Minor League BABS 2019

What is the difference between Ramon Laureano and Austin Meadows? Looking only at their 2018 major league stats, one might conclude, “not a whole lot.”

BABS viewed their 2018 performances slightly differently. She rated Laureano (PW,SB,a), which is an elite-level asset group that no Major Leaguer attained in 2018. Meadows was rated (SB,a), a comparable skill set to MLB veterans Starling and Ketel Marte. Both are driven by tiny sample sizes, which makes them highly suspect.

Player             AB    HR    SB    AVG
--------------    ---    --    --   ----
Ramon Laureano    156    5    7   .288
Austin Meadows    178    6    5   .287

If we were to seek out a larger sample size for these two 24-year-old outfielders, their minor league performances would be the first place we’d look. But even those 2018 stat lines look nearly identical:

Player             AB    HR    SB    AVG
--------------    ---    --    --   ----
Ramon Laureano    246    14    11   .297
Austin Meadows    261    12    12   .303

Of course, minor league performance is not the same as major league performance, so we like to convert those minors numbers into major league equivalent stats (MLEs), which account for level of play, park factors and the like. Using MLEs, BABS can figure out an appropriate rating to attach to these performances.

BABS rates Ramon Laureano as (p,s), a player in the same asset group as 2018 major leaguers Chris Taylor, Gregory Polanco, Aaron Hicks and Brandon Nimmo..

BABS rates Austin Meadows as (p,s,a), a level that nobody in 2018 attained, though 2017 comps included Javier Baez, Dexter Fowler, and surprisingly, Mookie Betts.

These are not necessarily indicators of future potential, just snapshots of what Laureano and Meadows did in 2018. Their 2019 expectations take these data points into account, as well as any other relevant information. In tandem with their respective Liability ratings, we get a fuller picture. Their preliminary ratings:

Player               PT     Assets   Liab
--------------       --     ------   ----
Ramon Laureano       F        s      EX
Austin Meadows              p,s,a    EX

Now these look like two completely different players. Laureano is projected to get the playing time, but his only asset is moderate speed, which potentially puts him in the same 2019 asset group as players like Leury Garcia, Willy Adames and J.P. Crawford. Meadows maintains his excellent MLE rating, but in part-time play. If he gets more at-bats, we might see some erosion of those skills ratings, but this early view puts him in the same group as Thomas Pham and Enrique Hernandez. It’s premature to be locking in on these ratings, especially on the playing time side.

Here are files with BABS ratings for nearly all 2018 Double-A and Triple-A players. Each file lists the players both alphabetically as well as sorted by asset groups.

BATTERS
VIEW | EXCEL

PITCHERS
VIEW | EXCEL

For players expected to get AB/IP in 2019, BABS incorporates some of these MLEs as part of the process of constructing the major league ratings. But it’s helpful to see the seeds of where it started, especially for players with little MLB experience.