Thinking In Ranges
The gap from the amateur game to the major leagues is large. The players you see dominating and seeming larger than life get dwarfed by the big leagues every year.
With this, it's important to have a point of view that encompasses this when evaluating amateur prospects. The same outlier traits for college and highschool players are pedestrian in the professional game. The outlier fastball may be just that in college, but how will that change when the starter is expected to go every 5th day instead of having an entire week of rest.
College pitchers will do some categorically insane things on the mound, but will they showcase the same electricity when they are expected to eat upwards of 200 high stress innings every year.
I wrote about Patrick Forbes a few weeks ago. He is in my opinion one of the top arms in the draft and a no doubt first round opportunity. This last week, he threw a 99 mph fastball with insane traits.
Something has to be wrong… right? Kind of.
His delivery is high effort, and there's a really good chance that his delivery type makes it hard for him to hold up over 162 games. He is a great athlete, and I think he can hold up, but the questions are there.
So what if he can’t hold up? Then what?
The Range
Where does he end up if he's not the top of the line frontline starter you think he can be?
The high effort might make it tough to throw 100 pitches every five days, but 99 with outlier traits plays pretty well in the back of the bullpen. Would you pick a good back end reliever in the first round? Probably in the latter half.
And what if he figures it out? If he is able to smooth out the delivery and pitch every 5th day. He probably isn't 99 every time, but being 93-96 every 5th day with outlier shapes is pretty darn valuable.
So what's the floor? An electric reliever that can take the ball at the end of a game. But what's the ceiling? Rarely is the very top ceiling reached, so saying Forbes will be a perennial ace of a contender isn't a guarantee. However, the potential is definitely there.
Surer Bets
While not every player is going to have a very high ceiling, there are players that have pretty high floors.
One that comes to mind is Liam Doyle. Doyle has a lot of buzz, and deservedly so. He has torn through lineups to start the year punching 62 hitters through his first 31 innings.
A lot of people have Doyle projected inside the top 5 picks this year, however I am much lower on him than normal. I believe he needs to show a better ability to sustain his velocity, I also think the delivery is very high effort for a starter. He isn't as good of an athlete as Forbes and I really think he belongs in the later picks of the first round, not the top 10.
While Doyle is a superstar in college, I am not sure I see him adapting well to the 5 day pitching schedule in pro baseball. His delivery is very high effort, and he only holds velocity for only a few innings before falling off when he has a full week's rest.
While I dont love the path to being a frontline starter for Doyle (that is the expectation with a top 5 pick), I do believe he could pitch in the big leagues as a reliever pretty soon if not right now.
The current performance floor is so high, the pitches are very good and he's elite for 3 innings before having his velocity fall off.
All of this to say that the pick of Doyle may be a safer play than the bet of Forbes, but I think Forbes has a much, much higher ceiling.
Conclusion
Every pick has different expectations, and every team has different requirements for their pick based on where they are as a team.
The mariners might be able to risk a little bit more at pick #3 because they are in such a good place with their roster, but a team like the Athletics or White Sox really need to hit on their higher picks given they have been struggling as of late.
John