Maybe it wasn't a surprise to everyone that MLB Pipeline chose the NY Mets Francisco Alvarez as its top prospect. But, it was to us; and a huge one at that.
First of all, Francisco was not the likely "next up" choice to just naturally roll into the #1 spot (after graduations).
At the end of 2021, MLB Pipeline had Francisco #10. So even if we graduate out 6 guys ahead of him, that still left Marco Luciano (who struggled at A+ in 2021), Grayson Rodriguez and Marcelo Mayer.
Side note here, I went back and looked on August 16th, 2021 and found that Francisco wasn't even in MLB's top 10, nor even their top 30 (which meant lots of current prospects ahead of him).
Though, three days later (on August 19th, 2021 he was re-ranked to #10 where he stayed until the end of the year). How he jumped Corbin Carroll if "current stats aren't weighed as much, since MLB Pipeline is looking years down the road" is beside me. Maybe the how/why he was moved so high in that one rank is something we'll have to look into "down the road..."
So anyway, back to the story. When the 2022 ranks came out in April, I suppose it wasn't a huge surprise to see MLB/Francisco maintaining his end of the 2021 year rank (at #10) (since MLB had already catapulted him up on August 19th) (of course we'd debate whether Francisco should be in the top 10 to begin with).
But there were also some seismic name shifts in the 2022 re-rank. MLB dropped Marco Luciano and Marcelo Mayer (so much for "projections" and "scouting") and added Gabriel Moreno and Anthony Volpe, while rightly keeping Grayson Rodriguez firmly ahead of Francisco in the top 10.
Then came the 2022 season, after a very slow start to the year (slow, disappointing, bad), Francisco caught fire and started hitting bomb after bomb to raise his Avg, OPS, wOBA, ISO, you name it, enough that it earned him a promotion to AAA. The power display and promotion to AAA also apparently caught somebody's attention at MLB HQ (or else there is a deeper story/connection there or a scout or executive with some pull or maybe it was to bolster trade stock..hmmm...) as lo and behold, Francisco rose to the new "consensus" #1. We hear a lot (when MLB is on the air and TV hosts are playing to their guest) that Francisco is the "consensus #1". But is he the "consensus" #1?
Baseball America has another catcher (Gabriel Moreno) at #1 (overall).
Fantrax has Corbin Carroll #1 (Francisco #20) (though Fantrax admittedly beats to a different drum).
While we, at DynastyFocus.com, have Grayson Rodriguez #1 (oh yeah, remember him?) (and Francisco #19, which is very likely an over-reach by us) https://www.dynastyfocus.com/dynasty-baseball-ranks-the-updated-105
Not only is Francisco clearly NOT the consensus #1 prospect (except by MLB Pipeline), but is he even the best minor league catching prospect?
According to MILB, here are the top 10 Catchers.
This is not a list, of course, of all the top minor league catchers, but if it was THE list, then Francisco Alvarez would lead in just one category: HRs, that's it.
Obviously, for us ranking gurus, HRs is not the only category. And, one of the tools that MiLB grades on (that we fantasy pros don't) is defense. Francisco's defense is not his forte (50 grade, though 60 grade arm), which is another surprising reason MLB Pipeline is so high on him (even among catchers). And, the Top 100 by MLB Pipeline is traditionally very conservative and doesn't get caught up in hot streaks (hmm, maybe that's why they were reluctant to give the top spot to everyone else's #1: Corbin Carroll).
But, if this was a HR contest, then here is the list of HRs by MiLB catchers this year:
After hitting a shot just over the wall on 7/31, Alvarez is 4th with 21 (BTW, Langeliers, Soderstrom and Cartaya are also near the top and Sam Huff blows all catchers out of the water with 1 HR every 11.5 PA's--Alvarez is 1 HR every 17.5 PA's)
But, like we said, even then, HR's hit is not the exclusive way to rate prospects. If it was, Moises Gomez would be #1 (and not outside the top 100 like he is). Of course he's not #1 and HRs are not the be all end all of important categories. If it was simply HRs, we wouldn't even need scouting or ranks or anything other than a list of HR leaders! Ranking prospects is not as simple as listing the leaders in HRs and there are lots of factors that go into (or should go into a ranking).
For current production (which should bump a prospect up or down), two of the best metrics to look at are wRC+ (runs created on a scale with 100 as average) and wOBA (which is OPS on steroids). By the way, a wOBA of .380+ is really, really good, but, there are a whole lot of minor leaguers hitting with a wOBA at or above .380. And Alvarez' .386 mark mark puts him at 86th (among all minor leaguers with 300+ PA's.). 86th? That's your #1 prospect?
Of course, even though .386 is good, if you read my blog, we're looking for a career minors wOBA of .400+ (and a K rate south of 24% to be an above average Major Leaguer). (Alvarez is almost at 25% and far worse in AAA).
So where does Francisco stand in wOBA and wRC+ among catchers (min 150 PA's)? Surely he's the top catcher in those cats, right?
Francisco is 29th in wOBA and 24th in wRC+. And that's just among catchers (not all players). According to production (at the highest levels this year), Jonah Bride, Meibrys Viloria, Austin Wells, Jakson Reetz, Diego Cartaya and Bo Naylor are all far better than Francisco Alvarez.
You can pretty much pick any metric and Francisco Alvarez is NOT the top catcher. Surely a power slugging Catcher is first in OPS right? Nope. 23rd there, too.
Maybe there's a speed element? Nope, that category definitely doesn't help.
How slow? Try 201st out of 214 minor league catchers with a minimum of 150 PA's!
Sorry Mets fans but that is superpower slothslowspeed, especially considering this is the supposed consensus #1 minor league catcher....err player.
Of course, Mets fans say they don't need a "fast" catcher. Who said "fast"? But also a big "really?" response since Catchers have to run the bases too (unless they're true outcomers like Joey Gallo or Kyle Schwarber).
Who wouldn't want a catcher to have at least some speed (average major league speed would be nice, or how about even average speed for a catcher!) Never mind stretching singles to doubles and beating out base hits here and there, how about simply an ability to stay out of double plays? Nope. Francisco appears high on a list that Mets fans aren't going to enjoy: (GIDP).
13th. Yikes. That's not a top 15 ranking you're hoping for (unless you're a Mets fan, love Alvarez and don't care that he's slower than even an average catcher and that he will cost you a ton of offensive runs).
But we know there's some pop (4th in HRs among minor league catchers, 23rd in OPS among catchers), but what about the ability to hit for average (I mean, are we going to put a young Joey Gallo type as the #1 prospect?). Well, overall on the year, Francisco has compiled a .259 Average (and worse, just .173 at AAA with 20 K's in 52 ABs). That is not good. .259 in the majors may be fine (not great of course), but for the minors, its poor. Here are 27 catcher eligible minor leaguers with 150 or more PA's that are hitting far better than Francisco. 27!
And, some of these catcher eligible prospects have wheels!
BTW, the names that stick out to us on these 2 lists above (Spd/SB) are: Bo Naylor, Drew Romo, Harry Ford, Juan Zabala, Austin Wells, Blake Sabol, Zach Britton, Henry Davis, Andres Sosa: All of whom we'd take later at Catcher in a dynasty draft (after passing on Alvarez).
Here's the point, Francisco is a decent prospect....maybe even good. But he's not elite, not even elite among catchers.
So what do we think? We think MLB Pipeline really messed up here by making/selecting Alvarez #1 (and so did we by even having him in our top 20).
You want to put a top 100-150 grade on Francisco and we'll back that, but any higher and you have 10+ other catchers making the case that they're better in every category than Francisco...every cat except HRs where of course just 4 catchers out hit our Mets AAA backstop (in total HRs). But are you going to rely on the pop alone? And if you did, why don't you have those other 4 guys (plus Sam Huff) ahead of Alvarez?
Must be the defense.
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