Keith Law's Top 100, 2 White Sox make the list

[Harold's Leg Lift]

The amount of fanboys who think Keith Law hates their favorite team is staggering.  

[BFirebird]

16 hours ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

The amount of fanboys who think Keith Law hates their favorite team is staggering.  

I used to be in that boat until I became more educated on scouting and what he is looking at.  People like to point to guys like Sale as to why he hates the WS, but all KLaw was saying with Sale was he didn't like his violent delivery and thought he would be a RP or his arm would explode.  Most of the time he probably would have been proven to be correct but Sale is just a freak of nature.  No one scouting is going to get every prospect right, it just isn't possible.  I agree with your previous post that I think he is among the best in business.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

Law knows what he's looking at.  That's what sets him apart from all the others.  Longenhagen tries but he's pretty clueless. All the others just sit on the phone all day and pick and choose the stuff that sounds good.  

[maxjusttyped]

4 minutes ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

Law knows what he's looking at.  That's what sets him apart from all the others.  Longenhagen tries but he's pretty clueless. All the others just sit on the phone all day and pick and choose the stuff that sounds good.  

I think there are certain skillsets Law completely whiffs on. Middle infielders with fringey power or high end relievers would be examples of this. Someone like Luis Arraez or David Fletcher clearly should have been on top 100 lists, but Law has talked about not valuing those skills at all despite the fact it's clear they have a lot of value. Not having Madrigal in his top 100, whether you think he has much upside or not, seems a bit ridiculous to me. There's a very high probability he's a ~2-2.5 WAR regular right now, and that's without tapping into any power whatsoever. If any prospect evaluator isn't putting value on a player like that, then I think their scale for upside vs floor is completely out of whack.

Longenhagen seems to do the best job incorporating new data (in his pods with Keith Law it's sounded like there is a knowledge gap in terms of how to incorporate this into prospect evaluations, fwiw) and I don't see any obvious blindspots in his evaluations like there is with Law. The amount of detail Longenhagen goes into on his prospect reports and the FG board are also astonishing to me. But I understand all of this is subjective. It sounds like I'm bashing Law, but I'm not. He's probably my second favorite prospect evaluator behind EL right now.

[Dominikk85]

Yeah I agree, I can understand if you don't want to rank madrigal top25 due to upside concerns but not ranking him is quite crazy.

Really for an 80-100 ranked player you are glad if he becomes a 2 war player.

 

For example here are the 2014 fg top100. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2014-top-100-prospects/

There are some solid players ranked 80-100 and even a few good ones (berrios, odorizzi, wong, colome) but most of them did not even become multi year regulars.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

32 minutes ago, maxjusttyped said:

I think there are certain skillsets Law completely whiffs on. Middle infielders with fringey power or high end relievers would be examples of this. Someone like Luis Arraez or David Fletcher clearly should have been on top 100 lists, but Law has talked about not valuing those skills at all despite the fact it's clear they have a lot of value. Not having Madrigal in his top 100, whether you think he has much upside or not, seems a bit ridiculous to me. There's a very high probability he's a ~2-2.5 WAR regular right now, and that's without tapping into any power whatsoever. If any prospect evaluator isn't putting value on a player like that, then I think their scale for upside vs floor is completely out of whack.

Longenhagen seems to do the best job incorporating new data (in his pods with Keith Law it's sounded like there is a knowledge gap in terms of how to incorporate this into prospect evaluations, fwiw) and I don't see any obvious blindspots in his evaluations like there is with Law. The amount of detail Longenhagen goes into on his prospect reports and the FG board are also astonishing to me. But I understand all of this is subjective. It sounds like I'm bashing Law, but I'm not. He's probably my second favorite prospect evaluator behind EL right now.

He didn't miss on them.  He never said those players are bad or they're going to bust out he says there is no path for them to be stars which is 100% correct.  They're league average players which is fine but his top 100 list is for players who he thinks have the tools to be much more than that,   

[caulfield12]

49 minutes ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

He didn't miss on them.  He never said those players are bad or they're going to bust out he says there is no path for them to be stars which is 100% correct.  They're league average players which is fine but his top 100 list is for players who he thinks have the tools to be much more than that,   

Where did he rank Brinson or Broxton?   Luis Robert?   Just trying to remember the evaluator who was all over the “holes” in Robert’s upside despite the obvious potential.

[maxjusttyped]

1 hour ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

He didn't miss on them.  He never said those players are bad or they're going to bust out he says there is no path for them to be stars which is 100% correct.  They're league average players which is fine but his top 100 list is for players who he thinks have the tools to be much more than that,   

That same logic would have lead to you saying Jose Altuve or Jose Ramirez had no path to becoming stars. Players without overwhelming physical tools *probably* do have a lower probability of becoming stars, but the odds of that happening are never 0. Look at the WAR leaderboards over any time span you want. It's filled with guys that weren't on top 100 lists or would have fallen into the high ceiling/low floor bucket as prospects.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

Those two out of hundreds of players are freaks and most likely chemically enhanced freaks.  Freaks don't make good comps.  

[caulfield12]

50 minutes ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

Those two out of hundreds of players are freaks and most likely chemically enhanced freaks.  Freaks don't make good comps.  

Or Mike Trout.  It seemed completely improbable for a NJ kid that was hardly noticed to become a better player than Mickey Mantle...

Another example would be Pujols going from Maple Woods CC in Kansas City (not noticed by the Royals but their hated in-state rivals.)

Piazza, although he never totally escaped steroids accusations, and still might not have been drafted were it not for the connection with Lasorda.

 

 

PS:  Also wondering how Jose Ramirez went from a 625 ops hitter for half the season last year to the best player in the game the second half.

Edited February 12, 2021 by caulfield12

[maxjusttyped]

So, players can't ever surpass their perceived ceiling, but when they do, they're steroid users? Okay then.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, maxjusttyped said:

So, players can't ever surpass their perceived ceiling, but when they do, they're steroid users? Okay then.

Frank Thomas says hello.  Or Robin Ventura.

[Dominikk85]

6 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Or Mike Trout.  It seemed completely improbable for a NJ kid that was hardly noticed to become a better player than Mickey Mantle...

Another example would be Pujols going from Maple Woods CC in Kansas City (not noticed by the Royals but their hated in-state rivals.)

Piazza, although he never totally escaped steroids accusations, and still might not have been drafted were it not for the connection with Lasorda.

 

 

PS:  Also wondering how Jose Ramirez went from a 625 ops hitter for half the season last year to the best player in the game the second half.

Mike trout wasn't a non prospect though, he was seen as a top talent with big physical tools but ranked lower because he came from a weak baseball region and thus teams had doubts whether he would hit about top pitching. Big mistake in hindsight but quite different from guys like altuve who came out of nowhere.

But yeah, there is a chance that a guy like madrigal adds 20 pounds of muscle and becomes a 20 HR guy.

[bmags]

8 hours ago, maxjusttyped said:

So, players can't ever surpass their perceived ceiling, but when they do, they're steroid users? Okay then.

Can you show me the evaluator that nailed Jose Ramirez please?

 

[bmags]

The Law write-up on the sox was full of excellent info today. I'm sorry to the large group that can only handle counting top 100 rankings and will miss out learning about our system.

[ron883]

Keith Law hates the White Sox. Plain and simple.

[maxjusttyped]

3 hours ago, bmags said:

Can you show me the evaluator that nailed Jose Ramirez please?

 

My point was to say that declaring anyone has no chance to become a star is wrong. Sure, players with certain body types are probably less likely, but good players unexpectedly grow into stars all of the time. Law puts no value on the high floor/perceived low ceiling hit tool first prospects. There are examples of players like that growing beyond their perceived ceiling and becoming stars.

Edited February 12, 2021 by maxjusttyped

[Harold's Leg Lift]

15 minutes ago, maxjusttyped said:

My point was to say that declaring anyone has no chance to become a star is wrong. Sure, players with certain body types are probably less likely, but good players unexpectedly grow into stars all of the time. Law puts no value on the high floor/perceived low ceiling hit tool first prospects. There are examples of players like that growing beyond their perceived ceiling and becoming stars.

Wrong.  

[GreenSox]

Law has the Sox #22, last in the AL Central.  3 ALC teams in the top 10.  Really disappointing since all of the high draft picks are included in that #22 or have been flameouts.