Katoh from Fangraphs kicks things up

Phil Gurnee ♦ July 28, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

Chris Mitchell over at Fangraphs has an experimental tool called Katoh that it he uses to do prospect rankings based on how much fWAR they would expect to generate over the next six years. I would really recommend reading the link above before checking out the list so you get a good idea of what Katoh is about.

For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, but due to their objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated.

Katoh has two columns below. The first Katoh column uses the statistical model plus incorporates the Baseball America Midseason top 100 list. The second column is strictly stat based. No scouting noise, simply production and whatever algorithm they are using to come up with their fWAR analysis.

If you look at the list and compare it to the general prospect lists you will find some Dodger surprises. For one, Alex Verdugo really shines here.  For Katoh he’s a top 5 – 10 prospect.  Willie Calhoun the same way, but that is to be expected because he’s not getting dinged for the lack of a major league position.

My favorites though are Brock Stewart, Keibert Ruiz, and WILMER FONT showing up. Neither Baseball America nor Major League Baseball had any of those three in their top 100 and I’ve been tooting their horns like Benny Goodman.  Edwin Rios also pops up on the stats only list.

You will have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see Font because I sorted this by MLB top 30 just so you could see how ignored Font has been this year.

In my next column, you will see that Keibert and Font are starting to get some play with another prospect list.  My island is getting crowded.

Many favorites simply haven’t played enough to have had any kind of sample size for Katoh to work with. Kendall, Heredia, White, May.

My only disappointment was in not seeing Dennis Santana crack the Katoh code.