Interesting analysis of the Miller trade...

I'm not sure if this is from an actual Fangraphs writer or not, but the math is sound and it helps illustrate just how badly we fleeced the D-Backs in that trade.

http://www.fangraphs.com/community/t...f-225-million/

Pretty shocking, honestly.

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Originally Posted by smootness

I'm not sure if this is from an actual Fangraphs writer or not

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Hope so. It kind of scary to think that there are people out there who only do it to fill idle time. Kind of like the trainspotters in the UK.

I've seen that bust probability table in other places, and it is intersting to see any prospect in the 50-100 range basically has a 40%-50% chance of being useless. Even if they do produce at the MLB level, it is a pretty small amount.

That tells me those guys ranked 50-100 should be used to acquire MLB assets whenever you need/want them.

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Originally Posted by Enscheff

I've seen that bust probability table in other places, and it is intersting to see any prospect in the 50-100 range basically has a 40%-50% chance of being useless. Even if they do produce at the MLB level, it is a pretty small amount.

That tells me those guys ranked 50-100 should be used to acquire MLB assets whenever you need/want them.

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Part of it just depends. For example, Allard is currently ranked at the back end of the top 100...but there's a decent chance he improves his stock over the next couple years. If he ends up in the top 10-20, then suddenly his chance of busting is nowhere near as high. And it seems to make sense that the guys who only ever reach the top 50-100 are either guys who are ranked high initially and then bust, slipping out of the rankings altogether or are guys who only reached the top 100 after climbing through the minors, at age 22-24 or so. And those are the guys like Folty who have pretty obvious flaws that keep them from climbing higher in those rankings.

So while it seems crazy initially that that many bust, it makes sense when you think about it.

I would advocate trading the guys like Folty when you get good value for them while keeping the guys like Allard.

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Originally Posted by smootness

Part of it just depends. For example, Allard is currently ranked at the back end of the top 100...but there's a decent chance he improves his stock over the next couple years. If he ends up in the top 10-20, then suddenly his chance of busting is nowhere near as high. And it seems to make sense that the guys who only ever reach the top 50-100 are either guys who are ranked high initially and then bust, slipping out of the rankings altogether or are guys who only reached the top 100 after climbing through the minors, at age 22-24 or so. And those are the guys like Folty who have pretty obvious flaws that keep them from climbing higher in those rankings.

So while it seems crazy initially that that many bust, it makes sense when you think about it.

I would advocate trading the guys like Folty when you get good value for them while keeping the guys like Allard.

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Yeah you're right. It would be interesting to see the bust rates when broken down by age and ranking. Like you said, an 18 year old ranked #90 is a lot different than a 23 year old ranked #90. The young guy has more chance to bust, but he also has more chance to become a good player.

I suppose I should have said, "That tells me those guys ranked 50-100 at the age of ~23 should be used to acquire MLB assets whenever you need/want them".

I think the flaw here is using a fan-friendly system like top 100 lists to develop a hypothetical strategy. In reality teams have much more thorough evaluations and tools at their disposal when discussing trades.

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Originally Posted by mqt

I think the flaw here is using a fan-friendly system like top 100 lists to develop a hypothetical strategy. In reality teams have much more thorough evaluations and tools at their disposal when discussing trades.

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True this.