On minor-league stats

Regular readers of the blog know that I can be impatient with fellow amateur Bucco writers who think they understand the value and potential of minor-league players more than the folks in the front office. It's the Allegory of the Cave, as far as I'm concerned. We fans and part-time baseball scholars can only work with shadows cast upon a wall by shapes and beings we can't actually see. And for all the beauty of the translation and projection systems that are publicly available, I'm pretty confident we can be sure that the big-league teams have models and systems that blow these away. And since they are proprietary, we'll never see them.

So I'm cautious when it comes to second-guessing a GM's decision to throw away some A-level pitcher, even if the numbers say that he throws the ball hard. I'll admit it's possible that the GM is a complete moron. I don't think so, but that doesn't mean much. Still, if fellow Pirate fans don't at least concede that it's possible that they can't know as much as him from their rumpus-room iMacs, then they lose some credibility with me. And so what if Rob Neyer, Royals partisan, wants to gloat about acquiring Leo Nunez for Benito Santiago and enough money to pay much of Santiago's contract? My fellow Bucco fans should buck up when it comes to such things. Of course Rob Neyer will look on the bright side of Leo Nunez.

Over at the Birdhouse, a Cardinals blog I just discovered through a link from Primer, Jeff Luhnow, Cardinals Vice President of Baseball Development, talks about the way the St. Louis team evaluates minor-league numbers. I'll quote the part that supports my view of the situation.

I think at Double-A and Triple-A, we’re very comfortable with our methods for converting those stats and projecting major league performance.  Once you get to Single-A and especially down to rookie ball, those leagues, even though they are competitive and you want to win, the pendulum swings more to the development side of things.  A player may be down there working on plate patience or how to hit a breaking ball or control if he is a pitcher.  So, you never know the real picture of what is going on.  Because those environments are more developmental than Double-A or Triple-A, you may be misled.  It becomes more of a challenge.  Our rule of thumb basically is that we look at the stats below Double-A, but the stats we consider important at the minor league level are the ones as the Double-A and Triple-A level.  Those are the ones that we feel are more predictive of major league performance.  That is one of the challenges of the lower minor leagues.

I don't think we have any idea what Leo Nunez is worth. And like most Bucco fans, I'm glad we're not saddled with two years of Charles Johnson. I had reasons to doubt the Bucs would find a use for Nunez any time soon. And while I didn't think Humberto Cota and J.R. House were so obviously insufficient that the Bucs had to go get another catcher, I'm not foolish enough to think that I have all the information I'd need to say, with complete confidence, that I'm smarter than the GM here.

All that said, more power to the folks who want to play it that way. It takes all kinds. Whatever gets you through the offseason, it's all right.

Brian Walton did a great job with that interview and I recommend the whole.