Explanation of MLBPW Prospect Rankings

The Rankings you will find on MLB Prospect Watch.com are different than any other rankings that are out there today, or at least any that we have found.

Predicting the future of a potential major leaguer can be done with the same accuracy as predicting the winner of the next World Series.  The potentials and pitfalls in between play far too great a role to possibly know what any prospect has in store.

Some publications are better than others, and certain people offer predictions and analysis that garner the utmost respect throughout the baseball community.  We do not want to compete with any of these people.

What we are offering here at MLB Prospect Watch.com, in terms of our rankings, is a different way of analyzing prospects.

Anybody with the slightest scouting ability can watch a prospect and predict his potential.  But potential isn’t everything.

Here at MLB Prospect Watch.com, we are looking at prospects from a business-like perspective.    We ask the question, what is the value of this prospect to his team?

Luckily, we answer the question too.

MLBPW has taken a new approach to evaluating minor-leaguers by creating a value ranking called the Prospect Value Ranking (PVR).

The PVR takes into consideration 5 different variables and determines a ranking for each category

1. The Player’s Age relative to his current minor or major league level
2. The position which he plays (or is projected to play at the major league level)
3. His career minor-league on-field production (taken in league context and factored in with a multiplier based on what level  of the minors the player has played)
4. The player’s highest possible ceiling (according to scouts)
5. The likelihood of the player reaching his potential (LRP)
   

Without going into painful mathematical details, the PVR can be explained simply as a rating of any minor league player’s value to his organization, rather than being based so heavily on his ceiling.  This value can be interpreted as either trade value in return for other players or value towards his own franchise as a part of its future.

So what do these numbers mean?

For starters, here is how each rating is determined.  The beauty of the PVR is that every fan, scout, analyst and general manager could use the same rating system and come up with a different rating.  The PVR does not limit a player or an evaluation to one opinion, but rather allows for every person's opinion to be compared more accurately.

How each player's final rating weighs out as compared to the traditional 20-80 scale still remains to be seen, as the PVR is a new system and is still very much a work in progress.  Eventually, I will complete development on a corresponding rating system for players already in the majors so that the rating system can be used to evaluate veteran-for-prospect trades when they occur.

You will notice a few odd placements on our lists that you would not see elsewhere.  There are a few stipulations that go along with our rankings.

• You have probably noticed that these rankings favor players who are closer to the big leagues or have already made their big-league debut, even if their overall ceiling is lower than some other prospects.  This is done on purpose.  While trade value applies to all players, most of these players won't be traded as prospects, meaning that their real value is to their own organization. The true value in these players is in their organization's ability to rely on them as pieces of their future.  A player like Miguel Sano offers the Twins a lot in terms of potential, but not nearly as much value as his ability would allow because he is still so far away from the majors and the possible pitfalls between him and Minnesota are limitless.  As he rises through their system, his value will rise as well (even if none of his other characteristics change) simply because performing at higher levels make it that much more likely that he will produce in the majors.  This allows the Twins to make other moves at the major league level that are dictated by having Sano because the chance of him fulfilling his potential is that much better.
• First-year players typically have much lower rankings then their potential would suggest due to the fact that most recent draftees don't advance to high levels during their draft year, thus lowering the impact of their performance on their overall value.  This explains the low rankings for players like Stephen Strasburg and Dustin Ackley.  In fact, you could ague that these players should have no ranking because they are not even eligible to be traded until a year after they have signed, but we have ranked them nonetheless.  A player's ranking should rise quickly once his first full season begins.
• On that same note, the ratings for college players during their draft year are typically hurt by the fact that they play initially in a short-season league in which they are older than their competition.  The PVR will automatically correct both of these errors when players are assigned to their new teams at the start of their first full season.
• Players who have not yet made their professional debut (whether from Latin America or the draft) typically are much lower on the list they would normally be or absent altogether.  Certainly these player's value is higher than it is currently ranked and is hurt by their lack of performance, but these rankings will also be corrected automatically as soon as that player begins to accumulate some numbers.  And sense players who haven't played yet are typically also ineligible to be traded due to just signing, it is a non-issue.

My goal with these rankings is to answer questions like, "Who got the better deal on the Roy Halladay trade, the Phillies or the Blue Jays?" or "Did the Brewers give up too much for 2 months of C.C. Sabathia?"  Once complete, the PVR will answer these questions.  Until then, it serves as the method of prospect rankings for MLB Prospect Watch.

Updated 1/27/10