Thread: Article: What is Average?

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=...hat-is-Average

OH snap. It seems like we've had this debate before!

Nice summary - looks like the information is available on places like baseball-reference.com but pulling all the pieces together really aids the understanding, that the strength of the minor league system really is building up from the bottom and will take a while longer to help the parent club.

Good article, but I prefer median, I think, for a study like this.

I'm curious what the average ages are for the Class A short season leagues, since that's the level that the Twins (and several other teams) don't utilize. It's also interesting to me that the average ages between Elizabethton and Beloit were ~2 years. Not sure what, if anything, that means, but it's interesting.

NY-Penn League - Hitters (21.8), Pitchers (21.2)
Northwest League - Hitters (21.0), Pitchers (21.3)

I would say that fits right between the Appy League and the Midwest League.

It's hard to draw conclusions from this when so many of the players in the minor leagues are just organizational filler, and the ages only really matter for the real prospects. If one team lets some young prospects struggle at AA and adds some filler at high-A, are they really better off than a team that signs a few vets for AA and lets the propects tear up high-A?

I think maybe a breakdown of some measure of production by age at each level would be helpful, but it would be difficult to compile and would be subject to small sample size problems. Maybe a table showing WAR (or some other aggregated stat) by each age group and then the per-team average for league for each age group would tell us something

Having all of this info in the book is PRIME! I had average age for league numbers penciled into my book along with some other stats, happy to have them in the book to begin with. The prospect handbook continues to evolve into a better and better tool/book.

Here's a starting point. Jeremy did a ton of work on the rosters and payrolls... http://twinsdaily.com/section/901-roster-payroll.html

But I try not to get too into any one stat or any one prospect criteria. Have to look at it all together.

I just think that prospects like Sano, Buxton and Arcia are few and far between.

How difficult would it be to compile historical averages with the current ones?

Good resource:

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