Written by Greg Fertel
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20 March 2007
Prospects are prospects because they are young. They have a long baseball life ahead of them if they make the major leagues. Baseball players are in their prime between the rough ages of 25 and 29, which is usually before free agency. Prospects enter major league organizations either through the draft or free agency between the ages of 16 and 24, for the most part.
The progression through the minor leagues is different depending on how a prospect is acquired. I'm going to take a couple of cases from the Yankee system and explain what the ticking clock of age means for that prospect.
Cody Ehlers, 24, A+
The Yankees drafted Ehlers in the 11th round of 2004 right after he turned 22. He was an averaged aged college prospect. However, he hit just .191 at Staten Island, prompting the Yankees to send him to Charleston in 2005. This is not unheard of for a college prospect. Some guys adjust very slowly to wooden bats. He spent most of his age-23 season in Charleston, but the Yankees realized that he was getting old for A-ball. He hit .278/.387/.426 there, which was good enough for the Yankees considering Charleston's power sap. He finished the 2005 season with 35 games in Tampa, where he did not hit at all (.240/.295/.388).
However, the Yankees made the right choice. Ehlers had a chance to adjust to the horrid conditions and advanced pitchers of the Florida State League, and it paid off in 2006. He was the best hitter in the Tampa lineup with a .298/.375/.487 line. He turns 25 in April. Ehlers is seeing his prime years run out on him - not unlike Andy Phillips did. He hit very well in Tampa - but he was 2-3 years older than the pitchers he faced every day. His value as a prospect is diminished. The pitchers will catch up in age with Ehlers in Trenton, and his status as a prospect will be tested. If he succeeds, he'll have a 2 year window or so to make the majors. Otherwise, the same fate will happen to him as Andy Phillips.
Melky Cabrera, 22, MLB
Melky is the perfect example of how numbers change when you put in to context the age and level that they are produced in. The Yankees brought Melky to the states right before his 19th birthday. After some extended spring training, they sent him right to Staten Island, the first sign that the Yankees were very high on him even at that stage. He hit pretty well - .283/.345/.355. The power was not there yet, but the 36/23 K/BB ratio was very encouraging. Of all the hitting skills, power is the last to develop.
The Yankees liked his swing and his advanced plate approach and sent him right to Battle Creek (our A ball club before Charleston). He beat up on pitchers his own age, hitting .333/.383/.462 with a still good 23/15 K/BB ratio. Clearly outmatching his competition, Melky was promoted to Tampa just after his 20th birthday, hitting a .288/.341/.438. He was not dominating, but Melky was a little young for the league and had moved very quickly up the minor league ladder. Melky illustrates why it is important to let a prospect's level of experience catch up to his league level.
Had the Yankees not been desperate for a centerfielder, Melky would have stayed at Tampa after that year. He had started to strike out more with a 59/23 K/BB ratio, although Melky did take a big step forward by hitting 8 home runs in 85 games. Instead, the Yankees bit their lips and pushed Melky to Trenton. He was clearly behind his competition - managing to hit only .275/.322/.411. He hit worse once he was aggressively promoted to Columbus .248/.308/.366.
The important thing to learn about Melky's various stops in the minors is that development takes time. Melky was essentially the same hitter in Tampa, Trenton, and Columbus. However, he gradually batted worse as he faced tougher competition. The development took place between the 2005 and 2006 seasons. I don't know specifically what he did, but the effect was huge. Melky hit .349 in spring training, but was sent to Colubmus. Melky finally became that hitter that we saw down in A ball again, hitting .385/.430/.566 and .280/.360/.390 in the major leagues.
It's important to remember a few things here. Due to the extreme aggression of his promotions, his career .294/.347/.422 line underrepresents his abilities. When Melky faced hitters of the same level of hitters two stops in a row - which he did moving from Staten Island to Battle Creek and Columbus to Columbus - Melky dominated. If he had been given a year at each level in the minors (the norm), Melky would probably have a line that looked a little more like .310/.380/.470 - which would make him a good major league left fielder.
Steve White, 25, AAA
College prospects move on a different curve than high school ones. College prospects tend to make the majors around 24-26 instead of 22-23. White was drafted in 2003, but did not sign in time for the minor league season. The Yankees sent him to A ball - where he clearly was better than the competition (2.65 ERA, 8.74 K/9). The level of competition in D1 college ball is highly debatable. Different conferences have different levels of advancement. Steve White was in the Big 12, so he saw a lot of very good hitters. He was probably playing at a high A ball level of competition. Some will call te conference somewhere between AA and A+, but I tend to estimate more conservatively.
White moved up to Tampa, where he had a good ERA (2.56) despite declining strikeout rates. The Yankees saw this and kept him down in Tampa to start the next season, but White suffered major injuries that kept him out for most of the season. He pitched 50 inngings at AA with a 6+ ERA. Despite the lost season, White was able to make some improvements, and he dominated AA in 2006 with a 2.11 ERA. He was promoted to Columbus, where he put up a 4.71 ERA despite peripherals in line with his career averages. If White follows his ternd, he should come back to post something close to his career average 3.85 ERA at Columbus next season.
White turns 26 in June. He is the perfect example of why an older college prospect cannot afford a lot of blips in the road. He lost half a season in 2005, and all of the sudden he's looking fairly old. If he doesn't make the majors in a year or so, White will enter in to the "former prospect, career minor leaguer" territory, despite having less professional baseball time under his belt than Melky.
Phil Hughes, 20, AA
Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus recently said "Pitching is much moreso a physical tool than hitting". What does this mean? Sometimes pitchers don't really need to develop their abilities to get hitters out. Phil Hughes was a guy who much more simply needed innings under his belt than he did need to slowly tune himself against gradually higher quality batters. Hughes went right to A ball after he was drafted before he turned 19, and dominated. He was promoted to Tampa right after his 19th birthday, and dominated. He got his 90ish innings that year, and the Yankees decided that nothing great would be served by bringing him back from minor shoulder problems. Coming in to 2006, he destroyed A+ hitters, and moved up to post similar results against AA ones.
Hughes has developed - he was only above average for a few starts when he adjusted to A+ and AA. Eventually though, he settled in and did his usual thing. "Crafty" pitchers probably need to settle in and learn how to get advanced hitters out (see Tyler Clippard last year), but Hughes has all the physical skills to blow by any hitters in the game. The lack of a drop off from level to level tell me that Hughes doesn't have a whole lot to learn at AAA that he couldn't learn in the majors. Of course, limiting his innings is the Yankee's big concern.
Of course, we have to remember that Hughes did in fact adjust to AA, he refused to be stopped. AA was the first level that he spent significant time at without moving up. Could Hughes become even better than his purely physical skills that we've seen at throughout his minor league career? I think it's within the realm of possibilty. In his final 10 starts, Hughes pitched 48.2 innings of 1.29 ERA ball, striking out 71 (13 per 9) and walking 11 (2.02 per 9). Both those rates are better than Hughes' milb career. Hughes might be a good deal better than we think he is once he settles down in the majors. 13 per 9 and 2 per 9 look a hell of a lot like Mark Prior in the high minors.
I hope that my ramblings made some sense. I figured that this was a less boring way of doing it than just listing out minor league levels and explaining what different kinds of prospects do at these levels.
