Short-Term Prospects and Alex Gordon, Pete Rose
On Thursday, members of our free mailing list received an essay entitled "A Different Type of Prospect List: Pre-2007" which will also be published in this space for all to see on Thursday March 22. It was remarkable how many copies of the same question I got: Where is Alex Gordon? Did I forget about him?
Believe me, I could never forget about Alex Gordon as his presence at "only" #36 on the regular top prospect list generated both plenty of feedback and disagreement.
I want to again re-emphasize that the short-term value list is not a top prospect list in the traditional sense. Though the order of the 50, as I said in the piece, is at least a bit arbitrary, the methods used to select the actual fifty names are quite an automatic process based on short-term forecasting efforts that span the three upcoming years. I used the same method to create last year's list.
Unfortunately, this method puts great weight not just on single year minor league performances but two year performances, so as to eliminate the undue effects of single year minor league possible fluke seasons. For that reason, I should clarify that you will not see any player who did not at least appear at Single-A or higher for at least a portion of each of the past two seasons. As I said, this list is not an effort to pull names out of a hat and just give you what you expect. It's based on formulae that are applied to the minor league translations over the past two or more seasons to flag players who have established credentials to being ready or close to being ready for the majors.
If we were to include players who have made a rapid rise through the minors, who didn't appear at a full-season Single-A game or higher in the 2005 season, Alex Gordon would be the highest ranked hitter of such a group and then Cameron Maybin of Detroit would be right behind him.
When I tested this short-term ranking method before the 2006 season, using old year translations from 2001-2002 and then comparing what players actually ended up doing in the majors from 2003-2005, I found that the lists had significantly higher accuracy rates when we assign heavy weight not only to the translation of the most recent season but also to the season just before that, which had the effect of excluding virtually all players who had less than two years of minor league experience. If you go down the fifty names, you'll not find a single name without those two years and this was true of the list I published last spring as well. Gordon did not even sign with the Royals until September 2005 and his first pro action came in the Arizona Fall League shortly after. Theoretically, a single year player could make the list but their minor league translation for 2006 would have to be so extraordinary that I have trouble imagining any such player cracking the top fifty because they'd be getting no "points" for the 2005 season under the weights method.
I would never make our regular prospect list using such an "automatic" method but as I said, this isn't our regular prospect list. It's a method we've created that assigns weights and formulae to minor league performances, age and recent movement between the minor league ladder to estimate and project short-term future major league performance only and that method does put a lot of weight on not only the previous year performance but the year prior to that as well. I usually dislike using fixed methods to achieve lists but this list is an "extra" beyond our regular prospect list and so, I have no hesitation using it for this extra list if it works, even at the expense of leaving off players who have risen from amateur ball to the majors in the span of a single year.
Aside from the short-term list, one thing I do want to speak to briefly, though, is the apparent perception that Gordon's starting job at third base over the next few years is seemingly self-evident and automatic. Yes, the Royals have apparently handed him the job this spring and I'm projecting a decent first season for him (434 AB, .264-13 HR-53 RBI-12 SB) but there's a wide margin of error here and if Gordon goes out and goes 2 for 45 or something to start the season, it wouldn't surprise me for him to end up right back in the minors quickly, pushing for a second shot in September. I'm projecting that he'll hang on to the job but be warned that Gordon is a high risk pick and anything but automatic. Other forecasters out there, of course, are projecting a much stronger first season.
One other matter I want to share today is related to Pete Rose's admission that not only did he bet on baseball but that he bet on his own team to win every night. A reader remembered that I had been asked about this very issue several years ago, when another reader wanted to know what would be wrong about betting on one's own team to win. The current reader wanted to know if I could repeat my explanation of why betting on one's team is still a fairly serious offense in baseball and so, I've dug up my response here. When I wrote it, we were considering the idea hypothetically and had no idea that Pete Rose would actually admit that he did everything possible to make his team win every night. Here were my comments then, as published January 14, 2004:
Q. I heard that you once commented about the Pete Rose affair and explained why it can hurt the integrity of the game even if he only bet on his team to win. Can you explain this again? It would seem to me that if you're betting on your team, it can't possibly hurt your team because you want to win that much more.
A. Yes, I commented about this several years ago around the time broadcaster Jim Gray confronted Rose at the World Series and ended up having to issue a public apology to viewers for making Rose uncomfortable at the festive event. At that time, Rose was still denying that he had bet on baseball and a reader wrote me then to ask if it would be acceptable if Rose admitted betting if he had limited his bets to betting on his team to win.
My response then remains about the same. The game of baseball, particularly for a field manager, is about long runs. It's about sometimes juggling your rotation so that the best pitchers will pitch in key games relevant to your pennant success. It's about resting players from time to time so that they perform better for 162 games, even at the expense of today's win. While a manager could theoretically argue that betting on his team does not influence the outcome, the example I used then (and I've heard this was quoted by a reader on our website discussion forum this past week) is that if you have a huge bet on a specific game and you're leading 8-3 in the ninth inning, is it possible that you might bring in your closer to lock down the game, thus jeopardizing his availability for the next day's game? I'm not in any way suggesting that Rose did this and in fact, I suspect that he wanted to win for Cincinnati more than he wanted to win his wagers and so I would doubt that he did manage a different way. The problem is that it does create a reasonable perception of bias in terms of how you approach that individual game, even perhaps at the expense of your team's long run. I believe there are managers who correctly presume that though they could make adjustments in the way they use players to win a particular game today, they are more interested in the long run. I believe that when you bet on a particular game, even betting on your team to win, you jeopardize your own ability to manage a game as though you didn't have a bet on it, even if you have the best of intentions to do otherwise.
On a related note, since Pete Rose was an extremely popular topic this past week in emails to this column, for those of you who have asked whether the Dowd Report was ever published, you'll be pleased to know that the full report, including scans of the alleged betting slips and transcripts of interviews of Pete Rose, is now available online and can be found at dowdreport.com which is a site published by the former special counsel John Dowd. If you want to get a fascinating look inside this issue, I strongly encourage you to check out this website.
Believe me, I could never forget about Alex Gordon as his presence at "only" #36 on the regular top prospect list generated both plenty of feedback and disagreement.
I want to again re-emphasize that the short-term value list is not a top prospect list in the traditional sense. Though the order of the 50, as I said in the piece, is at least a bit arbitrary, the methods used to select the actual fifty names are quite an automatic process based on short-term forecasting efforts that span the three upcoming years. I used the same method to create last year's list.
Unfortunately, this method puts great weight not just on single year minor league performances but two year performances, so as to eliminate the undue effects of single year minor league possible fluke seasons. For that reason, I should clarify that you will not see any player who did not at least appear at Single-A or higher for at least a portion of each of the past two seasons. As I said, this list is not an effort to pull names out of a hat and just give you what you expect. It's based on formulae that are applied to the minor league translations over the past two or more seasons to flag players who have established credentials to being ready or close to being ready for the majors.
If we were to include players who have made a rapid rise through the minors, who didn't appear at a full-season Single-A game or higher in the 2005 season, Alex Gordon would be the highest ranked hitter of such a group and then Cameron Maybin of Detroit would be right behind him.
When I tested this short-term ranking method before the 2006 season, using old year translations from 2001-2002 and then comparing what players actually ended up doing in the majors from 2003-2005, I found that the lists had significantly higher accuracy rates when we assign heavy weight not only to the translation of the most recent season but also to the season just before that, which had the effect of excluding virtually all players who had less than two years of minor league experience. If you go down the fifty names, you'll not find a single name without those two years and this was true of the list I published last spring as well. Gordon did not even sign with the Royals until September 2005 and his first pro action came in the Arizona Fall League shortly after. Theoretically, a single year player could make the list but their minor league translation for 2006 would have to be so extraordinary that I have trouble imagining any such player cracking the top fifty because they'd be getting no "points" for the 2005 season under the weights method.
I would never make our regular prospect list using such an "automatic" method but as I said, this isn't our regular prospect list. It's a method we've created that assigns weights and formulae to minor league performances, age and recent movement between the minor league ladder to estimate and project short-term future major league performance only and that method does put a lot of weight on not only the previous year performance but the year prior to that as well. I usually dislike using fixed methods to achieve lists but this list is an "extra" beyond our regular prospect list and so, I have no hesitation using it for this extra list if it works, even at the expense of leaving off players who have risen from amateur ball to the majors in the span of a single year.
Aside from the short-term list, one thing I do want to speak to briefly, though, is the apparent perception that Gordon's starting job at third base over the next few years is seemingly self-evident and automatic. Yes, the Royals have apparently handed him the job this spring and I'm projecting a decent first season for him (434 AB, .264-13 HR-53 RBI-12 SB) but there's a wide margin of error here and if Gordon goes out and goes 2 for 45 or something to start the season, it wouldn't surprise me for him to end up right back in the minors quickly, pushing for a second shot in September. I'm projecting that he'll hang on to the job but be warned that Gordon is a high risk pick and anything but automatic. Other forecasters out there, of course, are projecting a much stronger first season.
One other matter I want to share today is related to Pete Rose's admission that not only did he bet on baseball but that he bet on his own team to win every night. A reader remembered that I had been asked about this very issue several years ago, when another reader wanted to know what would be wrong about betting on one's own team to win. The current reader wanted to know if I could repeat my explanation of why betting on one's team is still a fairly serious offense in baseball and so, I've dug up my response here. When I wrote it, we were considering the idea hypothetically and had no idea that Pete Rose would actually admit that he did everything possible to make his team win every night. Here were my comments then, as published January 14, 2004:
Q. I heard that you once commented about the Pete Rose affair and explained why it can hurt the integrity of the game even if he only bet on his team to win. Can you explain this again? It would seem to me that if you're betting on your team, it can't possibly hurt your team because you want to win that much more.
A. Yes, I commented about this several years ago around the time broadcaster Jim Gray confronted Rose at the World Series and ended up having to issue a public apology to viewers for making Rose uncomfortable at the festive event. At that time, Rose was still denying that he had bet on baseball and a reader wrote me then to ask if it would be acceptable if Rose admitted betting if he had limited his bets to betting on his team to win.
My response then remains about the same. The game of baseball, particularly for a field manager, is about long runs. It's about sometimes juggling your rotation so that the best pitchers will pitch in key games relevant to your pennant success. It's about resting players from time to time so that they perform better for 162 games, even at the expense of today's win. While a manager could theoretically argue that betting on his team does not influence the outcome, the example I used then (and I've heard this was quoted by a reader on our website discussion forum this past week) is that if you have a huge bet on a specific game and you're leading 8-3 in the ninth inning, is it possible that you might bring in your closer to lock down the game, thus jeopardizing his availability for the next day's game? I'm not in any way suggesting that Rose did this and in fact, I suspect that he wanted to win for Cincinnati more than he wanted to win his wagers and so I would doubt that he did manage a different way. The problem is that it does create a reasonable perception of bias in terms of how you approach that individual game, even perhaps at the expense of your team's long run. I believe there are managers who correctly presume that though they could make adjustments in the way they use players to win a particular game today, they are more interested in the long run. I believe that when you bet on a particular game, even betting on your team to win, you jeopardize your own ability to manage a game as though you didn't have a bet on it, even if you have the best of intentions to do otherwise.
On a related note, since Pete Rose was an extremely popular topic this past week in emails to this column, for those of you who have asked whether the Dowd Report was ever published, you'll be pleased to know that the full report, including scans of the alleged betting slips and transcripts of interviews of Pete Rose, is now available online and can be found at dowdreport.com which is a site published by the former special counsel John Dowd. If you want to get a fascinating look inside this issue, I strongly encourage you to check out this website.
posted by David Luciani at
2:29 PM
