Forecasting is difficult. Sitting back and picking nits is easy. I did that with Glenn Perkins last night and will do it with Cliff Pennington this morning.
He was a 1st round pick of the deified Oakland A's whose prophet is Billy Beane. He has no power whatsoever and his best offensive skill is stealing bases, which he can do fairly well.
Unfortunately, that is a skill wasted in the A's organization. How about his OBP and SLG? His OBP was higher than his SLG - .364 vs .359. Players who slug less than they get on base are not good propsects unless their OBP is in the very high .300s or higher. (Amazingly, that protects my prognostication on Marcus Sanders!)
A .276 AVG in A-ball is not a good starting point either. If he had hit like Marcus Sanders in his pro debut as a 21-year-old, I'd feel sorry for him being drafted into the hostile environment, but he was not.
The A's just signed Mark Ellis to a two-year contract with an option for 2008. If he continues to perform, I see no opening for Pennington at 2B, and that would entail a move from his current SS postion. I assume a position switch because I expect Bobby Crosby to bounce back to his ROY form.
There is nowhere for Pennington to play in 2007. If he had a dominating minor league debut, I may be more likely to let John Manuel's 2007 ETA pass, but Pennington did not.
When putting together a minor league prospect list for your Rotisserie draft, eliminating touted propsects is an easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
It also helps identify possible mistake picks by your competitors. When this happens, you can count on getting a better player than your draft position indicates. (I pick 8th in an AL-only and know one of my top 7 will fall to me using this theory. Last season, Brian Nikola Anderson fell to me because a team picked Kurt Suzuki. Another Oakland A? Hmmm.)
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I pose a question for you. What do you think is a good percentage of prospects/rookies that make the big show on a full time basis? I'm thinking of maybe 35% of everyone drafted or signed as a FA eventually will get a full time job. This is just my guess. I went through some cards and must have had between 50-100 RC's of players that I had never heard of or turned out to be a bust. Since you provide prospect analysis I thought you may have some good input.
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