Bill Batterman is the In the first half of this retrospective, the Brewers’ representatives on each of Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects lists were compiled and broken down by their year, placement, position, and number of appearances. This time, each Brewers player who has appeared on one or more of the Baseball America rankings will be evaluated in terms of their eventual contributions (or lack thereof) at the big league level.
As was the case with the Daily Brew’s breakdown of the Top Ten Pitching Seasons and Top Ten Hitting Seasons in franchise history, this analysis will rely on a statistical tool developed by Baseball Prospectus. A handy way to compare both position players and pitchers in different leagues and in different seasons, BP’s Wins Above Replacement Player is a measure of a given player’s contributions in wins, both offensively and defensively, compared with a replacement player at his position. The resulting number is adjusted for ballpark and league difficulty as well as the length of the season (to accommodate shortened seasons) and is labeled WARP3.
Each Brewers’ representative is profiled below in chronological order according to their first appearance on Baseball America’s lists. This is followed by the player’s career statistics at the Major and Minor League level with those for the year(s) the player was ranked by BA in grey text. For hitters, the statistics included are games (G), at-bats (AB), doubles (2B), home runs (HR), walks (BB), strikeouts (SO), batting average (AVG), on-base average (OBA), slugging average (SLG), and on-base plus slugging (OPS). In some cases, complete statistical records were unavailable; on-base averages accompanied by an asterisk (*) were calculated without the benefit of sacrifice and hit-by-pitch data and thus are only an estimation (hits plus walks divided by at-bats plus walks). For pitchers, the statistics included are games (G) and games started (GS), innings pitched (IP), hits (H), walks (BB), strikeouts (SO), and earned run average (ERA).
To measure and compare each player’s contributions in the big leagues, these profiles and statistics are followed by a table detailing the player’s WARP3 totals in the Majors. For hitters, the table lists the player’s plate appearances (PA), Value Over Replacement Player rate (VORPr), Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), and WARP3. For pitchers, the statistics include innings pitched (IP), Adjusted Runs Allowed Average (RA+), Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), and WARP3. It is this final number that allows pitchers and position players to be compared on relatively equal footing.
The players included in this article were featured on BA’s 1990 through 1999 rankings. Of those who have appeared on a Top 100 list since 2000, only one (Nick Neugebauer) is no longer in the organization and likely finished with his career. Because the rest of the team’s representatives from 2000-2005 are still in the Brewers’ organization, it is still too early to tell whether their placements were justified and how valuable they will be in the big leagues. The same is also true for a handful of the players included in this article; Cal Eldred, Jeff D’Amico, Geoff Jenkins, Valerio de los Santos, and Ronnie Belliard are still playing at the big league level. For the most part, however, the 1990-1999 break-off point will allow for both an interesting and enlightening retrospective. At the conclusion of the player profiles, this article will break down each player’s career contributions as well as their single-season and three-season peaks.