2010 Performance Evaluations – Midwest League Hitters

Mike Trout may have nailed down Top Prospect honors with his MWL performance

The Midwest League is next up, as we continue our annual examination of Performance for each of eighteen Minor Leagues that have affiliations with MLB organizations. Over the next four weeks we will post the Performance analysis for approximately three leagues each week until we have run through them all. Bar none, the best prospect talent in all of baseball passed through the MWL this summer and the position players may have been stronger than the pitchers. No less than eight players that will likely end up on most Top 100 lists appear on the list below, and the best of the best was the Angels’ Mike Trout. Trout played as an 18yo in the MWL this year, and despite giving two to three years to most of his competition, he flirted with a 1.000 OPS for most of the year before ending up at .979. But the talent doesn’t end there, as fellow 2009 draftees Wil Myers and Nick Franklin were nipping at Trout’s heels.

A couple of things to remember about our Performance evaluations: 1) these are not necessarily prospect lists. While it is fair to assume that the best prospects will put up the best performances, these lists focus only on a player’s offensive performance while they were in the league during the 2010 season. They do not consider things like defensive ability, offense vs. required offense for a given position, or projectability. Prospect evaluation is a combination of art and science and this is the science part of that equation. Later in the fall, we will breakdown each team’s ‘prospects’ and rank them in ‘prospect value’ order. 2) What it is, is a comparative statistical look at each players performance, placed in context of their age, their home park, and the league. We rate each player in the five categories that we have found most significant in predicting future Major League performance. The players that rate the highest, have assembled the best ‘Performance’ in these areas. For a more detailed look at the statistics involved you can refer to previous articles on the site (http://baseballnumbers-diamondfutures.blogspot.com/2009/09/do-it-yourself-quantitative-examination.html).

A quick note about the rankings…The TOTAL is the weighted numerical value of the combined statistics that we use. It is scaled for the level of play. Typically, a player with a positive score will rank in the top 1% - 2% of all Minor League players. After the total we list the sub-scores in 4 areas of significance. These scores are presented, for ease of understanding, in a typical 20-80 scouting format. They represent how the individual player performed in those areas in relation to THE LEAGUE in question. A score of 50 represents league average. Players listed as ‘DNQ’ did not qualify for the rankings because of their limited playing time, but we felt their scores were worth noting. If you have further questions on the methodology, feel free to email me at baseballnumbers@ix.netcom.com.


2010 Midwest League Top Hitting Performances

Name Org POS TOTAL Reach Base Strike Zone Judgement Power Speed
1 ) Mike Trout , LAA , CF - 1.73 … 79 … 71 … 58 … 80
2 ) William Myers , KCR , C - 1.31 … 74 … 53 … 78 … 63
3 ) Nick Franklin , SEA , SS - 0.91 … 51 … 49 … 76 … 73
4 ) Jean Segura , LAA , 2B - 0.72 … 66 … 75 … 53 … 80
5 ) Randal Grichuk , LAA , OF - 0.72 … 25 … 46 … 78 … 53
6 ) Jerry Sands , LAD , 1B - 0.56 … 72 … 45 … 80 … 76
7 ) Henry Rodriguez , CIN , 2B - 0.53 … 38 … 76 … 67 … 76
8 ) Matthew Davidson , ARZ , 3B - 0.48 … 45 … 41 … 78 … 28
9 ) Jae-Hoon Ha , CHN , RF - 0.46 … 51 … 73 … 60 … 56
10 ) Ryan Gennett , MIL , 2B - 0.34 … 53 … 65 … 65 … 70
11 ) Hak-Ju Lee , CHN , SS - 0.23 … 72 … 68 … 29 … 80
12 ) Chris Owings , ARZ , SS - 0.23 … 36 … 63 … 62 … 31
13 ) A.J. Jimenez , TOR , C - 0.12 … 53 … 58 … 59 … 76
14 ) Matthew Cerda , CHN , 3B - 0.04 … 74 … 74 … 40 … 46
15 ) Matthew Adams , STL , 1B - 0.04 … 38 … 70 … 79 … 51
16 ) Jonathan Galvez , SDP , SS - 0.00 … 67 … 30 … 59 … 70
17 ) Rainel Rosario , STL , LF - (0.01) … 51 … 39 … 80 … 44
18 ) Edinson Rincon , SDP , 3B - (0.04) … 38 … 66 … 66 … 31
19 ) Oliver Dominguez , TOR , 2B - (0.07) … 76 … 69 … 63 … 64
20 ) Bobby Borchering , ARZ , 3B - (0.08) … 53 … 47 … 66 … 33
21 ) Avisail Garcia , DET , RF - (0.08) … 53 … 53 … 31 … 78
22 ) Lance Ray , MIN , 1B - (0.10) … 70 … 70 … 62 … 39
23 ) Cutter Dykstra , MIL , 3B - (0.18) … 80 … 61 … 38 … 78
24 ) Aaron Hicks , MIN , CF - (0.24) … 77 … 41 … 57 … 65
25 ) Didi Gregorius , CIN , SS - (0.30) … 50 … 77 … 33 … 65
26 ) Ramon Castillo , ARZ , 1B - (0.32) … 43 … 74 … 76 … 37
27 ) Frederick Parejo , STL , CF - (0.35) … 47 … 35 … 65 … 56
28 ) Cameron Garfield , MIL , C - (0.41) … 44 … 64 … 36 … 32
29 ) Max Stassi , OAK , C - (0.42) … 41 … 24 … 67 … 37
30 ) Ty Morrison , TBR , OF - (0.42) … 45 … 32 … 46 … 80
31 ) Vincent Catricala , SEA , 1B - (0.42) … 59 … 54 … 75 … 52
32 ) Bo Greenwell , CLE , LF - (0.43) … 76 … 75 … 47 … 67
33 ) Brian Cavazos-Galvez , LAD , OF - (0.45) … 31 … 77 … 77 … 79
34 ) Kentrail Davis , MIL , OF - (0.46) … 70 … 74 … 68 … 42
35 ) Hernan Perez , DET , SS - (0.54) … 41 … 60 … 32 … 51
36 ) Khristopher Davis , MIL , LF - (0.56) … 70 … 41 … 79 … 59
37 ) Chun-Hsiu Chen , CLE , C - (0.56) … 41 … 69 … 75 … 33
38 ) Angelo Songco , LAD , LF - (0.58) … 51 … 68 … 69 … 56
39 ) David Nick , ARZ , 2B - (0.61) … 46 … 63 … 43 … 55
40 ) Rashun Dixon , OAK , OF - (0.64) … 73 … 30 … 46 … 47


DNQ K.C. Hobson , TOR , 1B - (0.53) … 35 … 66 … 53 … 30
DNQ Tyler Holt , CLE , OF - (0.68) … 70 … 70 … 54 … 46