from Amazon
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Twins Prospect Book
I’m actually writing to you on behalf of Seth Stohs, who runs the terrific Twins site http://sethspeaks.net . He’s putting out his second annual Twins Prospect Handbook. I’m writing to you today because I like what you guys do on your site and I thought perhaps there would be a good forum for you to mention Seth’s book. There are profiles of over 150 Twins prospects in it, among many other things. Seth knows more about the Twins farm system than just about anyone I know. I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of thing you guys ever do, but if I sent you a digital draft as a review copy, would you take a look and, assuming you liked it to some extent, write about that on your site? I thought there’s a lot of crossover between prospect fans and stats/sabermetric types, right?
This is the kind of book that every team’s fans should do. There’s a quarter-page or half-page writeup on each prospect. I think it was 150 of them. Definitely overkill on that front, but, you can just skip to the guys you care about. He gives you a top 30 list, as well as top 10 list of OTHER evaluators. So you can just read about those guys. He also shows you past ratings. For example, he shows Matt Garza as #18 in 2006 and #1 in 2007. Denard Span goes from #8 to #12 in 2007. If anything, prospects lists show you how extremely hit-and-miss everyone is. Even when you are #1 (Liriano), it still doesn’t mean you won’t get injured.
He also has a couple of interviews with prospects. I like this line:
SethSpeaks: In general, what are the differences that you found between the AA Eastern League and the AAA International League? Specifically, discuss the hitters you face in each league.
Jeff Manship: The biggest difference I noticed was that hitters were more patient in AAA. You face many veteran guys who are much older and not afraid to hit with two strikes. At the same time, though, if you mix your pitches up and throw strikes you will have success. Mistake pitches are hit much more often too.
It’s important to note how age really matters in prospect valuation. Not only the player’s age, but his competition.
Anyway, if you are a Twins fan, the book is a no-brainer. If you are someone who likes to talk about prospects, this book will probably be good for you. I think that’s the target audience. There’s nothing sabermetrics that I saw in there.
To Seth, I would recommend having a page like this as well. He shows each player’s stats, but not the team stats.
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