Zimmerman’s Mid-Season Prospect Ranking

It is mid-season prospect ranking time and I don’t want to feel left out. This past winter I introduced a stats only based system which ranks prospects by comparing at their position, age at the level, and production at the level. Since that release, I have made a few refinements to which I think make the results even better.

The inspiration behind these rankings is an industry league I compete in with 19 other prospect experts. These guys are good and read every available source possible, so I needed a source others didn’t have so I created these rankings. The rankings worked great this past offseason, especially when pointing out some players with prospect fatigue, namely Cheslor Cuthbert and Albert Almora. Both were highly touted when they first joined their teams but didn’t move as quickly as other prospects through their team’s system. The system pointed out that I should not give up on them yet.

On the pitching front, it wasn’t working as great and I needed to make some adjustments. The main issue I found it was giving too much value to young pitchers vs. good pitchers. With a few adjustments, the rankings are more in line with MLB production.

As for the rankings, here are some settings and limitations.

• The pitchers use 1.5 years’ worth of data and it is 2.5 years with hitters. Any player who played in the minors during this time frame, like Kris Bryant, is included. I thought of removing anyone with any MLB experience, but some players only get a brief call-up, so I just decided to keep all players and let the readers decide if the player needs to be removed.

• Two values are generated, regressed and not regressed.

• Players with little playing time (recently signed or often injured), but are highly touted are most likely undervalued with this system. A player needs at least a year of playing time to really start getting recognized.

• The position used to evaluate the player is their most common position played over the time frame examined. If the player will not be able to play the position at the MLB level, an adjustment needs to be made. Also, relief pitchers get penalty compared to starters.

Enough with the technicalities, here are the two lists. Let me know if any items sticks out as out-of-place and will look at correcting them.

Hitters

Pitchers