In the 2008 Major League Handbook, we introduced the concept of the Young Talent Inventory.
There are three levels of questions here. The entry level query is an assessment of each young player. How good is this young player? Who are the best young players in baseball? Who is the best young player on the Rockies? Who are the best young pitchers in baseball, the best young infielders, the best young outfielders?
The second level is trying to look at the Big Picture of Young Talent. We’re trying to cast our eyes all around baseball and ask, “Where is the young talent? Who has the young talent now? Is there more young talent than normal?”
The third level is the general questions that can only be addressed when you have solid answers at the second level. How significant is the possession of young talent? Do the teams that have the most young talent tend to do well over the next five years 80% of the time, or 55% of the time? Is developing young talent more important than being able to afford free agents, or less? Is having young talent in the majors more important than having talent in the farm system, or less? What causes the amount of young talent in baseball to go up or go down? Is it just cyclical, or are there definable causes? Which is better: to be the team with the young pitchers, or to be the team with the young hitting?
The entry level question is a complex question, because it requires that we combine two unlike things—youth and talent—in a single measurement. Since “youth” and “talent” are inherently unlike, there is no perfect way to do this. Is a 22-year-old pitcher who is 12-10 ahead of or behind a 24-year-old who is 15-9, as a combination of youth and talent? It’s an arbitrary question.
We are evaluating here only proven major league talents, not prospects or young players who are not yet proven as major league players. A year ago, when we presented our first list of the games most talented young players, I got a lot of feedback about players who had been left off the list—Atlanta fans upset that Jeff Francoeur didn’t make the top 25, Philadelphia fans irritated that I didn’t include Howard and Utley, etc. I think I heard from the fans of 14 teams who felt that I had slighted their guy.
It’s my own fault; I didn’t quite explain what we’re trying to do. One list of great young players is not objectively better than another. I’m not saying that we couldn’t improve our process; I’m sure we could. But. . .anybody can look around and tick off the names, and we’re not arguing that our list is better than your list or your local columnist’s list. That’s really not the point of doing this.
Anybody can look around and pick out the best young players, but how do you stand on that list to reach the second level of questions? What we are really trying to do here is to take a list of the best young players (which is as good as anybody else’s list, but not better) and use that to study the second and third level of questions, which are issues that are difficult to access by seat-of-the-pants analysis. By formalizing the process, we make the level-one answers solid enough to be used to construct answers to the second- and third-level questions. The second-level questions now; eventually, in theory, we could get to the third-level questions.
So anyway, without further apologies, this is our list of the top 25 young major league players of 2008, with their 2008 ages:
1. Prince Fielder, Milwaukee (24)
2. Hanley Ramirez, Florida (24)
3. Tim Lincecum, San Francisco (24)
4. David Wright, Mets (25)
5. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee (24)
6. Dustin Pedroia, Boston (24)
7. Matt Kemp, Dodgers (23)
8. Francisco Rodriguez, Angels (26)
9. Jose Reyes, Mets (25)
10. Nick Markakis, Baltimore (24)
11. Joakim Soria, Kansas City (24)
12. Ryan Zimmerman, Nationals (23)
13. Cole Hamels, Philadelphia (24)
14. Troy Tulowitski, Rockies (23)
15. Felix Hernandez, Seattle (22)
16. Jon Lester, Boston (24)
17. Evan Longoria, Rays (22)
18. John Danks, White Sox (23)
19. Adrian Gonzalez, Padres (26)
20. James Loney, Dodgers (24)
21. Stephen Drew, Arizona (25)
22. Brian McCann, Atlanta (24)
23. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit (25)
24. Grady Sizemore, Cleveland (25)
25. Joey Votto, Cincinnati (24)
Prince Fielder and Hanley Ramirez, who ranked 1 and 2 a year ago, still do, while David Wright, who ranked fourth a year ago behind a pitcher, still does.
Which brings up a point: 2008 really was not a great year for young talent, except pitchers. Fielder and Ramirez had good years, not great years, but they had lesser seasons in 2008 than they had had in 2007—plus they are a year older, which is a huge thing in this system, which is youth-centered. They remained at the top of the list because nobody did enough to push them aside. Some young stars took a step forward (Pedroia, Matt Kemp, James Loney, Stephen Drew, Joey Votto, Josh Hamilton, Jose Lopez, Geovany Soto, Nate McLouth); others took a step backward (Tulowitzki, Ryan Zimmerman, Alex Gordon, Jeff Francoeur.) But the only really huge talent to emerge in 2008 was Longoria. Longoria probably would rank as the number one guy on our list, were it not for an injury, but the system relies on major league production; when part of his season is missing, his position drops.
In pitching, on the other hand, it was a good year: Lincecum, Jon Lester, John Danks and others emerged as major young talents—others including Jair Jurrjens, Ricky Nolasco, Mike Pelfrey and Edinson Volquez. It was a good year for young pitchers; it was not really a good year for young position players. This is a level-two conclusion—a conclusion that would be difficult to reach with confidence by intuitive analysis.
Of the 25 players who were on our list of the best young players in baseball last year, 14 are still on the list this year. Virtually everyone who is on this list now will drop off within two years. In baseball, you get over being “young” really quickly.
Why does John Danks rank ahead of, let’s say, Edinson Volquez? Danks was 12-9, 3.32 ERA, Volquez was 17-6, 3.21. Danks struck out 159, Volquez 206. Shouldn’t Volquez rank ahead?
Again, we’re not necessarily saying our system is right, and we’re not necessarily saying that Edinson won’t have a better career than Danks; you rank Volquez ahead of Danks if you want to. Danks and Volquez are almost even in terms of games and innings pitched (33 and 195 for Danks, 33 and 196 for Volquez.) Our system ignores won-lost records, and it is based on RUNS allowed, rather than earned runs allowed. Danks allowed 72 earned runs and 74 total runs; Volquez allowed 70 earned but 82 total. Danks is more than two years younger. They’re both really good, but. . .our math puts Danks ahead. Take it for what it is worth.
We made some changes in the way we calculate “youth value”; I’m not going to explain them all here, but one change was calculating ages based on month of birth, rather than year of birth. By baseball tradition, and by the method we used last year, a player born in June, 1983 or in July, 1982, would be considered 25 years old in 2008. We changed that so that a player born in June, 1983, would be considered 25.0 years of age, whereas a player born in July, 1982 would be 25.92 years old in 2008. Another change, which could be called the Tulowitzki rule, is that if a player has an injury season, we substitute a value based on his previous season (discounted, obviously), rather than basing the ranking 100% on 2008 stats.
Anyway, we have a list of the top 25 players, which nobody will be happy with because Nate McLouth isn’t in the top 25, or Josh Hamilton, or Edinson Volquez, or Curtis Granderson or Andre Ethier or Clayton Kershaw or Zack Greinke or Justin Upton or his brother or Hunter Pence or Jay Bruce or Matt Garza or Jacoby Ellsbury. My point is that there are 75 players who could be on the list, but there are only 25 spots. The second-level question, which is really what we’re trying to get to, is “Who has the young talent now? Which teams have the most young talent?”
1. Minnesota Twins The Twins have not a single player in the top 25, but they have 6 players in the top 100, 8 in the top 120, and 10 in the top 150. The average team has five players in the top 150; the Twins have ten—Joe Mauer (33), Delmon Young (40), Justin Morneau (50), Kevin Slowey (82), Scott Baker (85), Carlos Gomez (93), Nick Blackburn (109), Jason Kubel (120), Denard Span (136) and Glen Perkins (141). And then they have Michael Cuddyer, and Francisco Liriano, and Boof Bonser, and Craig Breslow, and then they have a bunch of other guys. The Twins rank seventh in the majors in young pitching talent, and first in non-pitching talent. The Twins ranked 11th on this list last year, and moved forward basically because of the development of the young pitchers. They’re loaded.
2. Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks are basically even with the Twins in young position players, a little behind them in young pitching. The Snakes have five outstanding young position players—Drew (21st), Chris Young (36), Justin Upton (48), Mark Reynolds (54) and Conor Jackson (56). Their top pitchers, Haren and Webb, are still on the young players list, but are closing in on 30, and are not really young anymore.
In our system a player drops off the list at age 30. My gut instinct is that the D’Backs will win the World Series in 2009, but you know. . .with that and $1.50 you can get a cup of coffee, but not at Starbucks.
3. Tampa Bay. The Rays ranked second last year (behind Colorado), and obviously justified our faith in their young talent with their remarkable season. In fact, this is perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in regard to this list in 2008: the Rays, who our system had identified as the team with the most young talent in the American League, vaulted over the league. And added Longoria, which keeps them near the top of the list.
4. Florida Marlins. Jorge Cantu, who has been up and down several times already in his career, is still only 26 years old, 27 in January. The Marlins have six good young players (Hanley, Cantu, Hermida, Ugly Dan Uggla, Mike Jacobs and Cody Ross) plus at least four good young pitchers (Nolasco, Olsen, Volstad, and Kevin Gregg. OK, Gregg is not really “young”.) If Andrew Miller figures it out, the Marlins could make some noise again.
5. Kansas City Royals. The Royals have arguably baseball’s best closer, in Soria (11th on our list), and they have a young starting pitcher, Greinke, who may be as good as anybody in baseball.
I’ve always loved watching Greinke pitch; occasionally I do those lists of the most-fun pitchers to watch, and Greinke has always been on my list. When he was a kid he had a big, slow curve ball that was almost like El Duque’s. He lost confidence, re-emerged last year, still only 24 years old. He has junked the curve ball, but the fast ball comes out of his hand 95-96 MPH with just no apparent effort. It looks like he’s playing catch with his father, but the ball just zooms. And, because it is so effortless for him to throw hard, he can move the ball up and down and in and out and hit the corners pretty reliably. I saw him pitch twice late in the season, and honestly, he was as good as anybody I saw in 2008. Greinke and Jon Lester were the best I saw.
Behind those two they have Alex Gordon (58th on our list), Billy Butler (69) and Mark Teahen (131), plus Aviles, who was sensational at shortstop although he is late emerging, Kyle Davies, David DeJesus, Brian Bannister, Luke Hochevar. They have little veteran talent, but if a couple of guys step forward, they could win 85-90 games in 2009.
6. Milwaukee Brewers. A complication of figuring out who “has” the most young talent is, do the Brewers have C.C. Sabathia or do they not? They have him at the moment, which is all we’re measuring at the moment. They have Fielder (1), Braun (5), Sabathia (29), J.J. Hardy (41), Corey Hart (81), Rickie Weeks (134), Ben Sheets (135), Manny Parra (164) and David Bush (178). They’ll have an outstanding lineup in 2009. Whether they’ll be able to hold onto enough pitching to stay in the playoffs is a question to be determined over the winter, and revealed in the summer.
7. Cleveland Indians. One of the announcers during the post-season said that the Indians had missed their moment, and their opportunity was getting away from them. Our analysis suggests that this is untrue, that the Indians, despite the injuries and the loss of Sabathia, are still well stocked. Sizemore (24th on our list), Peralta (61), Cliff Lee (76), Shin-Soo Choo (133), Aswhuppin Cabrera (162), Jensen Lewis (175), Victor Martinez (177. . .not much youth left), Ben Francisco (180), Ryan Garko (190), Franklin Gutierrez, Aaron Laffey, Kelly Shoppach, Fausto Carmona. I think the Indians are still very capable of challenging the Twins and the Royals for the future of this division.
8. Colorado Rockies. The Rockies had a tough season, dropping from 1st place in our survey to 8th, but there is still a solid foundation in place here with Tulowitzki, Matt Holliday, Iannetta, Garret Atkins, Brad Hawpe, plus pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez and Aaron Cook.
9. Atlanta Braves. The Braves ranked 16th in our survey last year, but shot up the list due to a solid year by McCann and the emergence of Jurrjens (34th on our list), Yunel Escobar (103rd) and others (Gregor Blanco, Jorge Campillo, Martin Prado, Jo-Jo Reyes, Josh Anderson.) Francoeur and Kelly Johnson are still young players. They just need for some of these guys to pump up the volume.
10. Boston Red Sox. Everybody knows the Red Sox. Four young players in the top 100—Pedroia, Lester, Papelbon and Ellsbury.
11. Los Angeles Angels. The Angels, like the Brewers, have a huge issue about possession. They have three players in the top 50, but two of them are free agents already (Teixeira and K-Rod.) But the Angels will be really good even if they lose those two players, because they have young pitching and Arredondo to step into K-Rod’s shoes and Howie Kendrick, who is still capable of MVP performance if he can stay healthy. The Angels rank first in the majors in young pitching.
12. Oakland A’s. Nobody here is all that good, at least not yet, but they lead the world in guys who should get better.
13. Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers are the exact opposite of the A’s; they have very impressive young talent in Kemp, Ethier, Billingsley, Loney and Kershaw, Broxton and Martin, but the issue is depth.
14. St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals best young player, by far, is Pujols, who as we all know is not really “young” anymore. He is just SO good that he almost makes the top 25 young players anyway (27th). The Cardinals don’t really have any young studs, but they have a bunch of guys in their late 20s who are pretty decent.
15. Cincinnati Reds. And the Reds are the exact opposite of the Cardinals. They have four young lions that everybody would love to have (Votto, Volquez, Jay Bruce and Johnny Cueto), but only two late-twenties guys who can really play (Encarnacion and Phillips.) Dickerson will make a splash in ’09, if he’s the player we think he is.
16. New York Mets. Similar to the Reds. Two top-ten guys (Reyes and Wright), four good young pitchers (Pelfrey, Santana, Maine and Perez) and one guy who could make a splash in ’09 (Daniel Murphy).
17. Pittsburgh Pirates. Maholm and McLouth are top 100, although McLouth isn’t exactly a baby, other guys have ability but haven’t produced yet. Gorzellany’s big step backward is a disappointment. McLouth replaces Bay in the way that Bay replaced Giles, but the Pirates don’t appear to be close to getting out of this rut.
18. Seattle Mariners. The Mariners lead the world in “buts”. Jose Lopez had a big year in 2008, but nobody noticed. Lopez has ability as a hitter, and so does Betancourt and Balentien and Jeff Clement, but none of them has any control of the strike zone. Felix Hernandez and Brandon Morrow look like world-beaters half the time, but lose the other half.
19. Texas Rangers. Hamilton and Kinsler are MVP candidates, but not all that young. Young isn’t young at all. Chris Davis is young and could hit 40 homers, but hasn’t done it yet. They have traded away a couple of the best young pitchers in baseball, and don’t really seem to have anybody else you would put in the same cattle call.
20. Philadelphia Phillies. Cole Hamels is among the best young pitchers in the game (duh.); otherwise their best “young” players are Howard and Utley, who are pushing 30.
21. San Diego Padres. Three good young players—Adrian Gonzalez, Jake Peavy and Kevin Kouzmanoff. Chase Headley could help. Talent depth is a real issue.
22. San Francisco Giants. Lincecum and Cain and pray for rain.
23. Washington Nationals. Three guys in the top 100—Zimmerman (12), Lastings Milledge (64) and John Lannan (70). Elijah Dukes will be an All-Star if he can stay out of trouble and in the lineup. After that it’s not pretty.
24. Baltimore Orioles. Markakis is the real deal, one of the best young players in baseball. Adam Jones (113) has a lot to prove. Jeremy Guthrie (120) is a little bit young and pretty good, but, you know. …he’s the same age as Johan Santana, and not making hundreds of millions yet. Otherwise, just a bunch of older guys and second-line pitching prospects.
25. Chicago White Sox. Danks (18), Carlos Quentin (42—would be top 15 if he hadn’t gotten hurt), Gavin Floyd (73), Swisher (118), Bobby Jenks (117), Mark Buehle (126), Alexei Ramirez (153). The aging of Thome, Konerko, Dye and Pierzynski may drag the White Sox out of contention in 2009.
26. Chicago Cubs. The Cubs key players are not really old, but they’re not really young, either. . .Derrek Lee, Aramis, DeRosa, Soriano, Fukudome. They’re all past 30; they could hang together to keep the Cubs at the top for a year or two, but they don’t have time to be wasting their bullets. Young guys are Soto (51st on our list...don’t really know why he isn’t higher), Rich Harden (80th), Zambrano (101) and Chris Marmol (173). Ryan Theriot is 29 years old.
27. Detroit Tigers. Miguel Cabrera (23rd on our list) and Curtis Granderson (30) are hosses. The young pitching has fallen apart and the rest of the team is fighting the calendar.
28. Toronto Blue Jays. The young pitching is good, Litsch and Marcum. Alex Rios is a good young player but not exactly Evan Longoria or David Wright. Adam Lind could help out. Travis Snider should be on our list next year; he’s a “prospect” now, as opposed to a young player of proven value.
29. New York Yankees. This is the really interesting problem that we face: Will the Yankees other resources ultimately prove more important than their lack of young talent? The Yankees have a fling of young pitchers, of course, but they’re having all kinds of trouble getting those guys tires running on the major league highway, which is the normal thing; most young pitchers struggle for several years before they get going, and very often the guys who look like they’re going to be great and the guys who are great aren’t the same guys. A year ago, who was talking about Edinson Volquez and Jair Jurrjens and Ricky Nolasco?
Anyway, the Yankees basically have no young talent of proven ability; they’ve got Melky (83) and Cano (104) and Joba (121). But there are four elements of this equation: young major league talent, prospects, veterans, and other resources that can be converted into talent. The Yankees’ farm system isn’t the best in the majors, but it’s certainly not 29th out of 30. Their veteran core is still very impressive.
And, of course, their other resources are formidable: they’ve got a fan base, and a new stadium, and a tradition, and a city, and a TV contract, and committed ownership. If they sign C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira this winter, does that offset the lack of young talent, or not? We’ll see.
30. Houston Astros. Among the 30 teams the Astros rank dead last in young pitching talent, and dead last in young non-pitching talent. They’re in a sorry state, but they were in the same position last year, and they managed to stay in contention until the closing weeks of the season.
I’ve suggested here a way to take an inventory of young talent. We could also do a “prospect inventory”, and a “veteran talent inventory”, and an inventory of a team’s other resources. In theory, we could learn to put these together, so that we could project the course of a franchise over a period of the next several years, not with 100% reliability, obviously.