Five years later: John Sickels top 20 braves prospects for 2019

[jpx7]

1% is basically saying it was unforseeable it would ever happen. That's not accurate here.

One-in-a-hundred, or 1%, is hardly unforeseeable. That’s actually a reasonably-high low-likelihood event. And Riley hitting his top-decile offensive tier while improving defense to MLB average (or better) seems like one-in-a-hundred territory.

[cajunrevenge]

One-in-a-hundred, or 1%, is hardly unforeseeable. That’s actually a reasonably-high low-likelihood event. And Riley hitting his top-decile offensive tier while improving defense to MLB average (or better) seems like one-in-a-hundred territory.

This isnt about his defense. He improved his defense tremendously while a prospect but no one thought he would ever be a positive defender.

[cajunrevenge]

I don't want to argue semantics. Offensive value does include base running but I clearly meant hitting. And for that Riley has a clear advantage over anyone else in the league at 3rd the last 3 years. And I think comparing yourself agaisnt your contemparies is about the best thing a player can do. What others at your position are doing and the leagues run scoring environment matter very much.

Riley has not been clearly better than any other 3B over the last 3 years with the bat. Jose Ramirez has a slightly better OPS over that time and Devers slightly worse. Riley would be just as good of player regardless of if Chipper Jones and ARod were playing 3B now instead of 10 years ago. Several 3B have outhit him in a season in the last 3 years but just dont have the consistency in the 3 years.

[cajunrevenge]

I don't know how this became an argument about the criteria for 1%, but I would hardly use some arbitrary Fangraphs rankings used as filler in the article as some sort of evidence to the contrary.

And a 25% likelihood he became the hitter he is now is super high for any prospect. Especially for a guy who had a K% around 27% and a BB% below 8% for the first 4 years of his minor league career. There were serious swing and miss/pitch recognition concerns with Riley. Yes, if everything went right, he had the power potential to be a regular .850+ OPS hitter. But you can say that for basically every power hitter. The likelihood of that type of player reaching those levels is pretty low. Hence why I said he reached his 1% of outcomes.

Fangraphs is one of the best public sources for baseball. If that site saying Riley had a 10% chance to be a 70 FV player and a 30% chance to be a 60+ FV player isnt proof to you that the odds of Riley wasnt a 1% chance then nothing will satisfy you. And I dont know what makes the graph filler.


Sure a 25% chance likelihood of being an all star player is pretty high. Thats why he was a consensus top 40 prospect. Riley had shown tremendous improvements in the minors and was incredibly young for the levels he was at. Yes he had a serious swing and miss problem but thats not uncommon for players with big time power when they are young. His walk rate wasnt great but it was fairly consistent. Whether he hit .250 and .330 he was still walking 7-10%. Hitters tend to cannibalize their walks when they are hot and walk a lot more when they are struggling. He wasnt a Francoeur level strikeout/walk guy. The projection of Riley as a .850 OPS hitter was assuming just about everything went right for him and he kept improving. Hitters bust but top 50 position prospects are not 1% lottery tickets things go right.

[Carp]

Fangraphs is one of the best public sources for baseball. If that site saying Riley had a 10% chance to be a 70 FV player and a 30% chance to be a 60+ FV player isnt proof to you that the odds of Riley wasnt a 1% chance then nothing will satisfy you. And I dont know what makes the graph filler.


Sure a 25% chance likelihood of being an all star player is pretty high. Thats why he was a consensus top 40 prospect. Riley had shown tremendous improvements in the minors and was incredibly young for the levels he was at. Yes he had a serious swing and miss problem but thats not uncommon for players with big time power when they are young. His walk rate wasnt great but it was fairly consistent. Whether he hit .250 and .330 he was still walking 7-10%. Hitters tend to cannibalize their walks when they are hot and walk a lot more when they are struggling. He wasnt a Francoeur level strikeout/walk guy. The projection of Riley as a .850 OPS hitter was assuming just about everything went right for him and he kept improving. Hitters bust but top 50 position prospects are not 1% lottery tickets things go right.

It's filler because it isn't based on any substantive reasoning of why he's X% likely to perform to any particular outcome. There is no basis other than having enough percentage points overall for each of the 5 outcomes to reach a total of 100%.

[Southcack77]

One-in-a-hundred, or 1%, is hardly unforeseeable. That’s actually a reasonably-high low-likelihood event. And Riley hitting his top-decile offensive tier while improving defense to MLB average (or better) seems like one-in-a-hundred territory.

Well actually 1% is a fairly likely outcome is really stretching the bounds of semantics and is not what the folks suggesting that seemed to be trying to convey.

Basically they want to be correct about their old assessments uttered very confidently and suggest that the Lord made a miracle and this means they were still correct all along.

Around here we are constantly seeing black swan events. What a time to be alive I guess.

[cajunrevenge]

It's filler because it isn't based on any substantive reasoning of why he's X% likely to perform to any particular outcome. There is no basis other than having enough percentage points overall for each of the 5 outcomes to reach a total of 100%.

You sir are a genius. I can not argue with a person of your intellect. You have shown me the error of my ways.

[smootness]

Well done.

Sometimes folks get all wrapped up in what they thought. This outcome might have been high end but it wasn't something completely out of all expectation.

He said it was expected and what he projected him to be. That is what people are disagreeing with.

[cajunrevenge]

He wasn't a top 40 prospect because he was projected to be an average player. He was a top 40 prospect because he has elite power which meant if he simply had average batting average/OBP he would be a very good player. The issue we are arguing about is the probability he becomes as good as he is now. He has exceeded expectations a little bit no doubt but no player is a top 40 prospect in baseball because they have a 1% chance to be an all star.