We welcome change when it brings about good fortune, or new hope, or bad Scorpions songs, but the fear associated with the unknown aspects of change can paralyze your progress and limit your desire to accept a new reality. At Baseball Prospectus, we are walking into a new tomorrow without our most prominent and respected figure, a baseball mind of such merit that the major leagues finally purchased his contract and called him up to the active roster. In uncertain times, the drug of choice is certitude, and I’ve been bird-dogging the streets for dealers and distributors. How do you replace a seasoned veteran of national prominence over a weekend?
I haven’t been in the prospect game as long as Kevin, and I can’t stand next to his resume at this stage of my career and pretend we are equals. I was casually writing for a team-specific blog when Kevin and I became friends, and this is after I spent years reading his work and impersonating his pomp on various platforms. We were friends before we were co-workers, and we were co-workers only because we were friends and he thought I’d make a good podcast partner. Can you imagine the brain trust at Baseball Prospectus after that request was made? I didn’t have a footprint on Twitter. The “industry” didn’t know my name. I had developed solid contacts, but mostly on the [Texas] Rangers side of the coin, and even though I felt some degree of confidence in my scouting knowledge, my world was so small that any standing was significant. Kevin fished me out of a small pond and relocated me into the national waters of Baseball Prospectus. He’s my Robert Shaw.
With only two full seasons under my belt at the highest level, I’m hardly a grizzled, drunk, combative fisherman crushing beers in one pull and wearing wool sweaters—although I have been known to crush beers and I do own a few wool sweaters—but I have learned more in the last two years working at Baseball Prospectus than I did in the 10 years before that. Thanks to my affiliation, I’ve been able to walk through many doors that were previously closed to me, ranging from access to fields and practices to correspondence with front office personnel. My network of sources has grown from a handful to a healthy hoard, and through these contacts I’ve been able to refine some of my scouting chops; if you hang around scouts and watch games at their hip, it’s amazing how much you can learn about the game that you were completely and utterly ignorant of. I learn something new every day, be it a description or a particular approach that I had previously dismissed or been blind to. The more I learn, the more it freaks me out how little I actually know about the game, and I absolutely love that. I can’t wait to take another step forward and learn that my knowledge of the present will be judged harshly against my knowledge in the future.
This brings me to the state of things at Baseball Prospectus, at least as it pertains to the future of the minor league side. We can’t replace Kevin Goldstein the man, but we are going to offer you premium content that will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the output of recent years and hopefully exceed that product down the line. I'll be taking on an expanded role as I lead the the prospect and player development side of the site. Future Shock was Kevin's baby and, therefore, will be retired like a jersey in the rafters, but some of the qualities of that baby will continue to live on in different forms. For the 2013 season, it is our goal to continue the tradition of daily minor-league recaps, not to mention a Monday Ten Pack in KG’s honor. We will continue to produce “poll the industry"-type pieces, keeping you attached to how some people within the game view talent and player development. The team prospect rankings will continue, as will the top 101, although the process will be tweaked to fit the hands of the new artists tasked with the construction. Speaking of new hands…
Baseball Prospectus will be adding talent to the roster in the coming weeks. This talent will work closely with me on all team prospect rankings and the top 101, serve as frequent contributors to the site on all things prospects and player development, and pair nicely with the talented staff we already have in place. I’m very excited about these moves, and I look forward to the day when I can cheer the announcement. That day will be coming soon, and we're keeping this quiet for now only to protect the parties involved and to make sure we don’t counter a big-body blow with an off-balance haymaker. The moves we have on the agenda will make Baseball Prospectus a better site, and it’s worth the extra patience to see it through. Trust me, this is going to be fun.
One final note on the upcoming minor-league coverage for 2013: Baseball Prospectus will be setting up networks of regional prospect coverage, and we have already started the process of recruiting talent for such an endeavor. To keep the readers close to the action of the moment, these satellite reporters will be providing tangible scouting data from minor-league games in their regions, and we will pair that information with other reports being generated in order to build more accurate and in-depth player profiles. If you want to know what pitches a prospect throws, how fast he throws them, and from what arm slot, we are going to provide you with that information, and we are going to keep it updated. Our goal is to provide you with the most comprehensive coverage available by the most convenient means, and once we cut the ribbon on this construction site, you are going to understand why I feel so confident about this. Turns out, change isn’t as scary as I once thought.
Thank you for reading
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I don't want to get into this today, because this is a thread for congratulations, #want, hats and strange mancrushes, but it would be nice if there was an opportunity for folks to discuss what they want from prospect coverage from BP before things were set in stone.
I also think that Jason has a specific set of skills that work very well for the sort of things he has been doing for the site - looking at more obscure guys, focusing in greater depth on a smaller number of players, scouting reports, and writing a range of weird things. I'm kind of hoping you aren't just going to get Jason to do Kevin's old job, and bring someone else in to try and do what Jason did before. While I'm sure that if that's the approach you do take, that Jason would do a very good job, I don't think you would get the most out of his talents that way. I'm quite willing to accept that I might well be wrong about this, but I hope that whatever solution you come up with will take things like that into account.
The other thing I'd like to ask for specifically, is to get someone with deep prospect knowledge who also plays fantasy, and who could produce some content for people who play proper, deep dynasty leagues. Most of the fantasy content is currently focused on redraft or shallowish dynasty, and the fantasy guys tend to pass off prospect questions to Kevin/Jason if they require knowledge beyond the top 50-100 guys. I can understand why they do that, with the expertise you have in house, but it would be useful to get someone who can cover this area properly. I think many of the prospect readers are reading for fantasy purposes, and I think that's a gap in your current provision.
As far as coverage of prospects from a fantasy player's perspective, I think that's an interesting idea and one we'll definitely consider. Thank you
i propose he does it clint eastwood style, with an empty chair for Josey
The old radio shows with Will Carroll are not available.
I'd strongly recommend keeping that fantasy players in mind when thinking about prospect coverage going forward.
In terms of specific information, it's probably more a case of quantifying things as much as possible. So, for example, a prospect like Matt Dominguez or Jose Iglesias is less valuable in fantasy than real life, because most of their value comes from their defence. It's much more useful if the analysis is written in a way that makes that apparent, rather than just stating that the defence is really good. There are other prospects who have good defence but it's a lesser component of their overall value - Profar is an obvious example.
Similarly, a comment like "fringy defence" is not that helpful. What I want to know is how likely someone is to stick at a position, and if they don't stick, where will they go to. Even factors such as organisational philosophy impact on this - for example, the Tigers appear willing to allow anyone to play any infield position as long as their glove is made of metal, while other teams believe much more in pitching and defence - and things like that are less often discussed in standard prospect analysis.
I do also think there are some things that an experienced fantasy writer with a really good knowledge of prospects could do. Some possibilities might include:
Separate fantasy rankings
Players badly over or undervalued by rankings
Deeper prospects you might want to pick up/trade for
Analysis of who can stick at short or catcher, or whether pitchers will end up as relievers or not.
Some decent discussion on trades
Deep dynasty strategy discussion (where say 300+ prospects are held across the league)
I think we, as readers, are smart enough to translate what KG/Jason (or if you read Keith and BA) say into how that impacts a fantasy roster.
Fringy defence only matters if it results in a position shift. A comment like "below average defence" can mean very little in fantasy terms, if the team will accept weaker defence at whatever position, or it can mean a great deal if a player may have to move, with whatever the impact is on bat/value. That's why I was asking for authors to try and be as specific as possible about things like that.
Yeah, but I could also go out to minor league ballparks to scout players and develop relationships with scouts and other minor league personnel in order to learn more. Then I wouldn't need BP at all! But instead of using my life for that, I subscribe.
I'm not sure to what extent y'all already do this, but if you put out a marketing survey about why people followed Kevin's prospect work, you'd find a (perhaps) surprisingly high percentage was interested in it primarily from a fantasy perspective. I can say, anecdotally, that my circle of a dozen or so friends that are subscribers / purchasers of the annual did so using the prospect material for fantasy.
Kevin's work was of a uniquely entertaining / interesting quality, such that I valued it highly even though it really wasn't *exactly* what I was looking for (deep prospect information that was directly fantasy relevant). It's like if you wanted a Pale Ale to drink but all you had was a Vienna lager, but that Negra Modelo is so good you were happy to get drunk on it. It's so chill.
For example, Kevin might have an OF, SS, or C (especially) ranked much higher than his fantasy ceiling because of their defense. Makes total sense for doing "real-world" prospect rankings, but doesn't hold up to an interested fantasy player. Scanning KG's 101 from this year really quickly, Jesus Montero may have been higher. Perhaps Francisco Lindor slightly lower. If your league, like most, doesn't require an CF (just uses OF slots), Gary Brown would be ranked lower than Wil Myers. Devin Mesoraco would fall, Christian Yelich would fall. Matt Adams, Anthony Rizzo would rise. That sort of thing. Since I've started buying the BP annual in 2007, I've been reading the prospect, always mentally altering (or marking up with a Sharpie) the comments based on fantasy relevance.
Now that BP has the opportunity to re-set the table, as it were, having someone that does Prospect-to-Fantasy sort of "conversion" would add something really valuable that Kevin "couldn't" do here.
Seriously though, the top 100 would be a useful start, although it should also take into account things like team (eg Dylan Bundy is less valuable in fantasy because he will pitch in Baltimore), situation (Mesoraco is less valuable because Cincinnati usually split catcher playing time more equally than other teams) and so on. Commentary would also be useful - player X is much more valuable if you play in an OBP league, or your league uses holds as well as saves, or this player has a good chance of being eligible at more than one position or whatever. Also, an appreciation of how big a league has to be before a player has value - for example, I play in a 28 team league, where a guy like Nate Eovaldi has a lot of value (potential mid-rotation guy, NL team, pitchers park), but I wouldn't take him in my 12 teamer with the last pick in the draft.
The coverage is going to be thick, so if you are looking for information on under-the-radar players that have a chance to develop into legit prospects, you will have plenty of articles to read during the 2013 season. We also have a fantastic fantasy staff that will continue to produce quality content.
What I found very useful in Kevin's coverage for fantasy purposes was his capsule approach to "good," "bad," best case scenario," etc. ETAs are less important since there's a lot of other variables there, and what's really important is getting a sense of how good they'll be -- not when they arrive. But the entirety of what Kevin provided enabled me to make reasonable guesses as to who will become strong fantasy players.
Jason -- I love your stuff, and I wouldn't expect you to change what makes you the writer you are. I don't think Kevin geared his writing for fantasy either. But KG definitely understood that a sub-segment of his readership was interested for fantasy purposes.
Bottom line: Getting a good sense for how good you think a player can become and how likely that is to happen is useful. Heck -- even Jason's latest "Off With Their Head" series has been useful for fantasy purposes.
I'd just like to take the opportunity opine that my favorite contributions of Kevin's were the Monday Ten Packs and the Minor League box score updates (the latter of which I have been sad to see become less frequent this season, presumably due to Kevin's increasingly heavy workload). And the Top 11's and Top 101, of course, are essentials.
Looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store!
Scott
What I've been wondering over the weekend, though, is the nature of departures on BP - why do we always find out someone is leaving through a 'this is my last piece' bon voyage column? Why no transition? I suppose BP is not alone in this, but it would ease the pain of loss to have some time to come to grips with the coming change.
Congrats!
So while I'll miss KG's work like crazy I am consoled by these reflections and by the somewhat frightening thought that Jason Parks will be really turned loose! Texas is far too small a place, and beat, to confine a writer of his ability.
OTOH, it is apparent that BP is devolving into a farm system for the Big Boys to pouch upon whenever they have a need to fill. This constant churning of talent is really getting tiring. As we continually lose top talent so do the odds go up that long-time readers will not like the replacements.
Things are better now, which is probably part of the reason people are less panicky about KG leaving...
That being said, I am disappointed the Future Shocks are being retired. The Transaction Analysis, Hit Lists and quite a few other things that departing writers left were inherited by others.
Also,
SPECIFIC PROSPECT COVERAGE WISH:
You may be/probably are already planning this, but when you compile the scouting reports for prospects and information like fastball velocity and repertoire, could you please make that data available in an easy-to-download-and-analyze format? Even with the subjectivity, imprecision, and sample bias errors, having such data available publicly would enable all sorts of awesome analysis.
How well does low-minors velocity correlate with Major League/Pitch F/X velocity or strikeout rate? Do prospects who throw curveballs do better than those with sliders? How does fastball-changeup velocity separation change as a prospect advances up the ladder? Questions like that would be fun to investigate in a systematic way, and while I'm sure many BP writers will tackle some of those, it would be best for the baseball community as a whole to make that data accessible to hobbiests as well (perhaps not free, necessarily, but available in some capacity).
Professor Parks must step up
With new plans and #want?
Parks is moving up
Knows all about the prospects
Can he do haikus?
I also loved your articles where you looked back at prospects who didn't pan out "Bring me the head of" and the "I've been thinking about." Just follow your passion Jason and we will ride shotgun until the car runs out of gas, cause I'm too old to push a car anywhere.
Off the top of my head, some relocation suggestions: Dayton ... Quad Cities ... Bakersfield ... Jackson, MS.
Kevin is rightfully proud of what he's leaving behind. I have no doubt that when Joe, Ben, Sam, Jason, and the crew currently working on BP move on, they will leave it in fine hands. It is a time-honored tradition.
My opinion on the BP turnover of the last however-many years (I think I've been a subscriber for 10 or so)?
It's an unmitigated benefit.
I really loved the work that Nate and Christina and Joe and all the rest published here. But were they to have stayed longer than their muse let them stay, their writing would have staled, surely. They benefited (as far as I can see - I do follow as many of them as possible) from new challenges and new venues, and BP benefited from bringing in new voices. Jason's is a particularly weird one, but yeah, his too.
I eagerly await the arrival of the fresh meat.