You hear quite often about the next wave of talent coming into Major League Baseball. The Braves Ronald Acuna Jr has generated some waves with his performance in spring training (.432/.519/.727 slash line with 4 HR and 11 RBI, while being MLB.com’s #2 ranked prospect in all of baseball). The Blue Jays Vladimir Guerrero Jr also had a solid spring in limited action with the big club, while providing fans with a rare magical spring training moment by hitting a walk-off home run in an exhibition game in Montreal, a city where his father used to star. He did this while wearing his dad’s number 27.
But how often do these prospects pan out? Does the #1 prospect often turn out to be the #1 player in their class? Let’s take a look at the top 3 prospects (as per Baseball Prospectus) from the years 2006-2008 and see how their careers have panned out:
#1 – Delmon Young
#2 – Jeremy Hermida
#3 – Ryan Zimmerman
The top two could be seen as disappointments given their top prospect standing. Delmon Young hit .283 with 109 home runs across 10 big league seasons for 5 different teams. While those are decent career numbers, it wasn’t what the Tampa Bay Rays were hoping for from such a highly ranked prospect. Hermida only amassed 2012 AB’s across 8 seasons, with a .257 AVG and 65 HR. Again, not what one hopes for out of a highly ranked prospect. Zimmerman, on the other hand, has so far carved out a pretty nice career for himself. The two-time all-star has played for the Washington Nationals his whole career, slashing .280/.344/.476 with 251 HR and 938 RBI, including a career high 36 home runs in 2017. He even won a Gold Glove award back in 2009. So of these three, we can say one lived up to their prospect billing. Although, the names below these guys on the prospect list from this year include Justin Verlander (189-114, 3.45 ERA, 2011 AL MVP), Dustin Pedroia (.300 AVG, 1809 Hits, 4 AL Gold Gloves, 2008 AL MVP), and Ryan Braun (.302 AVG, 302 HR, 193 SB, 2011 NL MVP), so there were more successful players in this class than the prospect list suggests.
#1 – Alex Gordon
#2 – Philip Hughes
#3 – Delmon Young
We’ve already discussed Young, so I’ll talk about the other two. Gordon has had a solid if unspectacular career, slashing .259/.310/.459 with 160 Home Runs, while winning a World Series with the Royals in 2015. He also has 3 all-star appearances and 5 AL Gold Gloves so far. Hughes has put together a career record of 88-79 with a 4.47 ERA, which is alright, but isn’t what you want out of a #2 ranked prospect. Given this class included names such as Tim Lincecum, Ryan Braun, Andrew McCutchen, and Clayton Kershaw, each of whom have won either an MVP award or a Cy Young award, we can say that the top 3 prospects from this year have not had the top 3 careers from this class so far.
#1 – Jay Bruce
#2 – Clay Buchholz
#3 – Evan Longoria
This list is a little bit better. Bruce has been a pretty consistent producer over his career, hitting 277 home runs while reaching the 30 home run mark in 5 separate seasons, and hitting 20 in every season except one (2014, when he just missed with 18). Longoria is more of the same, with 261 home runs along with 3 AL Gold Glove awards and an AL Rookie of the Year award across 10 big league seasons. Buchholz has had some success, though he has been a bit inconsistent. He has a career record of 81-62 with a 4.01 ERA. That being said, he did have a great 2010 season where he was 17-7 with a 2.33 ERA, and another good 2013 year where he went 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA before having his season shortened due to injury. Again, given names such as Kershaw, Joey Votto, David Price, and Max Scherzer were below them on this list, the top 3 prospects haven’t had the most successful careers out of their class, much like the previous 2 years.
While the 3 years used in the sample size above show that the lower ranked prospects end up being the most successful, there are some years that are exceptions. For example, in 2011, the #1 and #2 ranked prospects as per MLB.com were Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. We can safely say that those predictions were spot on, as both of those guys have won MVP awards and are primed to win more in the coming years.
So one takeaway from this is that most of the top 3 prospects have had long big league careers of at least average performance. Though the players that end up being the top players from the class are often ranked lower in prospect lists, again with some exceptions. We’ll have to keep our eye on top prospects like Acuna and Guerrero Jr, as well as the lower ranked guys on the list, to see who starts taking home the MLB awards in future years.
Statistics shown in this article were taken from MLB.com
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