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First Pitch: Weighing Scouting vs Stats in Prospect Rankings

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Since day one, we’ve been called a sabermetric oriented site. That’s true in most ways, as we embrace advanced metrics, including welcoming and exploring new metrics. We focus on the numbers when it comes to prospects, rather than relying solely on scouting. But that brings up a key issue, and a pet peeve of mine.

You can embrace sabermetrics, and still embrace scouting. And since day one, scouting has been a huge factor that we embraced. This site started to give me a place to write up Pedro Alvarez reports from Lynchburg in 2009. It continued the following year with coverage from Spring Training, Altoona, West Virginia, and State College. We were much heavier on stats at the time, but that was due to the lack of live coverage, as we were just starting out.

As the site has grown, and as we’ve shifted to providing more and more coverage, the scales have evened out. We’re now able to provide a lot more live reports to match and tell the story behind the stats. But now the challenge becomes what to believe when the stats don’t match the scouting report.

We’re obviously not shy about saying the stats are wrong, and believing our reports. Anyone who has seen the debates on the site about Tyler Glasnow this year would know that. It’s not always going to work out in favor of the scouting. Alen Hanson is a guy who has much better tools than Adam Frazier, and looks like the better future big league player. But right now, Frazier continues to put up the numbers, and is doing so at the Major League level.

Frazier is an example of when scouting worked. Back in 2014, he was the shortstop in Bradenton, putting up horrible numbers. He was also blocking JaCoby Jones, who was putting up much better results. And that didn’t go over well at the time, with people pointing to the stats to support Jones bumping Frazier from the lineup. I covered Frazier all year, and saw his potential to be a lot better than what he was showing in Bradenton that year. So I ignored the stats, and went with the live reports.

We had Frazier as a future super utility player, even when he was struggling statistically in A-ball. We had Hanson as a future All-Star in A-ball, when the stats backed him up, and that has gradually gone down steadily over the years, to the point where the new rankings coming up this week (Spoiler alert for the new rankings) will have Hanson with a 4.5 likely upside, which is between an impactful bench player and an average major leaguer. The tools are still there for him to have a ceiling as an above-average starter, but it seems less likely now that he will reach this ceiling.

That’s the challenge every year with every player in our rankings. My general rule is to focus more on the scouting reports in the lower levels, and more on the stats in the upper levels. But even that rule has exceptions, such as when a young player has been aggressively pushed, and then struggles at a higher level. I’m not going to be as harsh on a guy like Reese McGuire — playing in Double-A at the age of 21 — as I would with a guy who is seeing the same struggles (.688 OPS for McGuire offensively, so not horrible with all things considered) at the age of 23. If McGuire would have gone to college, he would have just signed right now, and would be in Morgantown, maybe making the jump to Bradenton next year, and possibly Altoona by the end of 2017. Instead, he’s there a full year and a half or two years early.

We’re not going to get them all right, no matter which approach we take. There are 215 players to evaluate in our mid-season rankings, and we’ve got six people sending in their evaluations, all with different approaches on ranking players. A large majority of those guys will get straight 2’s across the board (organizational player who will never reach the majors) and even some of those ratings will be wrong. That happens when you’re dealing with human beings, who are capable of exceeding or falling short of expectations.

The rankings, no matter which outlet does them, aren’t an exact science. The best approach I’ve found is to get as much information as possible — scouting and stats included — and make the most informed decision you can, all while being willing to change your previously held opinions when new data comes forward.

And with that insight on how we handle our rankings, we move one day closer to the mid-season update. That will be Friday at the latest, and hopefully will go up Thursday. Be sure to subscribe to the site to get those rankings, and all of our other great daily coverage. Speaking of which, here are the articles from today, with this article being our tenth update today.

**Pirates Beat the Brewers; Jameson Taillon Takes a Liner Off the Back of His Head. Alan Saunders has the breakdown of tonight’s win over the Brewers, with details on that scary play involving Taillon in the second inning.

**Cole Tucker is Showing Flashes of His Potential in Bradenton. Speaking of the scouting vs stats debate, here is my breakdown of Cole Tucker’s season in Bradenton so far, which is ignoring the stats in favor of the live reports.

**Trevor Williams is Healthy Again, and on a Roll With Indianapolis. Brian Peloza looks at the recent success that Trevor Williams has shown in Indianapolis now that he’s healthy.

**Josh Bell Reacts to Getting More Time in the Outfield. Brian Peloza talked with Josh Bell after his return to right field on Monday night.

**Prospect Watch: Nick Kingham Throws Four Shutout Innings. His rehab will continue with five innings in the GCL the next time out, followed by a move to the Marauders once he’s stretched out.

**Meadows Will Likely Not Return Until End of Month; Duncan Placed on Disabled List. This feels like the Pirates are being cautious with Meadows, as a hamstring injury like he had in the past would have put him out a lot longer than this.

**Pirates Notes: Cervelli, Polanco and Taillon All Return to the Lineup Tonight. Good to see those three back in the mix.

**Pirates Activate Jameson Taillon and Francisco Cervelli from Disabled List. All of today’s roster moves.

**Morning Report: Pirates Have Four Teams Among the Best Hitting Clubs in Their Leagues. John Dreker points out some good overall offensive results around the system.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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