Bill James' Top 50 Great Young Players

[Valadius]

Bill James ranks the top 50 young players:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/02/billjames.talent/index.html

David Wright is 4th and Jose Reyes is 7th.

[DocTee]

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard??

[Valadius]

He ranked them by combining their ability with how young they are.

[DocTee]

Well those two are pretty young and pretty able, if you ask me.

[metirish]

Utley is 28 and won't be 29 until December 17th so why is he not on the list, James stated that he left players off that were 29 or older during the 2007 season, I guess James doesn't think Utley is that good.

Howard is 27. meanwhile James also ranks the teams.

MLB Team Rankings

[Guest sharpie]

He ranks Utley and Howard as B level guys. Weird, but there you have it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You forget sometimes how good a writer James is. He projects such authority and CHNfidence in what he has to say, and livens it up with his grasp of the big picture and enthusiasm for baseball.

Most hacks just go and make a list.

PS: I don't think I'd ever even heard of James Shields. I mean, the name is familiar, I woulda guessed he was a relief pitcher or something, not one of the top 20 young players in o.b.b.

[metirish]

Yeah really James does put some major effort into this stuff.


If you could take any player from his top twenty five who would you take?, I'd take Felix Hernandez, I dunno but I love a stud pitcher.

[willpie]

If I'm picking just one of those guys to add to the Mets' current roster, I probably go with King Felix, too.

Can't say I'd turn my nose up at Kazmir (ouch), Shields, Verlander or Sabathia, though.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

The one passage on Sabathia is a better read than most other fellas' entire articles.

[MFS62]

And I liked his comments about Tom Gorzelanny.
When he writes, he lets his historical perspective shine through.

I think his age 27 thingie is based on something he wrote many years ago. Buried in one of his books (sorry, can't find a link) was a comment that hitters begin to achieve their power potential at 27. IIRC the reasons he gave were by that age:
They have had sufficient at bats to feel comfortable in the majors,
They are at the peak of physical maturity,
They now know what pitches they can hit (including the best zones), and
They've figured out how to drive those pitches.

He added that a player's peak power years start to decline at age 33/34.

I'm not sure if he has ever done the same kind of thing for pitchers. Some young power pitchers never are able to effectively change from throwers (relying purely on stuff) to pitchers (using other pitchers and location to get hitters out. IMO, those skills seem to be more mental than for hitters at that age.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

metirish wrote: Yeah really James does put some major effort into this stuff. If you could take any player from his top twenty five who would you take?, I'd take Felix Hernandez, I dunno but I love a stud pitcher.

No way. It's right there in James' essay. It's not that some talented young pitchers get injured. It's that most talented young pitchers get injured.