Flameouts and Breakouts, A-Ball Edition

What makes for a promising underdog or potential disappointment?

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Now, on to our piece on prospect flameouts and breakouts, enjoy!

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What Are We Doing?

Figuring out which strong-performing A-Level ball (our way of referring collectively to all varieties of A-ball—Low-A when it existed, Single-A, and High-A) players might be at risk of flaming out, and which struggling ones are the most likely candidates to break out.

Why Are We Doing It?

In prospect analysis, a lot of air time is given to extolling the virtues of the perceived elite, with little regard to their potential failures or the plausible success of their less heralded peers. We’re interested in helping reshape the narrative-driven, all-or-nothing approach to talking about prospects—that’s a big reason why our Oyster model assigns percentage odds to each player for different career outcomes, rather than focusing exclusively on ranks or tiers. There are no sure things in baseball, and likewise, if someone is good enough to be in affiliated ball, they’ve got a non-negligible shot to someday, somehow make it to the show, no matter what the scouting reports say.

Without further ado, let’s get into a few ways to tell contenders from pretenders and underdogs from duds.