The Equivalent of Greatness

Jason Michael Barker

Which minor league players deserved a shot at the majors last season? Would Adam Piatt, who hit 39 homers in the A's farm system last season, have hit even 20 in the majors? How would Pacific Coast League batting champ Mark Quinn (.360 average) have performed with the Royals in 1999?

Back in 1985, Bill James developed a statistical tool called "Major League Equivalency" which can be used to help answer such questions. Using a series of adjustments for both ballpark and league, an MLE translates a player's minor league statistics and tells you how he would have performed in the majors. These numbers are not park neutral, however, meaning that a Colorado farmhand's MLE will be inflated just as if he had played the season at Coors Field.

Keeping all this in mind, here's a quick look at a possible MLE All-Star team for 1999.

C -- Ben Petrick, Colorado
MLE: .313/.384/.595
Petrick is slated to start the 2000 season in the minors because his defense still needs work (hence the signing of Brent Mayne), but his bat is definitely ready for the majors. He hit .323/.417/.565 during his September call-up last season, giving a glimpse of the future, and considering his home park he should be an offensive force for the Rockies in the coming years.

1B -- Pat Burrell, Philadelphia
MLE: .298/.383/.537
Burrell has since been moved to left field because the Phillies have Rico Brogna at first, but he's not really an outfielder. Defense aside, Burrell's bat, like that of Petrick, is ready for the majors and he'll likely start the season in left assuming the Phillies are smart enough to want him in the line-up every day.

Before Yankees fans get upset with me for not choosing their budding star Nick Johnson, let me assure you that I considered him, but decided on Burrell because Johnson has yet to show much power. He is just 20, however, and is going to be a star in a few years.

2B -- Scott Sheldon, Texas
MLE: .294/.365/.538
Not pictured are 24 homers and 32 doubles -- put it all together and those aren't bad numbers for a middle infielder. If Sheldon was 21 or 22 he'd be a top prospect, but since you probably haven't heard of him it's safe to assume he's not that young. In fact he's already 30, and has just 41 at-bats over three seasons in the majors. He has put together four straight solid AAA seasons, however, and would appear to be deserving of a bench job somewhere.

3B -- Adam Piatt, Oakland
MLE: .291/.371/.548
'Twas a monster year for Piatt, who at 23 won the AA Texas League triple crown with a .345 average, 39 homers and 135 RBI. He also drew 91 walks and posted a stellar .451 on-base percentage. He was a bit old for the league, but the A's didn't promote him to AAA earlier because they wanted to give him a shot at the triple crown. With Eric Chavez already at the hot corner, the A's might think about trading Piatt to acquire another starting pitcher.

SS -- D'Angelo Jiminez, New York Yankees
MLE: .291/.347/.421
Pity the poor Yankees -- they already have one of the top shortstops in the game in Derek Jeter, but they're also stuck with great middle infield prospects like Jiminez and Alfonzo Soriano. What's an organization to do? Compare Jiminez' MLE with what 3B Scott Brosius (.247/.307/.414) or 2B Chuck Knoblauch (.292/.393/.454) did last season. Now consider that Jiminez is only going to get better, while Brosius and Knoblauch are on the decline, and you'll see it's time the Yanks find the young man a job.

OF -- Roosevelt Brown, Chicago Cubs
MLE: .310/.352/.552
Brown is getting to be too old to be a prospect (he turned 24 last August), and his plate discipline will likely keep him from being successful at the major league level. Much of that SLG is due to the .710 mark he put up in 228 at-bats for AAA Iowa, and he's never shown this much power before. I'm not going to hold that against him, however, since this is only about MLEs and not about his chances in the future.

OF -- Dee Brown, Kansas City
MLE: .318/.380/.507
On the other hand, here's a prospect of gargantuan proportions. Brown's MLE came at the tender age of 21 exclusively against AA pitching -- MLE's aren't calculated for A-ball, and Brown skipped AAA. It will be interesting to see what the Royals decided to do with Brown considering their already solid outfield of Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye. Not to mention the next man on the list...

OF -- Mark Quinn, Kansas City
MLE: .328/.361/.525
Perhaps to prove that his PCL batting title and 25 homers in 1999 were no fluke, Quinn hit a robust .333/.385/.733 in his 17-game call-up last September. He's now won consecutive minor league batting titles (.349 in the Texas League in 1998) and doesn't have anything left to prove in the minors. He doesn't walk as much as you might like, but he hits a ton and would make a great cheap DH for a few years because his glove isn't all that great. Players his age (he'll be 26 in May) aren't normally made into full-time designated hitters, but that's just a silly convention.

I didn't intend for this to become a list of top prospects, but for the most part that's what it turned into. However, upon discovering an older player like Scott Sheldon who can obviously hit and deserves a part-time job somewhere, I think I'll take a look around for similar folks who would make good short-term solutions, with a low price tag to boot. For now, however, this piece has gone on long enough.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, you can find Major League Equivalencies in the back of the STATS Minor League Handbook, yet another reason to go out and buy "the green book." If you don't own the book but have a question about a specific player, email me and I'd be happy to relay his MLE right to your inbox. 

about the author

Jason Michael Barker tried to calculate an MLE for his 1999 intramural softball season, but couldn't figure out why his slugging percentage was negative. Suggest that it might have helped if he had actually hit the ball at jmb@strikethree.com.