The cult of the sure thing

With all the hype surrounding SDSU right-hander Stephen Strasburg this spring, I got to thinking about prospects and predicting their future. It’s harder than it looks. In fact, it’s impossible. The best we can do is make educated guesses based on assumptions and then hope we are right.

I’ve seen Strasburg pitch three times so far this season. There is no question that he’s a dominant collegiate pitcher. When you’ve got a guy who can go Jonathan Broxton on you for six or seven innings at a time, that causes problems for the other team.

And by all accounts, Strasburg’s stuff should lead to a successful professional career. Like Mark Prior before him. Or Kris Benson before Prior. Or Paul Wilson. Or Ben McDonald. Or…well, you get the idea.

Curious to see what happened to some hyped youngsters from just a few years ago, I grabbed my copy of the Baseball America Almanac 2003 off the shelf and turned to the prospects section.

Before we get rolling, let me say that none of what follows is meant to disparage the work of Baseball America. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate how difficult it is to look into the crystal ball and get anything resembling a clear picture. I use Baseball America here because they are better at it than most. They know what they are doing, but they cannot overcome the unknowable nature of the beast.

Also, this isn’t a study. It’s a survey, meant to remind us anecdotally of things we already ought to know.

The first thing I did was look at the list of top 100 prospects as of March 2002. I went position by position and found the highest-ranked player, the most successful player, the highest-ranked bust, and a notable omission. For your dancing and dining pleasure:

Pos	Top	Best	Bust	Unranked
C	Joe Mauer, #7	Mauer	J.R. House, #41	Victor Martinez*
1B	Carlos Pena, #5	Pena	Hee Seop Choi, #40	Ryan Howard
2B	Bobby Hill, #48	Orlando Hudson, #81	Jake Gautreau, #77	Chase Utley
3B	Hank Blalock, #3	Mark Teixeira, #10	Drew Henson, #9	David Wright
SS	Wilson Betemit, #8	Miguel Cabrera, #38	Antonio Perez, #52	J.J. Hardy
OF	Joe Borchard, #11	Josh Hamilton, #18	Borchard	Grady Sizemore
OF	Austin Kearns, #12	Carl Crawford, #59	Chin-Feng Chen, #64	Ryan Ludwick
OF	Hamilton	Jack Cust, #100	Nic Jackson, #68	Aaron Rowand
RHP	Josh Beckett, #1	Carlos Zambrano, #80	Dennis Tankersley, #16	Francisco Rodriguez
RHP	Mark Prior, #2	Jake Peavy, #28	Nick Neugebauer, #17	Brad Lidge/Jose Valverde
RHP	Juan Cruz, #6	Beckett	Jerome Williams, #19	Dan Haren/John Lackey
LHP	Ryan Anderson, #14	Erik Bedard, #90	Anderson	Oliver Perez
LHP	Carlos Hernandez, #24	Kazuhisa Ishii, #35**	Hernandez	Hong-Chih Kuo

*Okay, I cheated with Martinez. He checks in at #97. Catchers listed ahead of him: Mauer, Josh Phelps (#36), House, John Buck (#43), Jayson Werth (#70).

**Yeah, Ishii stunk, but you should see the rest of these guys: Ty Howington (#24), Corwin Malone (#32), Brandon Claussen (#37), Mario Ramos (#49), Jimmy Gobble (#50), Mark Phillips (#54), Chris Narveson (#86).

Guys get hurt or fail to develop. Stuff happens.

From that left-most column, Mauer, Pena, Hamilton, and Beckett are studs, although it took Pena and Hamilton forever to get there. Blalock and Prior appeared poised to join the elite as well, but both have seen their careers stall.

It’s difficult now to envision a world in which Hill was considered a better prospect than Utley. Same with Henson and Wright, Betemit and Cabrera (or Jose Reyes for that matter), Borchard and Sizemore, Tankersley and Zambrano, Anderson and Bedard, etc.

We can do the same thing on a team-by-team basis:

Team	Top	Best	Bust	Unranked*
Ana	Casey Kotchman	Francisco Rodriguez, #7	Chris Bootcheck, #4	Chone Figgins
Ari	Luis Terrero	Jose Valverde, #5	Terrero	Brandon Webb
Atl	Wilson Betemit	Kelly Johnson, #3	Brett Evert, #4	Adam LaRoche
Bal	Rich Stahl	Erik Bedard, #2	Stahl	Mike Fontenot
Bos	Seung Song	Freddy Sanchez, #6	Song	Kevin Youkilis
ChN	Mark Prior	Carlos Zambrano, #6	David Kelton, #4	Dontrelle Willis
ChA	Joe Borchard	Aaron Rowand, #10	Borchard	Aaron Miles
Cin	Austin Kearns	Kearns	Ty Howington, #2	Edwin Encarnacion
Cle	Corey Smith	Victor Martinez, #6	Smith	Jhonny Peralta
Col	Chin-Hui Tsao	Garrett Atkins, #3	Tsao	Matt Holliday
Det	Nate Cornejo	Cody Ross, #9	Cornejo	Fernando Rodney
Fla	Josh Beckett	Miguel Cabrera, #2	Allen Baxter, #5	Josh Willingham
Hou	Carlos Hernandez	Brad Lidge, #5	Hernandez	Adam Everett
KC	Angel Berroa	Berroa	Colt Griffin, #3	David DeJesus
LA	Ricardo Rodriguez	Hong-Chih Kuo, #6	Rodriguez	Shane Victorino
Mil	Nick Neugebauer	J.J. Hardy, #7	Neugebauer	n/a
Min	Joe Mauer	Mauer	Michael Restovich, #4	Grant Balfour
Mtl	Brandon Phillips	Grady Sizemore, #3	Donnie Bridges, #4	Jason Bay
NYN	Aaron Heilman	David Wright, #5	Pat Strange, 3	Heath Bell
NYA	Drew Henson	Juan Rivera, #5	Henson	Dioner Navarro
Oak	Carlos Pena	Pena	Chad Harville, #3	n/a
Phi	Marlon Byrd	Chase Utley, #7	Anderson Machado, #5	Ryan Howard
Pit	J.R. House	Chris Young, #10	House	Nate McLouth
StL	Jimmy Journell	Dan Haren, #9	Journell	n/a
SD	Sean Burroughs	Jake Peavy, #3	Burroughs	n/a
SF	Jerome Williams	Boof Bonser, #2	Williams	Francisco Liriano
Sea	Ryan Anderson	Rafael Soriano	Anderson	Cha Seung Baek
TB	Josh Hamilton	Hamilton	Dewon Brazelton, #3	n/a
Tex	Hank Blalock	Mark Teixeira, #2	Mario Ramos, #3	n/a
Tor	Josh Phelps	Orlando Hudson, #5	Tyrell Godwin, #10	n/a

*Unranked among the top 10. Some of these guys made their organization’s top 30. Although I dug fairly deep, I couldn’t always find someone for a particular organization.

Terrero over Webb? Song over Youkilis? Tsao over Holliday? Byrd over Howard? These aren’t just garden variety big leaguers, either; these are All-Stars and award winners.

The Marlins, incidentally, had a sick system. Their No. 4 guy was Adrian Gonzalez. Ditto Montreal, before MLB ripped that franchise a new one: Cliff Lee shows up in the Expos top 10 as well.

Anyway, I’m not telling you anything new when I say that prospecting is as much art as it is science, and that if predicting the future were easy, we’d all be rich by now. If the best experts can miss the mark this badly, that’s not a reflection on their abilities. They had good information; it’s just that conditions change in unanticipated ways.

I’ve cherry picked a bit here, but that’s kind of the point. Who could have foreseen Webb’s greatness? Or Holliday’s? Heck, Webb didn’t even crack the top 10 pitchers in the Arizona system. Here’s who ranked ahead of him in 2002:

1. Mike Gosling
2. Jose Valverde
3. Jason Bulger
4. Beltran Perez
5. Oscar Villarreal
6. John Patterson
7. Jeremy Ward
8. Chris Capuano
9. Brian Bruney
10. Bill White
11. Jay Belflower
12. P.J. Bevis
13. Corby Medlin

How well did some imagined future correlate with the one that actually happened? If our best minds have missed the mark before, what’s to say it won’t happen again?

These are questions to ask when evaluating a kid like Strasburg. Is he a great college pitcher? Absofreakinlutely. Is he a great pro prospect? Sure looks that way to me and everyone I’ve heard talk about him. Is any of this a guarantee of future success? Not so much.

Mark Prior blows out his arm, Sean Burroughs forgets how to hit. Miguel Cabrera adds muscle to his frame, Jose Reyes learns the difference between balls and strikes, Chase Utley outworks everyone.

You can look back and see signs, but that is cheating. The trouble is, you don’t always know which ones are important until after the outcome is determined, which limits their utility.

On the bright side, this same lack of predictability makes watching the future unfold exciting. You know, like life.

References & Resources
Baseball America Almanac 2003, Baseball Prospect Handbook 2002