Minor League Musings

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[Handsome Pete]

Someone help me understand how some of the MLB.com prospect grades work. Like some of it doesn’t make sense. I’m just going to use Jaims Martinez as an example: He’s graded with                                          55 Hit/45power/60run/55arm/60field, yet his overall grade is 40, which seems to be the lowest grade to be considered a serious prospect. How do they come up with that? 

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Handsome Pete said:

Someone help me understand how some of the MLB.com prospect grades work. Like some of it doesn’t make sense. I’m just going to use Jaims Martinez as an example: He’s graded with                                          55 Hit/45power/60run/55arm/60field, yet his overall grade is 40, which seems to be the lowest grade to be considered a serious prospect. How do they come up with that? 

It's because he's super super far away

[CubinNY]

10 hours ago, Handsome Pete said:

Someone help me understand how some of the MLB.com prospect grades work. Like some of it doesn’t make sense. I’m just going to use Jaims Martinez as an example: He’s graded with                                          55 Hit/45power/60run/55arm/60field, yet his overall grade is 40, which seems to be the lowest grade to be considered a serious prospect. How do they come up with that? 

it's almost as if those grades are all made up and don't really correlate to anything. 

Think of it this way: all those scores don't add up to much of a total prospect, but really they are like the bead on the end of a shotgun as opposed to a rifle, they are a reference point, not an aiming point.

[Jason Ross]

11 hours ago, Handsome Pete said:

Someone help me understand how some of the MLB.com prospect grades work. Like some of it doesn’t make sense. I’m just going to use Jaims Martinez as an example: He’s graded with                                          55 Hit/45power/60run/55arm/60field, yet his overall grade is 40, which seems to be the lowest grade to be considered a serious prospect. How do they come up with that? 

So, I think a few things are going on simultaneously. 

First, I find MLB.com the highest on grades, as in, they grade players the highest compared to others. I have a bit of a conspiracy theory that this is the case because MLB wants to hype their own product, but can't say that for certain. Eric Logenhagen of FanGraphs tends to be the lowest, IMO. He'll write up a prospect's profile, say almost nothing nice about a player for two paragraphs, highlight every weakness on the planet and then move them up-20 spots in his rankings. I like Eric a lot, it's just his style comparatively. 

MLB.com also uses a single grade for tools. I suspect these aren't his current grades, but his future grades. So like a best case scenario for Jaims Martinez is average power and above average hit tools. But the overall grade reflects how unlikely he is to be that; thus the 40. A 40 grade on FG is "bench player" but if he really is a 55 hit, 60 field, 45 power guy...he's going to be a 3 win player. So there's a disconnect because of how young and far away he is. 

Something like Fangraphs will provide a current and a future grade. It helps those make a little more sense. Like if a guy has 40 grade power today, but 60 grade future power (let's say it's a big OF'er who's growing into his body) it helps make the FV make more sense. Sure he's a 35 today but if he fills out he gets a bump. Where as MLB.com misses that so the 40 FV feels like a weird outlier with the profile.

To compare the two further, Martinez didn't make the top-34 prospects in the Cubs system this spring from Logenhagen. Remember, one tends to right high, the other runs low and didn't even get a throw-away line in the "young and projectable" section for Logenhagen. Is what it is but is an interesting look into how these two differ.

Ultimately, I think it's best we just take these as fun snapshots. They're not useless, worthless, or entirely random but especially with teenagers like Martinez are incredibly volatile, change quickly and are unstable. They're non-scientific so each place has their own rating system and rationale. And with less resources, it can be hard for someone like Eric Logenhagen to see enough of a 17-year-old in the DSL to really have an opinion considering how many players, teams and the like exists, so they're using a network as well. 

And then you have the teams' own internal rankings which can fly heavily in the face as to what the industry thinks as well. So just because Eric might have a guy as a 45+ FV SP, a team may either like a guy more or less. And we'll never know!

[Outshined_One]

1 hour ago, Jason Ross said:

Something like Fangraphs will provide a current and a future grade. It helps those make a little more sense. Like if a guy has 40 grade power today, but 60 grade future power (let's say it's a big OF'er who's growing into his body) it helps make the FV make more sense. Sure he's a 35 today but if he fills out he gets a bump. Where as MLB.com misses that so the 40 FV feels like a weird outlier with the profile.

There's also a needle MLB could be threading with his tool grades, which is related to this line of thinking.  Essentially, Martinez (or anyone, really) could presently have the tools to meet those particular grades, but just because he has those tools does not mean those tools translate into in-game results.  So, perhaps a guy is graded with 60 power because he can put on a show in batting practice, but he doesn't have the approach/experience/etc. needed to translate that power into results when facing live pitching.  Same goes for things like speed, where he might be able to run a 4.4 40 yard dash but look like a baby giraffe on the bases, or fielding, where he could have superior reflexes and instincts, but has yet to figure out things like tracking fly balls or cut-off angles for grounders.

This sort of stuff comes with coaching, experience, and time, and there's never a guarantee a guy will be able to tap into those tools to their fullest extent.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Bridge Camp rosters: https://www.thecubreporter.com/2026-acl-cubs-continuation-camp-roster

Seems positive that Kaleb Wing is in the “rehab pitchers” section and not in the “longterm rehab” section.