2010 Performance Evaluations – Pacific Coast League Pitchers

The Mariners’ Michael Pineda stands atop the PCL pitchers list

Nearly six weeks later, today we finish up our annual examination of Performance for each of eighteen Minor Leagues that have affiliations with MLB organizations, by examining the PCL pitchers. The PCL is a strange league if you are a promising young pitcher, as the parks of the PCL have locations with high altitudes, desert air, sometimes both, yet also boasts below sea level locations like New Orleans. Consequently, the Performance scores in the League often produce unusual story lines. That was once again the case in 2010, as relatively unsung Mariners’ prospect Michael Pineda posted, far and away, the League’s best score. But he wasn’t the main story line in the PCL. In Fresno, Madison Bumgarner made great strides in ‘righting’ what had to be considered a sinking ship entering the season. In Oklahoma City we had not only the terrific rotation duo of Derek Holland and Michael Kirkman, but the Rangers’ seemingly indecisiveness with the role of Tanner Scheppers who may have better pure ‘stuff’ than either of them. And the real story of the League may have been the dominating relief performances by pitchers like Zach Braddock, Henry Rodriguez and Tim Collins.

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 Pacific Coast League Top Pitching Performances


Name ORG POS Total HR Rate Control Dominance Stamina
1 ) Michael Pineda , SEA , R - 0.94 … 37 … 68 … 79 … 70
2 ) Madison Bumgarner , SFG , L - 0.36 … 66 … 69 … 44 … 75
3 ) Jhoulys Chacin , COL , R - 0.34 … 74 … 39 … 69 … 69
4 ) Will Smith , LAA , L - 0.15 … 49 … 54 … 44 … 74
5 ) Michael Kirkman , TEX , L - (0.08) … 66 … 34 … 68 … 72
6 ) Derek Holland , TEX , L - (0.20) … 59 … 66 … 58 … 73
7 ) Lance Lynn , STL , R - (0.31) … 40 … 54 … 56 … 73
8 ) Will Inman , SDP , R - (0.36) … 45 … 46 … 55 … 73
9 ) Sean O'Sullivan , LAA , R - (0.40) … 56 … 56 … 39 … 73
10 ) Pedro Strop , TEX , R - (0.44) … 75 … 61 … 80 … 26
11 ) Bryan Augenstein , ARZ , R - (0.46) … 56 … 66 … 52 … 72
12 ) Jay Jackson , CHN , R - (0.46) … 41 … 64 … 47 … 67
13 ) Louis Coleman , KCR , R - (0.47) … 69 … 68 … 79 … 33
14 ) Blake Beavan , SEA , R - (0.48) … 35 … 74 … 28 … 74
15 ) Adam Ottavino , STL , R - (0.50) … 49 … 70 … 64 … 71
16 ) Ernesto Frieri , SDP , R - (0.52) … 68 … 39 … 80 … 27
17 ) P.J. Walters , STL , R - (0.52) … 46 … 68 … 68 … 73
18 ) Sean West , FLA , L - (0.55) … 63 … 61 … 51 … 70
19 ) Travis Banwart , OAK , R - (0.62) … 41 … 51 … 65 … 67
20 ) Chaz Roe , COL , R - (0.64) … 50 … 60 … 41 … 74
21 ) Casey Coleman , CHN , R - (0.66) … 57 … 65 … 28 … 74
22 ) Esmil Rogers , COL , R - (0.67) … 55 … 64 … 60 … 69
23 ) Cory Luebke , SDP , L - (0.69) … 48 … 66 … 54 … 77
24 ) Tanner Scheppers , TEX , R - (0.71) … 62 … 45 … 65 … 37
25 ) Josh Lindblom , LAD , R - (0.75) … 47 … 60 … 53 … 37
26 ) James McDonald , LAD , R - (0.76) … 67 … 54 … 62 … 70
27 ) John Ely , LAD , R - (0.76) … 40 … 47 … 54 … 70
28 ) Luke French , SEA , L - (0.77) … 66 … 74 … 32 … 78
29 ) Trevor Reckling , LAA , L - (0.78) … 34 … 21 … 30 … 68
30 ) Fernando Salas , STL , R - (0.78) … 67 … 70 … 79 … 26
31 ) Scott Elbert , LAD , L - (0.81) … 59 … 20 … 66 … 66
32 ) Brandon Dickson , STL , R - (0.82) … 64 … 63 … 52 … 75
33 ) Marc Rzepczynski , TOR , L - (0.84) … 35 … 50 … 57 … 73
34 ) Brad Mills , TOR , L - (0.85) … 40 … 53 … 59 … 73
35 ) Trevor Bell , LAA , R - (0.87) … 54 … 74 … 38 … 68


DNQ Mauricio Robles , SEA , L - 0.82 … 63 … 21 … 78 … 73
DNQ Zach Braddock , MIL , L - 0.55 … 66 … 29 … 80 … 29
DNQ Henry Rodriguez , OAK , R - 0.19 … 69 … 47 … 80 … 26
DNQ Tim Collins , KCR , L - 0.13 … 78 … 52 … 77 … 28
DNQ Jordan Lyles , HOU , R - 0.10 … 66 … 59 … 34 … 70
DNQ Tyson Ross , OAK , R - 0.04 … 71 … 34 … 76 … 60
DNQ Andrew Cashner , CHN , R - (0.26) … 78 … 79 … 61 … 60
DNQ Eduardo Sanchez , STL , R - (0.31) … 61 … 44 … 77 … 26
DNQ Jordan Norberto , ARZ , L - (0.66) … 66 … 23 … 79 … 28
DNQ Edgar Gonzalez , LAD , R - (0.68) … 48 … 71 … 78 … 75
DNQ Ryan Webb , SDP , R - (0.73) … 69 … 71 … 79 … 27