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Post by Chris Hatfield on Feb 16, 2016 10:54:33 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson?
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Post by chavopepe2 on Feb 16, 2016 12:09:49 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson? Exactly. Sam Travis isn't a top 100 prospect. I'm not even sure he's a top 125 prospect. It doesn't say anything about Law or BA or anyone else that didn't rank him.
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Post by thebogeyman on Feb 16, 2016 12:18:54 GMT -5
Law has Travis as number 6 in the system, behind Kopech, and his write-up is pretty favorable (albeit brief) if you ask me. Basically, the only thing that he seems to lack from being an elite-type prospect is the HR power.
"He has a fairly high floor as a good defensive first baseman who hits .280 or so with 10-15 homers and a slew of doubles."
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Post by burythehammer on Feb 16, 2016 12:51:22 GMT -5
Very surprised by this take. Law himself will admit and has admitted that he will miss on these types of prospects. Please provide an exact quote. Because frankly I think you're probably misrepresenting what he said. And that doesn't change the fact that neither of your examples have even played a full season in MLB. Having a good 55 games (all based on catcher defensive WAR) does not mean Vazquez should've been a highly ranked prospect.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 16, 2016 15:15:44 GMT -5
Here are several points that I have to make on this argument, laid out numerically.
1. SoxProspects.com had Christian Vazquez ranked 13th in the system on opening day 2014, which is the last time Law would've had the opportunity to rank him.
2. Zero publications ranked Christian Vazquez.
3. SoxProspects.com had Brandon Workman ranked 9th in the system on opening day 2013, which is the last time Law would've had the opportunity to rank him.
4. Zero publications ranked Brandon Workman.
5. Brandon Workman's major league numbers are pretty awful. He is 27 years old and has a -1.2 career bWAR. The idea that someone who didn't like him "missed" is pretty odd.
6. Sam Travis is currently ranked 7th on SoxProspects.com.
7. Zero publications ranked Sam Travis.
8. The argument was that Keith Law consistently misses on prospects like Sam Travis. When asked for examples of similar players, those given were the aforementioned Vazquez and Workman. Vazquez and Workman are not comparable players to Travis. Travis a first baseman with a solid hit tool, who was in Double A within two seasons of being drafted. Vazquez is a defense-first catcher with a very questionable bat, who was drafted out of PR and took two seasons to get out of the Gulf Coast League. Brandon Workman is a pitcher. The only ways that these are similar players is that they are players that umassgrad thinks Law missed on, which is as circular as an argument can get. "He misses on a certain type of player, which is the players that he's missed on."
9. If Law missed on these players and is wrong, so is SoxProspects.com, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, MLB.com, John Sickels... shall I go on?
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Post by jrffam05 on Feb 16, 2016 15:24:23 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson?I agree with this, I think it's a (minor) failure of the scouting community that Johnson did not rank on a single top 100 list. He's not a consensus top 100 in my eyes, but the combo of low risk, high floor, and proximity to the majors should be enough to get him on a list. I think the "lack of ceiling" tag, which I don't personally agree with, is what keeps him off, but there is real value in players with high floors that are close to the majors. Also of note, he had a better strikeout rate in AAA than E-Rod and Owens. Skimming over the staff twitter feed, I take it that Law's top 10 came out, and Lakins was on it. Anyone care to share the details?
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Post by soxfanatic on Feb 16, 2016 15:29:04 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson?I agree with this, I think it's a (minor) failure of the scouting community that Johnson did not rank on a single top 100 list. He's not a consensus top 100 in my eyes, but the combo of low risk, high floor, and proximity to the majors should be enough to get him on a list. I think the "lack of ceiling" tag, which I don't personally agree with, is what keeps him off, but there is real value in players with high floors that are close to the majors. Also of note, he had a better strikeout rate in AAA than E-Rod and Owens. Skimming over the staff twitter feed, I take it that Law's top 10 came out, and Lakins was on it. Anyone care to share the details? Lakins, the team's sixth-round pick in 2015, didn't pitch this summer due to his spring workload, but threw 93-96 mph in instructional league play with a lightning-quick arm and a plus curveball. He's a very good athlete who signed as a draft-eligible sophomore and came into pro ball without a ton of pitching experience, so his stuff is ahead of his feel and command.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 17, 2016 14:39:26 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson? I think both Johnson and Travis should be top 100 guys.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 17, 2016 14:43:57 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson? Exactly. Sam Travis isn't a top 100 prospect. I'm not even sure he's a top 125 prospect. It doesn't say anything about Law or BA or anyone else that didn't rank him. Want to say I am not trying to slam anyone or any sites. I just feel that Travis is a top 100 guy. Maybe I am wrong and everyone else is right, only time will tell.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 17, 2016 14:47:08 GMT -5
Law has Travis as number 6 in the system, behind Kopech, and his write-up is pretty favorable (albeit brief) if you ask me. Basically, the only thing that he seems to lack from being an elite-type prospect is the HR power. "He has a fairly high floor as a good defensive first baseman who hits .280 or so with 10-15 homers and a slew of doubles." That's exactly why I think he is a top 100 guy. I will take Travis over a guy like Pedro Alverez all day long.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 17, 2016 15:00:14 GMT -5
Here are several points that I have to make on this argument, laid out numerically. 1. SoxProspects.com had Christian Vazquez ranked 13th in the system on opening day 2014, which is the last time Law would've had the opportunity to rank him. 2. Zero publications ranked Christian Vazquez. 3. SoxProspects.com had Brandon Workman ranked 9th in the system on opening day 2013, which is the last time Law would've had the opportunity to rank him. 4. Zero publications ranked Brandon Workman. 5. Brandon Workman's major league numbers are pretty awful. He is 27 years old and has a -1.2 career bWAR. The idea that someone who didn't like him "missed" is pretty odd. 6. Sam Travis is currently ranked 7th on SoxProspects.com. 7. Zero publications ranked Sam Travis. 8. The argument was that Keith Law consistently misses on prospects like Sam Travis. When asked for examples of similar players, those given were the aforementioned Vazquez and Workman. Vazquez and Workman are not comparable players to Travis. Travis a first baseman with a solid hit tool, who was in Double A within two seasons of being drafted. Vazquez is a defense-first catcher with a very questionable bat, who was drafted out of PR and took two seasons to get out of the Gulf Coast League. Brandon Workman is a pitcher. The only ways that these are similar players is that they are players that umassgrad thinks Law missed on, which is as circular as an argument can get. "He misses on a certain type of player, which is the players that he's missed on." 9. If Law missed on these players and is wrong, so is SoxProspects.com, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, MLB.com, John Sickels... shall I go on? I stand by my statement. Sure I didn't use great examples at first and then when I took a few minutes and got some better ones you just wanted to overlook them. It's all good. I will give you that Vazquez isn't a great comp to Travis, but Workman is. He had very good numbers in minors and pitched very well in majors till he had arm troubles. You get that almost all of his -1.2 WAR is from the last 3 months of 2014 when he had arm trouble right? That lead to him having TJ and missing all of 2015. Still think Workman is going to be a good #4/5 starter or high end reliever when he gets healthy.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 17, 2016 17:52:27 GMT -5
Your theory is that Law tends to miss on a specific type of player, like Sam Travis. I want you to find me one player who is superficially similar to Travis who a) Law never ranked in the Top 100, b) has 5.0 bWAR or fWAR, c) was ranked by at least two major publications, d) a college draft pick and e)who played a corner position. Just one.
And "good numbers in minors" is far, far, far, far, far too broad a description to be a category. Almost every successful major leaguer, particularly among hitters, has had "good numbers in minors."
So find one. Just one.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Feb 17, 2016 18:57:06 GMT -5
Literally no person (ZiPS, of course, being a projection system) has ranked Travis in the Top 100. Not sure this is a systemic Keith Law thing. Not defending his list or anything, but Travis isn't even the consensus next guy on the Red Sox list. Speaking of people who get forgotten about, how about Brian Johnson? I think both Johnson and Travis should be top 100 guys. Fine. We can disagree. Same question I ask everyone who makes a statement like this - what players who ARE on the Top 100 do you think they should be ranked ahead of?
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Post by burythehammer on Feb 17, 2016 22:23:55 GMT -5
FYI, "I think he's going to be good" is not evidence that Keith Law "missed" on that player.
You've given literally one example of a guy with a proven MLB track record, Reddick, and he was arguably not even a "low upside" prospect.
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Post by dirtywater43 on Feb 18, 2016 2:04:30 GMT -5
Your theory is that Law tends to miss on a specific type of player, like Sam Travis. I want you to find me one player who is superficially similar to Travis who a) Law never ranked in the Top 100, b) has 5.0 bWAR or fWAR, c) was ranked by at least two major publications, d) a college draft pick and e)who played a corner position. Just one. And "good numbers in minors" is far, far, far, far, far too broad a description to be a category. Almost every successful major leaguer, particularly among hitters, has had "good numbers in minors." So find one. Just one. James Loney? Carlos Pena? Billy Butler? Mitch Moreland? Do any of those players qualify? I don't think Travis is close to a top 100 prospect either, just trying to find a example. Travis has one plus tool (hit tool) and is a undersized right handed first baseman that can only play first base. I was arguing earlier that a move to third would completely change the perspective of his prospect status but enough people and scouts don't think the switch is possible. Travis' profile is everything you don't want in a prospect. Who knows how good his hit tool would be against the best competition in the world in the majors? Travis is depth really. I think Johnson is going to make people regret he wasn't in any top 100 prospect list soon enough however.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Feb 18, 2016 3:07:58 GMT -5
I think with Johnson, it's just a matter of concern with the elbow. I think he'll be fine (according to reports) and we'll know soon enough but it was enough to bump him out of the top 100. I don't see Travis' profile as being Top 100 material either. Second tier, maybe 125-150ish but that doesn't make him useless.
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Post by dirtywater43 on Feb 18, 2016 3:53:12 GMT -5
I think with Johnson, it's just a matter of concern with the elbow. I think he'll be fine (according to reports) and we'll know soon enough but it was enough to bump him out of the top 100. I don't see Travis' profile as being Top 100 material either. Second tier, maybe 125-150ish but that doesn't make him useless. No not useless. Just depth for now until he proves otherwise. Due to Travis' bad profile he's going to have to keep proving he can at the least hit at a really great rate to even consider giving him a starting job anywhere and at any team in the majors. As we all should know, hitting is the hardest thing to do in the majors. It wasn't probably not too long ago that Cechinni was viewed as the same way Travis might be viewed now to a lot of people. Hopefully he doesn't end up hitting a huge wall at aaa like Cechinni did.
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Post by dirtywater43 on Feb 18, 2016 4:05:24 GMT -5
I didn't even think of the Johnson injury as a reason to keep him out of the top 100 and shame on the rankings list if that's the reason he was kept off.
I remember from reading the reports about Johnson is that the doctors said Johnson's elbow was one of the cleanest elbows they've ever seen and he was 100% cleared.
I'm looking for Johnson to really open eyes in 2016. I'm really pumped to see this kid force his way into the rotation this year.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Feb 18, 2016 6:34:11 GMT -5
Forgetting the topic, the rankings and comparing the two Travis', I think Travis Shaw is the better prospect and the more undervalued. Higher ceiling, more versatile, better defender and legit power. On the other hand, his mediocre minors track record doesn't give me the confidence that he will develop the consistency to reach his ceiling. I believe Sam Travis with the higher floor and lower ceiling is a highly likely candidate to reach his ceiling.
Admittedly, I thought that of Cecchini though.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 18, 2016 8:09:33 GMT -5
Your theory is that Law tends to miss on a specific type of player, like Sam Travis. I want you to find me one player who is superficially similar to Travis who a) Law never ranked in the Top 100, b) has 5.0 bWAR or fWAR, c) was ranked by at least two major publications, d) a college draft pick and e)who played a corner position. Just one. And "good numbers in minors" is far, far, far, far, far too broad a description to be a category. Almost every successful major leaguer, particularly among hitters, has had "good numbers in minors." So find one. Just one. James Loney? Carlos Pena? Billy Butler? Mitch Moreland? Do any of those players qualify? Honest question: Did you ignore my criteria and just start naming players who you think are similar to Travis off the top of your head? -Pena graduated in 2002, Law's first Top 100 for ESPN was in 2008. If someone can find one from before then it would count, but I can't find one. Law was a Blue Jays employee from 2002 to 2006 though, so I can't imagine he'd have been able to publish such a list publicly. -Butler and Loney graduated in 2007. Law did do a top 25 that year (but not 100). He ranked Billy Butler 12th! So he was actually higher than Butler than anyone else I can find. The two players he had immediately behind Butler were Evan Longoria and Ryan Braun. Butler and Loney were also high school picks. -Nobody else ranked Moreland either, and he has only a 4.0 career bWAR/3.7 fWAR.
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Post by dirtywater43 on Feb 18, 2016 15:37:33 GMT -5
James Loney? Carlos Pena? Billy Butler? Mitch Moreland? Do any of those players qualify? Honest question: Did you ignore my criteria and just start naming players who you think are similar to Travis off the top of your head? -Pena graduated in 2002, Law's first Top 100 for ESPN was in 2008. If someone can find one from before then it would count, but I can't find one. Law was a Blue Jays employee from 2002 to 2006 though, so I can't imagine he'd have been able to publish such a list publicly. -Butler and Loney graduated in 2007. Law did do a top 25 that year (but not 100). He ranked Billy Butler 12th! So he was actually higher than Butler than anyone else I can find. The two players he had immediately behind Butler were Evan Longoria and Ryan Braun. Butler and Loney were also high school picks. -Nobody else ranked Moreland either, and he has only a 4.0 career bWAR/3.7 fWAR. Mitch Moreland has been a good example then but yeah I don't have the espn insider so I can't look up his lists and was interested if those players had qualified. I wasn't defending anyone's posts, I was just curious.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 22, 2016 15:04:34 GMT -5
Forgetting the topic, the rankings and comparing the two Travis', I think Travis Shaw is the better prospect and the more undervalued. Higher ceiling, more versatile, better defender and legit power. On the other hand, his mediocre minors track record doesn't give me the confidence that he will develop the consistency to reach his ceiling. I believe Sam Travis with the higher floor and lower ceiling is a highly likely candidate to reach his ceiling. Admittedly, I thought that of Cecchini though. He reminds me a ton of Cecchini and I think people will hold him against him.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 22, 2016 15:26:00 GMT -5
I think both Johnson and Travis should be top 100 guys. Fine. We can disagree. Same question I ask everyone who makes a statement like this - what players who ARE on the Top 100 do you think they should be ranked ahead of? Just a couple that stick out Mark Appel, Max Fried, Alex Jackson, Dylan Cease and Jeff Hoffman. I get they all have upside, but at this point that's all they really have.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 22, 2016 15:35:34 GMT -5
Your theory is that Law tends to miss on a specific type of player, like Sam Travis. I want you to find me one player who is superficially similar to Travis who a) Law never ranked in the Top 100, b) has 5.0 bWAR or fWAR, c) was ranked by at least two major publications, d) a college draft pick and e)who played a corner position. Just one. And "good numbers in minors" is far, far, far, far, far too broad a description to be a category. Almost every successful major leaguer, particularly among hitters, has had "good numbers in minors." So find one. Just one. How in the world did you think I meant anything like that? My point that started this explosion was that players like Travis that are seen as not having a huge ceiling but have good stats are getting overlooked for players with less stats but higher ceilings. Examples I gave are Travis and Johnson.
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Post by telson13 on Feb 23, 2016 15:04:41 GMT -5
Fine. We can disagree. Same question I ask everyone who makes a statement like this - what players who ARE on the Top 100 do you think they should be ranked ahead of? Just a couple that stick out Mark Appel, Max Fried, Alex Jackson, Dylan Cease and Jeff Hoffman. I get they all have upside, but at this point that's all they really have. I think Brian Johnson should be above just about all of them...Jameson Taillon is another guy who's snuck onto some lists, but is post-TJ and a total unknown. Johnson still does have some upside (he was a two-way player and a reliever in college, so he's relatively short on innings), and his floor really probably is a #5. He's almost guaranteed to be a 3/4/5, maybe a 2 if things break right. A number of guys above him (Appel, for example) have lost their big upside (most seem to hope for #3 ceiling for Appel), with *much* more downside risk. I can't say I feel the same about Travis, but I will if he hits .305/15/85 with 30 2b in AAA this year, 15 steals, serviceable D, and gets left off the list again.
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