tom s. says:

i don’t think the appy league stats are terribly significant, though clearly moreso than the GCL stats from glorified scrimmages. the GCL is like year-long spring training for 17 and 18 year olds.

in the past, the prospect community has been far more guilty of overrating lower-level stats (leading to unwarranted optimism on Nick Longmire and Niko Vasquez) than not considering lower-level stats. since there’s good evidence that short-season ball stats have very limited value, i can’t imagine what value instructional league stats would have. i can’t point to a single prospect whose path would have been clearer if we’d followed him from the GCL.

i’d be against adding GCL stats to FR because 1) i think adding more work would make it harder to keep a volunteer staff putting out good content, 2) i think most readers would find the information unhelpful; 3) i think the comments section would see a lot of uninformed posters reading far too much into GCL stats.

i really don’t care whether seth blair strikes out 3 guys or 6 guys in a given day in the GCL. even if a 23 year old starts striking out 17-year-olds in an instructional league by the truckload, he won’t really be a prospect until he starts doing it at Quad Cities. i’m interested in whether guys at the GCL level get released, injured, or promoted, but otherwise, their day-to-day stats are pretty meaningless.

not being “comprehensive” is not really a complaint. FR could add DSL stats, too, to be comprehensive. i’d rather the site be “useful” or “interesting” than “comprehensive.” i don’t think GCL day-to-day updates qualify as useful or interesting other than as a curiosity.