Bill James ranks the Sox as #9 in Young Talent Inventory, up from 25 a year ago. Bad new is the Twins are 3. (Scary: the Yankees rank 7)

 

http://insidethedodgers.mlblogs.com/archiv...gers_11_in.html

The White Sox have the 2nd highest pitching score, behind only the Dodgers. Their prospects score was 0. Danks was the highest scoring player for the Sox.

Our prospect score was 0? lol

I was about to bust out laughing. I thought he meant we had the #9 farm system. So 25 is the stop point?

This is a significant improvement from last years rankings. Bill James really likes Danksy and TCQ.

Our prospect score was 0? lol

Here how the prospect scores were devised:

 

 

 

In addition to this I took the MLB “Top 50 prospects” List released January 27, 2010, and gave value for those prospects in this way:

 

51 minus the rank on the list, times 3, plus 25

 

Thus, the number one player on the prospect list, Atlanta’s Jason Heyward, had an Inventory Value of 175, while the number 50 player on the list had an inventory value of 28.

 

The article was very interesting and one of the few things on Bill James' site worth reading, here's the direct link:

http://www.billjamesonline.net/ArticleCont...Code=James01009

Here how the prospect scores were devised:

 

 

 

 

 

The article was very interesting and one of the few things on Bill James' site worth reading, here's the direct link:

http://www.billjamesonline.net/ArticleCont...Code=James01009

 

 

Jeff, I know you like sabremetrics, but man my head hurts after reading that Bill James stuff.

Edited March 4, 201016 yr by JPN366

Here how the prospect scores were devised:

 

 

 

 

 

The article was very interesting and one of the few things on Bill James' site worth reading, here's the direct link:

http://www.billjamesonline.net/ArticleCont...Code=James01009

Not a subscriber .

Here how the prospect scores were devised:

 

 

 

 

 

The article was very interesting and one of the few things on Bill James' site worth reading, here's the direct link:

http://www.billjamesonline.net/ArticleCont...Code=James01009

So, the prospect score was based on who you have in one person's top 50 prospect list? Doesn't that seem like an absurdly narrow evaluation method?

 

So, the prospect score was based on who you have in one person's top 50 prospect list? Doesn't that seem like an absurdly narrow evaluation method?

Well, Mayo's ranking aren't his own, he just polls the opinions of scouts. But you're right, a better way to do it would be to aggregate the top 50's from all of the respectable publications. Then again, maybe James has gone back and looked at the previous rankings and found Mayo to be the most accurate.

Well, Mayo's ranking aren't his own, he just polls the opinions of scouts. But you're right, a better way to do it would be to aggregate the top 50's from all of the respectable publications. Then again, maybe James has gone back and looked at the previous rankings and found Mayo to be the most accurate.

Well, that's a good start. But what I was really getting at was using the Top 50 at all. 50 prospects means something like 1.7 per team - the variance will be wild in terms of a percentage of that, so using it to measure the quality of a minor league system is highly flawed. You need to either use more depth (like a Top 500 or something), or alternately use a rating system and add decliing values per grade per system, or use subjective evaluation from scouts. Any of those would be better than simply using an overall Top 50 for baseball like that.

 

 

Jeff, I know you like sabremetrics, but man my head hurts after reading that Bill James stuff.

Haha yeah, it can take some getting your head around. That's part of what I enjoy about it though, going through all the methodology involved, challenging the conventional wisdom's etc. etc.

 

Not a subscriber .

I would paste it to you in a pm (secretly...), but the formatting on that site is weird and it would probably take me an hour to get it readable.

These are the kind of rankings I like. As valuable as farm rankings are, it doesn't matter what happens until they get to the show. Graduating a player like Beckham would understandably drop the farm ranking quite a bit, but that wouldn't show the whole picture.

 

edit: Interesting to see the As so low considering some of the monstrous talent they have waiting in the wings, and it's not like they were bad last year.

Edited March 4, 201016 yr by chunk23

I stopped reading after I saw Joe Mauer that Low on the list. How is he not in the top 5?

I stopped reading after I saw Joe Mauer that Low on the list. How is he not in the top 5?

Yeah reading sucks. Making uninformed statements is much better.

 

The rankings have a age factor and are based off of the previous 3 years of performance, not just last year. He's 35 points behind King Felix at the top of the list, for example, but is losing 60 age points to him, he's losing 80 age points to Sandoval and 100 to Justin Upton but is only 23 and 16 points behind them respectively.

Yeah reading sucks. Making uninformed statements is much better.

 

The rankings have a age factor and are based off of the previous 3 years of performance, not just last year. He's 35 points behind King Felix at the top of the list, for example, but is losing 60 age points to him, he's losing 80 age points to Sandoval and 100 to Justin Upton but is only 23 and 16 points behind them respectively.

 

So it's basically a projection of what type of value James sees these guys having for the rest of their cumulative careers. It really doesn't seem like that big of a deal.