The answer to your first question, “What’s the normal progression of age through the minors for a player?” won’t work when you start talking about individual players. I’m not trying to use this as an excuse to justify Nelson’s or any other prospect’s stall in the minors, but if organizations apply rigid standards like that, there will be exceptions that slip through and other smart organizations would be wise to take advantage of the inefficiency.

Typically a good MLB player will be at the advanced A level as a 21 year old, AA as a 22 year old, and in the majors by 23 or 24. An average MLB player might find themselves up to a couple of years behind that pace, an elite player could be as many as four years ahead of it (Justin Upton got to the MLB level as a 19 year old). Pitchers have a wider window of opportunity than position players.

Typically I don’t write position players off completely as prospects until their 26 yr. old season as long as there’s a smidgen of promise, and even then, sometimes exceptions like Scott Beerer will pop up. I’m probably in the minority among prospect observers in keeping a window open that far, though.

So would you then say Matt Miller, 26, and Mike McCoy, 28, who are having good offensive AAA seasons are both at an age that would put them beyond prospect status?

Using the Top 30 Purps List as a barometer, it would appear that is the case with these two.

And in these two cases, are they just not good enough to be called up or is it because the Rockies are deep at the positions they play and never have had a shot at being called up?

Looking forward to the next revision of the Top 30 Purps.