to interrupt future outcomes down into tiers. Extra particularly, I grouped WAR outcomes as follows. I counted every little thing under 0.5 WAR per season as a “washout,” together with these gamers who didn’t have main league projections three years later. On condition that we undertaking just about everybody, that’s largely gamers who had both formally retired or by no means appeared in full-season ball. I graded outcomes between 0.5 and 1.5 WAR as “backup.” I labeled seasons between 1.5 and a couple of.5 WAR as “common,” as in a significant league common. Lastly, 2.5-4 WAR merited an “above common” mark, whereas 4-plus WAR bought a grade of “star.” You would set these breakpoints otherwise with out an excessive amount of argument from me; they’re only a handy means of exhibiting the distribution. There’s nothing significantly magical in regards to the cutoff strains, however it’s important to choose one thing to show the information, and a easy common of WAR projections in all probability isn’t proper.

With that mentioned, let’s get to the outcomes. My pattern included 685 hitters from 45-80 FV. Permitting for some noise on the high finish as a result of small pattern measurement, the distribution seems to be precisely such as you’d hope:

Contemplate the 55 FV line for an evidence. Of the gamers we graded as 55 FV prospects, 17% look washed three years later – Jeter Downs, a 2020 55 FV, for instance. One other 17% have confirmed to be backup-caliber, like 2022 55 FV Curtis Mead, or 2019 55 FV Taylor Trammell if you happen to don’t suppose Mead’s trajectory is about simply but. Persevering with down the road, 30% appear like huge league regulars – 2021 55 FV Alek Thomas, maybe. A full 31% look like above-average main league contributors three years later, like 2019 55 FV Sean Murphy or 2021 55 FV Royce Lewis. Lastly, 6% undertaking as stars three years later – Jackson Merrill, a 55 FV in 2022, feels applicable for example.

Two issues instantly soar out to me when this knowledge. First, the “above common” and “star” columns enhance at each tier break, and the “washout” column decreases at each tier break. In different phrases, the higher a participant’s grade, the extra seemingly they’re to be glorious, whereas the more severe their grade, the extra seemingly they’re to bust. That’s a fantastic signal for the reliability of our grades; they’re doing what they purport to do, basically.

Second, every row feels logically constant. The 45 FV prospects are almost definitely to bust, next-most-likely to finish up as backups, and so forth. The 45+ FVs appear like the 45 FVs, solely with a greater high finish; their probabilities of ending up above common are meaningfully higher. The 50 FVs are a seize bag; their outcomes range extensively, and loads of these outcomes contain being a viable main leaguer. By the point you hit the 55 and 60 FV prospects, you’re gamers who find yourself as above-average contributors loads of the time. The hole between 55 and 60 appears clear, too; the 60 FVs are much more prone to flip into stars, kind of. Lastly, there are solely six knowledge factors above 60 FV, in order that’s largely a stab in the dead of night.

This final result pleases me drastically. that chart correlates strongly with how I already perceived the grades. For a refresher, roughly 30 prospects in a given yr grade out as a 55 FV or above, give or take a couple of. One thing like three quarters of these are typically hitters. That signifies that in a given yr, 20-ish prospects appear like good bets to ship average-regular-or-better efficiency. The remainder of the High 100? They’re riskier, with a higher probability of ending up in a part-time position and a meaningfully decrease probability of changing into a star. However don’t mistake probability for certainty – loads of 55 and 60 FVs nonetheless find yourself at or under substitute degree, and 45 FVs flip into stars typically. Projecting prospect efficiency is tough!

How do you have to use this desk? I like to consider Future Worth by way of final result distributions, and I believe that this does an excellent job of it. Ought to a group desire to obtain two 50 FV prospects in a commerce, or a 55 FV and a forty five FV? You may add up the end result distributions and get an thought of what every mixture of prospects seems to be like. Listed below are the summed chances of these two teams:

One other means of claiming that: For those who go along with the two-player package deal that has the 55 and 45 FV prospects, you’re the next probability of creating a star. You’re additionally a higher probability of ending up with at the least one full miss, and subsequently decrease odds of ending up with two contributors. Including isn’t precisely the precise method to deal with this, however it’s an excellent shorthand for fast comparisons. If you wish to get extra in depth, I constructed this little calculator, which helps you to reply a easy query: For a given set of prospects, what are the chances of ending up with at the least X main leaguers of Y high quality or higher? You can also make a duplicate of this sheet, outline X and Y for your self, and get a solution. In our case, the chances of ending up with at the least one above-average participant (or higher) are 40.7% for the 2 50s and 41.4% for the 45/55 cut up. The percentages of ending up with two gamers who’re at the least huge league regulars? That’d be 28.1% for the 2 50 FVs, and 16.1% for the 45/55 pairing. Odds of at the least one star? That’s 4% for the 2 50 FVs and 6% for the 45/55 group. In different phrases, the full worth is analogous, however the form is meaningfully completely different.

For instance, you’d have so as to add collectively a ton of fifty FV prospects to get as excessive of an opportunity of discovering a star as you’d from one 60 FV. Alternatively, in case you have three 50 FVs, the chances of ending up with at the least a strong contributor are fairly excessive. In the meantime, even 60 FV prospects find yourself as backups or worse round 1 / 4 of the time. That description of the relative dangers and rewards makes extra sense to me than changing gamers into some nebulous surplus worth. Prospects are all about chance, so representing them that means tracks analytically for me.

Take one other have a look at the gorgeous cascade of chances in that desk of outcomes for hitting prospects, as a result of we’re about to get meaningfully much less fairly. Let’s speak about pitching prospects. Right here, the outcomes are much less predictable:

I’ve tons of takeaways right here. First, there are considerably fewer pitching prospects ranked, significantly as 50 FVs and above. Clearly, that’s an excellent determination by the prospect group, as a result of even the highest-ranked pitchers flip into backups at an inexpensive clip. Pitching prospects simply flip into main league pitchers in a much less predictable means, or so it will seem from the information.

Second, there are fewer stars among the many pitchers than the hitters. That’s true if you happen to have a look at 2025 projections, too. There are solely six pitchers projected for 4 WAR or increased, whereas 42 hitters meet that cutoff. It’s additionally true if you happen to have a look at the outcomes on the sphere in 2024; 36 hitters and 12 pitchers (22 by RA9-WAR) eclipsed the four-win mark. It is best to be happy to use some modifiers to your view of pitcher worth if you happen to suppose that WAR treats them otherwise than hitters, however throughout the framework, the relative paucity of really excellent outcomes is noticeable.

One other factor price mentioning right here is that pitchers don’t develop the identical means that hitters do. Typically one new pitch or an offseason of velocity coaching results in a sudden change in expertise degree in a means that simply doesn’t occur as continuously with hitters. Tarik Skubal was unmemorable in his main league debut (29 begins, with a 4.34 ERA and 5.09 FIP). Then he made simply 36 (excellent) begins over the following two years as a result of accidents. Then he was one of the best pitcher in baseball in 2024. Good luck projecting that trajectory. Maybe three-year-out home windows of pitcher efficiency simply aren’t sufficient due to the way in which they proceed to develop even after reaching the majors.

There’s one different limitation of measuring pitchers this manner: I don’t have an excellent methodology for coping with the differential between reliever and starter valuation. Normalizing relievers to 200 innings pitched doesn’t make a ton of sense, however dealing with them on their very own additionally feels unusual, and I don’t have a great way of changing reliever WAR to the backup/common/star scale that I’m utilizing right here. A 3-WAR reliever wouldn’t be an above-average participant, they’d be one of the best reliever in baseball. I settled for placing them as much as 200 innings and letting that over-allocaiton of taking part in time deal with the completely different measures of success. For instance, a reliever projected for 3.6 WAR in 200 innings would examine in round 1.2 for a full season of bullpen work. That’s an excellent aid pitcher projection; solely 20 gamers meet that bar in our 2025 Depth Charts projections.

In different phrases, the tier names nonetheless largely work for relievers, however you must apply your personal relative positional worth changes identical to regular. A star reliever is much less useful than a star outfielder. A star beginning pitcher may be extra useful than a star outfielder, relying on the diploma of luminosity, however that one’s a lot nearer. This final result desk can information you by way of what a participant may flip into. It could’t inform you tips on how to worth every of these outcomes, as a result of that’s context-specific and open to interpretation.

This examine isn’t meant to be the definitive phrase on what prospects are “price.” Grades aren’t innate issues, they’re simply our group’s finest try at capturing the relative upside and threat of yet-to-debut gamers. Being a 60 FV prospect doesn’t make you 17% prone to flip right into a star; moderately, our group is attempting to determine gamers with s comparatively good probability of stardom by throwing a giant FV on them. And groups aren’t beholden to our grades, both. They could have higher (or worse!) inner prospect analysis methods.

With these caveats in thoughts, I nonetheless discover this extraordinarily helpful in my very own consumption of minor league content material. The standard language you hear when individuals talk about prospect trades – are they on a High 100, the place do they rank on a group record, what grade are they – can really feel arcane, impenetrable even. Breaking it down by way of probability of final result simply works higher for me, and I hope that it additionally offers useful info to you if you’re studying the group’s glorious breakdown of all issues prospect-related this week.