Morales and Johnson struck out a LOT in the Appy, which is a big crimson flag.

Ripper and Mitchell, on the other hand, showed neither patience nor power. Gilmore also had a miserable sub-5% walk percentage. Yeldrys Molina had barely 80 AB’s, a truly small sample.

There are no guarantees, of course, at ANY level, that current performance predicts future success. But hitting performance examined from *every* angle usually has much more value than scouting reports…even at the very lowest short season levels (see Ben Badler’s March 2009 Baseball America article on the Dominican Summer League).

One guy I’m watching this year is Ronard Castillo, who’s repeating at JC. Last year they jumped him up to JC from the DSL, bypassing the GCL, which makes me think they saw something special in his bat. Now he’s 20 and in his 3rd year as a pro.

It’ll be interesting to see what he can do. 20 isn’t old for the Appy League, and now he may have an edge in terms of experience and familiarity.

Here’s a hypothesis I’m working on regarding all MiLB stats, not just short-season ball:

1. With IFAs playing in the U.S. for the first time, a strong short-season performance rarely turns out to be a fluke. I’m just relying on memory here, but just about all our examples of short-season stats getting us too optimistic were of U.S. kids. (Catchers may be the exception. Good hitting stats in short season don’t seem to tell us anything.)

2. With high school draftees, the first year of full-season ball seems most telling. The kids who played on elite travel teams aren’t too far out of their comfort zones in short-season assignments. But I can’t imagine anyone being comfortable playing in QC in April, against generally older guys, with a mix of top prospects and former college players. I don’t know this because I’ve never been in their situation, but I would guess that this is when the reality of being a pro ballplayer kicks in.

3. With college draftees, it’s hard to say when the biggest challenge occurs. Some guys, like Allen Craig, were pretty much the same player from their time in the FSL until now. His first go at full-season ball was indicative of his true skill set. Others, like Jon Jay and maybe Zack Cox, have extended hot and cold stretches that leave us without any true indication of their MLB potential until they actually play in MLB.

So maybe when we’re looking at advanced college players — those who played D1 at top programs in power conferences — we just have to take everything with a grain of salt until they reach the majors. That doesn’t mean MiLB doesn’t matter, just that it’s harder to tell which parts of their performance give us the best idea what to expect from them.

But with the kids from Latin America, short-season stats could be meaningful, just because they’re going through what U.S. high schoolers probably don’t experience until they reach full-season ball — culture shock, the grind of being a pro athlete and a teenager at the same time, the struggle of playing against older guys who’re comfortable in their environment.

That still doesn’t get around the SSS problem, but it helps me sort things out when I’m trying to figure out which guys to follow more closely than others.

i went back and looked at the leaders in the 2008 appy league by OPS. guys under the age of 20 appearing in the top 25 include: niko vasquez (19), angel morales (18 – now stuck in high A with a .547 OPS), wilmer flores (16 – now in high A with a .795 OPS), yeldrys molina (19 – now out of baseball), jon gilmore (19 – now in AA with a .483 OPS). of those guys, only flores is still a prospect.

same thing in 2007. beau riportella (18 – playing indy league ball), cody johnson (18 – still in AA), travis mitchell (19 – played indy league ball last year).

there’s very little correspondence between success in short-season ball. collecting a couple of anecdotes where someone was good as a teenager in short-season ball doesn’t prove that short-season statistics are reliable, even for teenagers.

Thanks for the info on Tilson