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It’s been a few weeks since I last intruded on your inboxes.
I didn’t intend for the frequency of this newsletter to fall off in quite so dramatic fashion once the college season got started, but some unanticipated off-the-field items and travel popped up so here we are.
Speaking of travel, I’m currently in Winston Salem, N.C., to see one of the most highly-anticipated weekend series I had on the calendar: Wake Forest and its loaded roster (which features five players currently ranked among the top 40 prospects in the class) against Duke and LHP Jonathan Santucci, who had a claim for the best start to the season of any pitcher in the country.
At this point I believe I am Josh Hartle’s curse because each time I see him in person he gets hit around and a highly anticipated pitcher’s duel on Friday between Hartle and Santucci quickly turned into a slugfest. Those who stuck around for Saturday’s action were treated to a Chase Burns 14-strikeout gem—I’ll have some detailed notes from this game and the entire series at BA early this week.
For today I wanted to briefly talk about anchoring bias, or the anchoring effect, which is something that I have in mind as we are in the midst of our first significant in-season draft ranking update of the season.
On the Future Projection podcast Ben Badler and I like to talk about various biases that can impact how we view and evaluate players, and one I definitely have been guilty of over the years is an anchoring bias—specifically a conservatism bias which is the tendency to insufficiently revise one’s beliefs when presented with new evidence.
I think there are two primary reasons for this in regards to updating prospect lists.
I spend a significant amount of time throughout the summer, fall and winter settling on our initial draft list for any given class. By the time February rolls around I have strong thoughts on players based on conversations with scouts, tons of video and getting up to speed with each player’s performance histories. This leads to a reasonably strong opinion of a player.
We’re constantly told in baseball to be wary of small sample sizes. Especially at the major league level you have to wait a long time before you can tease out the signal from the noise in performance data.
These two pair together to make me more conservative when updating draft lists in season, especially when I realize we have monthly updates that should allow for small tweaks to eventually become larger ones. My thinking has generally been that if I am able to directionally make the correct moves on each update, by the time draft day rolls around we should be in a good spot.
There are pros and cons to this strategy. Sometimes it will lead to not moving a player enough when there’s real reason to, other times it can help prevent over-reactions to small samples when there’s no real significant change in a player’s profile.
One of the better examples of this hurting me was with Miami catcher Adrian Del Castillo from the 2021 draft class. That season, Del Castillo entered the year with a reputation as one of the best pure hitters of the college demographic. He started the year as the No. 3 prospect on the BA draft board and the top-ranked college hitter in the class—which was regarded at the time as a light college hitting crop.
Del Castillo hit .331 as a freshman in 2019 and in the brief 2020 season he hit .359. He also walked more than he struck out in both his first two seasons. My view of his hitting pedigree was amplified thanks to his high school history where he ranked as a top-200 prospect in the 2018 class with a bat-first profile. I still remember him hitting with a wood bat that had a distinct mark on the barrel because he showed such a consistent ability to put the sweet spot on the ball at that time.
Del Castillo struggled in his draft year with Miami in 2021. In 54 games he hit just .275/.380/.395 with three home runs and struck out (28) more than he walked (27) for the first time in his college career. He fell in our draft rankings, but not as much as he probably should have. On draft day he ranked as the No. 25 prospect on our board but was picked in the second supplemental round by the D-backs with the 67th overall pick and signed for $1 million.
In hindsight, I should have done a better job contextualizing the more limited sample of his freshman and sophomore hitting track record thanks to the shortened covid year, and also not putting such a premium on the “best college hitter” label he entered the year with since the college bat class was seen as weak in the first place.
My favorite example of a more conservative approach turning out well for me was after the 2019 draft. That was the draft class where the Royals took shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. second overall and the Padres took shortstop CJ Abrams as few picks later at No. 6.
Throughout the entire 2019 draft cycle Bobby Witt Jr. was the top-ranked high school player in the class and would have been an easy 1-1 player if it weren’t for the existence of Adley Rutschman. Instead he settled for the clear No. 2 player of the class and was so locked into that pick that Royals scouts would jokingly wonder why their peers were even bothering to come watch his games that spring.
After the draft both Witt and Abrams played in the rookie level Arizona league where they put up the following numbers:
Bobby Witt: .262/.317/.354, 1 HR, 5 3B, 2 2B, 35 K, 13 BB, 9 SB (37 games)
CJ Abrams: .401/.442/.662, 3 HR, 8 3B, 12 2B, 14 K, 10 BB, 14 SB (32 games)
After having been the better prospect for the last year plus, all of the sudden Abrams was getting flipped with Witt because of this strong turn in the Arizona League. I was adamant that Witt should stay ahead. I liked his offensive approach more, I liked his power more and I vastly preferred his defensive ability at shortstop. I also thought Abrams’ elite speed and excellent bat-to-ball skills would allow him to thrive in a rookie ball environment but might show more warts as he progressed and faced better pitching and defense.
We ended up flipping the two on BA’s top 100 list in 2020 largely based on that impressive rookie ball performance and I think in hindsight we would have rather stuck with the initial draft order.
I’m sure there are plenty more examples on either side to pull from, but the point I am trying to make is that it’s extremely tough to thread the needle and avoid either reacting too much or not reacting enough—especially in a shorter amateur season where smaller samples simply do mean more in draft rooms.
I lean towards not reacting enough, but I am aware of that bias and am trying to account for it moving forward. It helps that I get to work with some smart people at BA who serve as a counterweight to me in this regard and might lean towards the more reactive side. Hopefully together we’ll be able to thread that needle as best we can.
Here’s everything I produced for Baseball America last week:
Writing
Is 2024 The Greatest Year Ever For North Carolina MLB Draft Talent? — There’s a good chance this year breaks the record for most first rounders ever selected outside of the state. To do that we need to see more than six players picked in the first round and at the moment it would not be difficult to imagine six going inside the first 15 picks, let alone the first 30. If teams increasingly prioritize college players, North Carolina should be a priority for scouts.
Drew Burress, Riley Huge Highlight NCAA Week 3 Standouts (Hot Sheet) — If you rely exclusively on this newsletter to keep up with what I am doing each week you won’t know about our recurring college hot sheet over at BA. This piece is put together alongside Peter Flaherty and simply examines 20 of the top college performers over the past week.
Podcasting
Drafting The Top 10 Picks After Three Weeks Of College Baseball — Peter and I talked about the top 10 of the draft as it stood after the first three weeks of college baseball and went back and forth with fake picks. I picked first in this one and took a college hitter. Can you guess which one?
Great questions.
Regarding Del Castillo I think my concern would be your latter point, that I was simply baking in his first season and 16 games as a sophomore too much. His cape numbers were more concerning and he was also hitting less and for less power as a junior. That really impacts the profile when there were also questions about whether he would stick around catcher.
In terms of adjustments I would be looking for with hitters: physicality and body changes would probably be the first and most obvious. If a guy fills out, adds strength, adds bat speed and all of the sudden the power grade is notably different (or vice versa, body backs up and athleticism downgrades) that would be key. Like Jackson Holliday in his draft spring.
An approach change in the box could also change how you think about a hitter. Cam Smith with FSU this year started improving there last summer and he’s seemingly carried that forward this spring, with slightly different hitting mechanics that seem to help him make more contact overall.
I’ll have to look into the Mayo setup, that’s interesting. I haven’t seen him yet this spring.
How can you tell when a guy has made a real adjustment? Hitting seems like such an interconnected skill (in that it is dependent on what/how/where the pitcher throws the ball, the count, base-out states, etc.) that it's understandable you need a big sample size.
What did you observe Del Castillo was doing differently his final year in college? It's clear that when position players reach the upper minors, holes in their swings start to emerge. Did that happen with him, or was he possibly overperforming in a small sample size in his first two seasons?
Side note: I recently noticed on a random Coby Mayo spring training highlight that he had less of an unorthodox leg kick (previously his front foot would land closer to his back foot than where he lifted it). Is that on purpose? Is it just usual variation in his load? Does it make a difference? Is it even a good thing?