tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6403092643973900215.post5778848916537326793..comments2024-02-11T00:37:47.952-08:00Comments on Optioned to Fresno - A SF Giants Prospects Blog: OTF's 32 Most Interesting Prospects: No. 22, Brett Pill, 1BKevin O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114732419318117049noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6403092643973900215.post-48333415029678290252011-05-10T20:07:52.395-07:002011-05-10T20:07:52.395-07:00OGC, all excellent points! Thanks so much for the ...OGC, all excellent points! Thanks so much for the advice and the comment.<br /><br />I think the age factor in terms of evaluating prospects is a great method. I had kept that sort of in consideration before, but at the same time, I hadn't really comprehensively used the "comparing to players in the past at the same age" method before. Now that I know how well it has worked for you, I'm definitely going to be using that method a little more (having as much as possible to help evaluate prospects never hurts).<br /><br />Going back to Pill, if you look at his "great" season in Connecticut, he was 24, which was around the league average. In terms of comparing Pill to other guys at his position in the Easten League, Ryan Strieby in the Detroit system, who is 23 years old (only one year younger) hit 19 home runs in 220 less plate appearances and had an OPS that was 140 points higher than Pill's. Now, I'm not trying to take away anything from Pill. However, you have a guy who's a year younger than Pill and he produces more in less plate appearances. Thus, while Pill should be commended for his solid year, it shouldn't be overblown, for his year was pretty tame when you compare it to what is expected out of first base prospects.<br /><br />I really like the move though to the middle infield, and I think he would bring some interesting power and pop to a position in the Giants system that is lacking that. The only issue with me is Pill's athleticism. I can't say for certain, but I don't know if he is athletic enough to make the transition to the middle infield at this point in his career. That being said, if his defense is as good as everyone says it is, then you would think he could be an average defensive middle infielder or slightly below. Of course, this wouldn't be so bad because his hitting would more than make up for it.Kevin O'Brienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00114732419318117049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6403092643973900215.post-49646153989680698032011-05-10T16:54:02.888-07:002011-05-10T16:54:02.888-07:00One trick to that I use to get a bead on how good ...One trick to that I use to get a bead on how good a player has produced is to check out prior seasons of that same league for players of the same age performing at around the same OPS level. I made this up myself, and perhaps this is how BP's PECOTA works, but it makes sense to me from the stuff I learned from Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster Toolkit.<br /><br />The reason I think this works is because people tend to get excited when a minor leaguer performs as well as one would hope a major leaguer would. However, that is not exactly apples to oranges, pitchers are worse in the minors, and that's where the MLE theory that Bill James introduced comes in, reducing minor stats to equivalent major league stats. But everyone has their own method, and I frankly don't have the time to do such quantitative analysis.<br /><br />One other problem is that people (including me, I should add for this and above) tend to look at players as if they are the same age, when their age is a huge factor in how to evaluate how well the batter actually did in the league (FWIW, I don't do this for pitchers, just different, based on skills that they either have or don't, age don't matter as much).<br /><br />Hence comparing how a player did in a league with similar aged hitters in the same league (because each league is skewed vs. any other league) in prior years (as the talent tends to even out across time, and why I look at a range nearby to the OPS).<br /><br />That's what helped me distinguish that what Pablo Sandoval was doing in AA at age 21 was much better than what John Bowker was doing in AA at age 23 (and for those, I looked more at their road numbers because of Dodd Stadium's extreme skew to home stats) or Brian Dallimore in AAA in 2003. In Pablo's case, I kept up coming against prospects who I recognized as players who became were highly ranked prospects and some who made majors and did well. In Bowker's case, came across guys who were not that highly thought of, more of a mixed bag. <br /><br />It's not foolproof - nothing is - but I think of prospecting as a puzzle where you try to find all the pertinent pieces that you can find. And data is scarce ofttimes, so I would not just look at just the one age, but I would go down a year or two, depending on how much data you find, to, again, see what names get pulled up. <br /><br />You also try to take position into account as well, the normal best hitters at 1B, good hitters at the corners, OK hitters up the middle, as a gauge, but I think age is the comparator that most observers do not take account of to the extent that they should.<br /><br />This is why I've not been impressed by Pill while others have beat up Sabean over him. <br /><br />However, that said, if Pill can be converted to also play 2B, that would increase his value on the bench, because his hitting is OK for a 2B, not so much for a guy who can only play 1B. He could be like an Uggla where you give up defense to get the offense at best, though more likely a nice bat off the bench who can play multiple positions.obsessivegiantscompulsivehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11362706004246875823noreply@blogger.com