2010 Performance Evaluations – Pioneer League Hitters

There is a lot of projection remaining in the speedy Ortega who posted a .926 OPS in 2010

The Pioneer 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 five weeks will post the Performance analysis for approximately three leagues each week until we have run through them all. Today we examine the Pioneer League hitters where the Rockies’ Rafael Ortega edged the Reds’ Yorman Rodriguez for the top spot.

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 Pioneer League Top Hitting Performances

Name Org POS TOTAL Reach Base Strike Zone Judgement Power Speed
1 ) Rafael Ortega , COL , CF - 0.56 … 74 … 74 … 53 … 76
2 ) Yorman Rodriguez , CIN , CF - 0.47 … 67 … 68 … 38 … 76
3 ) Jonathan Garcia , LAD , RF - 0.12 … 37 … 46 … 74 … 50
4 ) Billy Hamilton , CIN , SS - (0.02) … 70 … 62 … 35 … 80
5 ) Corey Dickerson , COL , OF - (0.36) … 49 … 65 … 77 … 63
6 ) Raul Navarro , ARZ , SS - (0.39) … 61 … 69 … 33 … 35
7 ) Adam Eaton , ARZ , OF - (0.49) … 80 … 63 … 64 … 74
8 ) Jake Lemmerman , LAD , SS - (0.52) … 67 … 56 … 77 … 44
9 ) Travis Witherspoon , LAA , CF - (0.53) … 64 … 44 … 61 … 80
10 ) Cristhian Adames , COL , SS - (0.55) … 61 … 70 … 34 … 40
11 ) Ryan Casteel , COL , DH - (0.70) … 53 … 62 … 39 … 42
12 ) Tucker Barnhart , CIN , C - (0.73) … 78 … 53 … 34 … 50
13 ) Leon Landry , LAD , OF - (0.78) … 62 … 74 … 52 … 57
14 ) Fidel Pena , ARZ , DH - (0.80) … 62 … 74 … 28 … 33
15 ) Brandon Decker , LAA , DH - (0.80) … 47 … 44 … 80 … 30
21 ) Juan Duran , CIN , OF - (1.17) … 40 … 23 … 59 … 35


DNQ Juan Silverio , CHA , 3B - (0.28) … 31 … 52 … 75 … 45
DNQ Cheslor Cuthbert , KCR , 3B - (0.48) … 21 … 40 … 66 … 38
DNQ William Swanner , COL , C - (0.59) … 21 … 20 … 80 … 31