PuRPs Discussion Thread:

I am using a weighted average method to figure out how we should rank the prospects.

This is the list…
1. Injuries i.e. Greg Reynolds want from prospect to bust
2. Round drafted i.e. Cargo late bloomer with a high celling
3. Rockies need for that position… like we might ‘need’ a 1b man because the farm system doesn’t have a good one right now…but we have Brad Hawpe and Atkins…
4. Statistics in minor and major league baseball i.e. 300 or 2.00 ERA…etc
5. Age (has to be less than 29 years old)
6. Expected value i.e. Ace prospect pitcher i.e. Matzek > Hynick

So that’s how I’ll be ranking them shortly.

Even without any pro experience, he’ll be at or near the top of most of the other major prospect rankings for the team.

Chacin and Friedrich could be aces off of their breaking stuff, but Matzek’s the only guy who could do it with the fastball as well, that’s what makes him the best prospect in the system to me, even without throwing a pitch.

but I think bats like Wheeler, Blackman, Matthes Saunders, Cleary, Massy, Jr, Roling, and Rosario to name a few, can all become impact bats at some point in time. They guys should find there way somewhere on the top 30

who are 25 or younger…

tulo, stewart, ianetta, fowler and carGo

we don’t show a huge need for new position players…

Assuming it is 1 pt for #30 and 30 pts for #1 and then everything in between, an average ranking system would produce the same exact results.

From what I understand he is very raw and still kinda young. I’m not worried about him yet.

… I can’t say I necessarily oppose his presence near the bottom of the list.

because we only know the top 10-15 players in the system. But that shouldn’t stop us from participating. It’s fun to be a part of the process and it’s not Rox Girl’s/Franchise26’s list, it’s the Purple Row list. This is what I do to put together a list:

1. Read this discussion and Pebble reports to see who’s being discussed.
 - oh wow, that Rosario guy is getting a lot of hype,e ven though McKenry is higher in the system.

2. Check minor league stats and compare to their age and level.
 - Damian Moss has a better record and ERA than Brandon Hynick, but oh wait, he’s older than the Broncos head coach.

3. Make my list and wait until some other people have posted theirs to compare.
 - I thought Christian Colonel was a top 10 prospect, but Russ has him ranked 28th! Maybe I should drop him a little.

As this is also where I get all my info. My top 3 would be our pitching studs though in any order.

ranks #1 on one ballot and gets 30 points, but appears on one or two other ballots at the bottom (28, 29, or 30). Player Y is on eight ballots, varying among the bottom three slots. Player X has enough points that he makes the list, but Player Y doesn’t have enough points to make the list, but is clearly seen by more voters as more worthy of being on the PuRPs list than X.

But in the end, this is all really much ado about nothing.

What we’re trying to suggest is that the final tallying process can be made better so that the wisdom of the collective is better represented.

Yes, we’re also trying to suggest that Colonel and Miller aren’t prospects, but you’re entitled to your opinion on your list, we’re entitled to ours on ours.

So I tend to rate those higher in the system higher. I have a better "feel" for what they will become.

Here’s the thing, though – those guys like Christian Colonel aren’t going to ‘become’ anything. They are what they are. There comes a point in time when you hit your athletic peak and stop growing as a player. If you think of a player’s ability level as residing on an upward bell curve, you’re going to find players in the 26-30 year old age range are right at the very top of that curve.

I don’t mean to pick on Colonel or Matt Miller or whoever, but they’re at the age where they aren’t going to evolve any further. They both have hit for impressive averages in Colorado Springs, the best hitters park (or one of the best, anyway) in a hitter’s leage, but haven’t displayed the power or other secondary skills that demonstrate their ability to be big league contributors.

You’ve got your methodology, I’ve got mine, and we can co-exist in the PuRPs discussion, but what we’re trying to show is why your viewpoint is not going to be the one that’s reflected in a traditional ‘prospect’ list.

We don’t know for certain who’s going to have a positive impact on the MLB team. But we have ideas on who has a better chance, and who has a better chance of making a positive impact like filling in for 2 weeks when someone is hurt, vs. being a cornerstone like Tulo. Distinguishing prospects along these lines makes sense, doesn’t it? If somehow prospect #20 becomes an all-star 7 yrs down the line, it doesn’t make the exercise worthless. Everyone knows we’re not clairvoyant.

Wheeler and Brothers may make my top 10, and Arenado and Balcom-Miller should be in my top 20. Paulsen or Matthes might crack the top 30 on my ballot, but I’ll have to see where I’m at down there.

I’ve got seven in my top 30, five in my top 15.

Though I would caution not to get too hung up on the stats they’ve put up so far and rely a bit more on the scouting reports.

But I do hope that the fact that we do these PuRPs lists invites people to do a little bit of research. Peruse the links in the Pebble Report. Check out a minor league boxscore or two. I know that personally I became a lot more invested in the Rockies when I started following their minor league system closer (born out of necessity when the big league product was so uninspiring). I think it’s fun to follow guys from rookie ball on up, come up with your own sleepers, and rank them in comparison to everyone else.

I guess what I’m trying to say is READ AND LEARN. You might find yourself enjoying Rockies baseball on a new level.

so I don’t get to vote? do I need to own land too?

I don’t know the correct spelling over every player to be in the Rockies system or in the major leagues. I don’t have the time to look them all up so the spelling nazis can be “happy”. Does that mean I don’t know anything about Bucholtz just because I can’t tell you if he has 2 h’s or just one?

pfft

The weighted idea seems sound.

I’m pretty low on Houston knowing his velocity (86-88 mph on the sinker).

Parker Frazier: I’ve heard good things about the guy, but it seems he gives up too many hits

Is actually a pretty decent look at Michael McKenry’s skills at blocking pitches. Deduno throws a lot of sinkers that get in the dirt, as you can see, McKenry doesn’t really allow anything by him.

One more time, I’ll say it: tweaking the scoring system is NOT being done because the ‘Franchise Methodology’ is ‘right’ and the ‘Redhawk Methodology’ is ‘wrong’. If Rox Girl wanted the PuRP list to reflect her opinion, she’d have a much easier way of going about it than trying to argue her case for her methodology – she could make the PuRP list her list and outlaw any voting on it.

If you think that Matt Miller is a Top 10 prospect in the Rockies system, fine, that’s great! I think you’re way off base, based on my own way of putting together a prospect list, but that’s what the balloting and discussion are for! NO ONE IS TELLING ANYONE HOW TO VOTE.

But if you’re the ONLY one who thinks Matt Miller is a Top 10 prospect in the Rockies system, then that should be reflected in the final tallying of points on the list. And last year, the two high votes for Colonel and Miller enabled them to appear on the list that 70-80% of those polled didn’t think they belonged on it. This is not ‘groupthink’. This is reflecting the collective opinion.

Fill out your own ballot however you damn well please. Your vote counts the same as mine, Redhawks, Rox Girl’s, and the Easter Bunny’s, should he fill out a ballot. But players being given a bonus based upon how often they appear on the ballot helps better reflect the overall opinion.

Your problem is that you see it as some sort of slight that your favorite prospect might not get included because those of us with a different way of filling out our ballots won’t rank him. To which I respond: stop taking this personally. It’s supposed to be a fun exercise, we’re just trying to get a more accurate final result AS IT RELATES TO WHAT THE VOTERS THINK AS A WHOLE, not as it relates to what the ‘right’ way to do a prospect list is.

I don’t want just a list, skewed or not to come out. I don’t want my own personal list to be regurgitated back to me. If people value my thoughts on Rockies prospects, they can ask me for it, and I can try and supply them the list, but I think it does little value to them if they don’t know why I placed prospects where I did, and what I think their ceilings and floors are and how likely I think they will be to make an impact. It’s the same with your list and Redhawk’s and Russ’s or whoever’s. I think the lists themselves are meaningless without context and I want to foster more discussion and advocacy for prospects, whether they’re guys you’ve personally seen or guys I feel have a lot of upside that people aren’t aware of.

 I just think we were getting to a point where people’s opinions about prospects weren’t getting shared at all, and I want to encourage discussion. By tweaking the system where there’s greater value on prospects who are more lists, I would hope it encourages people to be better advocates for the prospects that they like. This way we can all see the context you’re putting with your list in advance, and if people choose to follow your lead, more power to them.

Rox Girl’s list gets three times the points, so her number one prospect actually gets 90 points, the second gets 87, and so on.

Franchise26 gets his list multiplied by two, and mine by 1.5 Just to be fair and balanced, Redhawk’s will be worth 3.1. And the five dead people that I have ready to submit lists will have their entries worth .27555654643634.

And then when the voting is over, we just throw out all the results, delete the PuRPs poll thread (hey, anyone wonder why you can’t find the last one?), and put up what we want to. This will be a PuRPS list by diktat.

Oh, and everyone who disagrees with any of us will be banned. No notice, no message, just a ban. And repeated bans when new accounts show up.

Now that’s a slippery slope.

All hail Empress Rox Girl the First and only! Who’s then banned by Russ the Great—he who will ban everyone and destroy Purple Row.

Fuck this fuckin’ discussion because it’s all a bunch of shit. Now who’s gonna ban me?

(Note: I hope every gets the humor in this. Look, this discussion isn’t about denying anyone the right to vote how they want in the PuRPs list. I go back to a comment I made here earlier:

Player X ranks #1 on one ballot and gets 30 points, but appears on one or two other ballots at the bottom (28, 29, or 30). Player Y is on eight ballots, varying among the bottom three slots. Player X has enough points that he makes the list, but Player Y doesn’t have enough points to make the list, but is clearly seen by more voters as more worthy of being on the PuRPs List than X.

How about you actually look at the point system objectively. Why is that the “right” way to do it while anything else is meddlesome manipulation? Take the last PuRPs list for example. Had Scott Robinson’s sister come on and put him #1 and gone from there, Robinson would have leapt from 28 to 23, even though I think only 1 or 2 ballots had him above 25 and most left him off their list. Is that a proper representation of the community opinion? Obviously not. And thusly, it ought to be changed

Sometimes negative things, as we all are.

But I am supremely confident that they have no desire whatsoever in suggesting change in this voting process than trying their best to insure the utmost integrity in the procedure of voting.

This is a field I am familiar with. As an academic film student, I spend my days, weeks, and months making lists, based upon how I personally receive and interpret certain particular elements that are shown to me, much the way those voting in this poll will do while judging the performances of those in the minor league system.

I’m going to throw out my favorite words (that RoxGirl thinks I overuse): subjectivity. There are a lot of things here that are entirely, 100% up to you. In this case, I see no evidence that anyone here actually intends to deny you your subjective viewpoint.. The point, however, of these lists is an attempt to quantify, or to measure these opinions into something that is OBJECTIVE; a list, created amongst peers, that reflect the public opinion at large.

It’s quite a contrast, because when you or I or anyone else look at our own views, they reign supreme. They don’t have to be ranked again in accordance to other people’s beliefs. When you take on a project like this, you now have several opinions being calculated into a format that is meant to reflect all of them, and while including yours, looking at yours when combined with several other people makes it seem and feel a lot different.

I really see no base here for accusing our hosts of being corrupt, or anything such. Nobody is trying to shed you of your own personal opinions. They’re just trying to ensure that your personal opinions are reflected accurately when put in comparison to other opinions.

He’s a sinker/slider combo guy with a bigger emphasis on the slider.

somebody else agrees with me about Keith Weiser. He is going to be so much better than Matzek.

oh well, Weiser #29 could beat him up anyhow.

Though it’s cool how high he is on Matzek.

a thread specifically for entries later.

If people have questions about specific prospects.

To Read and Learn!

I can guarantee you that our list will be 100% accurate. We will 100% accurately show thirty prospects that at least a couple of Purple Row users think will contribute to the MLB club someday. Will all those prospects do that? Absolutely not, but that’s not what the list promises, is it…

There’s simply no way we can know what some of these kids will go out and do tomorrow, but nobody here has claimed anything otherwise. I think we all know the risks inherent, we’re not gunning for an accurate list, we’re gunning for a list of who Purple Row users think will contribute to the Rockies, so why moan about it?

Or at least as much, I shouldn’t have liked them as much at the time as I did, but his bat is a little more legit. As long as he can field at first he should be fine. He’s got a big body, not quite Prince Fielder big, but he’s a big boy nonetheless, and that leaves the concern that he could be pushed off the diamond altogether if he doesn’t maintain his conditioning. He’s definitely not moving to the outfield. He’s a little "old’ for the Asheville level, but still on a decent pace for an average MLB player if he pushes forward some more next season. Swing’s a little slow, but not Koshansky slow. The BABIP is higher less because of luck, but because his bat speed’s quicker and he’s basically showing a better hit for average tool than JoKo.