Cleaning out a bookshelf I discovered a pristine copy of the Baseball Prospectus Futures Guide from 2019, a book the primary function of which is to present BP’s top 101 MLB prospects headed into the 2019 season. By the time I started reading the book (last month), the guys on that list had had five seasons in which to make good, bad, or otherwise on their cited major-league potential. How well did they– and the BP prospect team– actually perform? I now can tell you with some ease and endeavor to do so here. What follows is my present-day annotation of that 2019 list, featuring total WARP from 2019 to present and quotations from BP’s own commentary then and now (i.e., prior to the 2023 season, since the public continues to await the arrival of the 2024 BP Annual).
Quick hits:
- Biggest miss? Probably Jo Adell (#2, -0.9 WARP) or Forrest Whitley (#7, yet to debut).
- Biggest diss? Maybe Sean Murphy (#95, 11.9 WARP, by far the lowest-ranked prospect to earn an all-star nod) or Sandy Alcantara (#73, 15.5 WARP, with a Cy Young award and two all-star appearances).
- Of the 101 prospects listed, five (Whitley, Seuly Matias (#52), Victor Victor Mesa (#71, just ahead of Alcantara), Kristian Robinson (#100), and Kyler Murray (#101, yes that Kyler Murray) have not appeared in the majors, and eleven others have been worse than replacement level. On the other side, eleven have accumulated double-digit WARP.
- Distribution of double-digit WARPers (and sub-2 WARP or N/A) [and free agents/not debuted]:
- 1-10: 2 (4) [1]
- 11-20: 3 (3) [1]
- 21-30: 1 (5) [2]
- 31-40: 1 (3) [0]
- 41-50: 1 (5) [2]
- 51-60: 1 (4) [2]
- 61-70: 0 (7) [1]
- 71-80: 1 (6) [2]
- 81-90: 0 (7) [3]
- 91-101: 1 (10) [3]
Does this suggest you’re as likely to land on a star as a black hole no matter where you place on this list? The graph at the end of this post generally illustrates that there’s more value in the top half, though still a good mix of mediocrity and land mines. And the second half isn’t exactly dumpster diving, even if name recognition does fall off precipitously.
What should someone holding BP’s 2024 prospect list learn from this exercise? Your time may be better spent elsewhere. If you insist on reading it, maybe stop once you hit the sixties, and don’t parse the individual player comments. For better or worse, even the professionals can’t really predict baseball.
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ALDLAND 