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2014 Cleveland Indians Prospects That Matter: Starting Pitchers

Introducing the 2014 Indians Prospects That Matter (starting pitchers)

By Ryan
Cody Anderson
Cody Anderson
Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
2013 in Review: Minors

Levels: DSL Indians (R-) • AZL Indians (R-) • Mahoning Valley (SSA) • Lake County (A-) • Carolina (A+) • Akron (AA) • Columbus (AAA)

Players: SS Francisco Lindor • C Tony Wolters • RHP Mitch Brown • SS Dorssys Paulino • OF Tyler Naquin • 2B/SS Ronny Rodriguez • OF Luigi Rodriguez • OF LeVon Washington • RHP Cody Anderson • OF Clint Frazier • RHP Trevor Bauer

2013 Mid-season Prospects That Matter

2013 Pre-season Prospects That Matter

2014 Preview: Minors

Part I: Resources (other lists)

Part II: 2013 PTM Review

Part III: A quantitative prospect comparison (position players)

Part IV: Testing the new PTM formula

Prospects That Matter

Part I: Position Players

In coming up with a formula for pitchers, I tried as best I could to have the results be comparable to the position player formula. In other words, a .300 position player and a .300 pitcher should be considered comparable prospects. So I decided: why not use OBP and SLG as well for pitchers? So those two stats are used, with just the signs reversed, as well as age and level. OBP incorporates walk rates and hit rates, and SLG incorporates home run rates (and other extra base hits allowed). The only traditional pitching rates these two stats don't include is strikeouts, and so I added it.

So here's the formula:

-NetOBP-NetSLG+NetSORate+AgeMod+PosMod

Where:

NetOBP = (LN(OppOBP)-LN(LgAvgOppOBP))*1.8

NetSLG = LN(OppSLG)-LN(LgAvgOppSLG)

NetSORate = (LN(SORate)-LN(LgAvgSORate))/4

AgeMod = Age-LgAvgAge*Mod (see here for the modification details)

PosMod: Starting Pitchers have no modification, while Relief Pitchers have a -.600 modification to their score to account for the innings differences. For instance, the typical reliever throws 50-60 innings in a season, while a typical starter throws 180-200 innings. Leaving leverage aside, a starter is going to be more valuable to a club than a reliever.

Other notes:

  • For a season to qualify, a starter must have thrown at least 50 innings.
  • If a starting pitcher threw at multiple levels, he must have thrown 25 innings at that level for it be included.
  • If a pitcher also qualified in 2012 and/or 2011, I included those as well, weighing the 2013 higher than 2012 and 2012 higher than 2011.
  • Like with the position players, I did not include short-season data (Mahoning Valley, Arizona League, and Domincan Summer League). I will however track prominent short-season pitchers in a separate category.
  • I used the MLB rules on rookie status to determine prospect status. In other words, if in MLB's eyes a player is still considered for the Rookie of the Year in 2014, they are eligible. However, I included both Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar in the calculations for comparisons' sake (highlighted in red below).
  • As with the position players, all pitchers with a score of .250 is included in PTM, and have further broken those pitchers into tiers:

  • Prospects That Matter: .250-.400

    Prospects That Really Matter: .451-.600

    Prospects That Really, Really Matter: .601+

So without further ado, here is the complete list of pitchers who qualified at a full-season league in either 2013 or 2012:

(click to embiggen)

(download complete file - Excel)

2014_ptm_-_starting_pitchers_medium

So the 2014 PTMs:

Prospects That Really, Really Matter:

  • None

Prospects That Really Matter:

  • None

Prospects That Matter:

  • Cody Anderson
  • Trevor Bauer
  • Shawn Morimando
  • Dylan Baker

Starting pitching as not an area in which the Indians are deep, particularly in the full-season leagues. The Indians have drafted heavily in starting pitching the last couple years, but thus far Dylan Baker has been the only one from the 2012-2013 to crack PTM. Mitch Brown, Kieran Lovegrove, Caleb Hamrick, Luis Lugo, Dace Kime, and Sean Brady, all pitchers that could make the mid-season PTM list, haven't yet qualified in a full-season league. But even so, that group is several years away. There's also some interesting pitchers that didn't quite crack the PTM threshold (Joseph Colon, Elvis Araujo, and T.J. House, for instance) that could turn into major-league starting pitchers. But overall, the organization is very thin in starting pitching.

Next Up: Relief Pitchers

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