The average age of players in the Pioneer League

[molitor fan]

I have been reading about how it is not a big deal that college players should be dominating in the Pioneer league and have always thought that was extremely inaccurate. So today, I did a little research on the average age of players in the league and found that the average age of a player in the league is 21.75 years of age, with Helena's average age being 22. I fail to see how a player should be expected to dominate a league in which they are at league age average.

[Tedaldtada]

That is interesting indeed. Still, the competition in the Pioneer League is at best equal to a solid D1 program. Miller and Ross in particular have been more successful in Montana then they were in college. The optimist in me would like to attibute that to biomechanic/coaching, but who knows.

[DHonks]

In years past we've seen Richardson, Krynzel, Festa, etc etc etc (I can't remember the rest of the OBP boys) dominate Helena and struggle beyond it

[colbyjack]

I've read a few of the recent posts that I believe you are referring to molitor fan, and while your point is understood, it still remains important to take stats in rookie ball with a grain of salt, especially from college players. I know several people, myself included, have said that they are encouraged by the numbers pitchers such as Nelson, Thornburg, Miller and Ross have been posting this summer, but that we need to take a wait and see approach to see how well those numbers translate moving forward. And those numbers work both ways, good and bad, as it's also important not to get too discouraged by a player that should be posting good numbers when they don't (like Kyle Heckathorn last year).

 

Basically, you can point to the age fact as much as you want, but I've followed enough Tony Festa's to know better.

[filthyfrog]

Age isn't the only important factor, either. The top college guys often go straight to A ball or only spend a few weeks in rookie ball, so you're taking the top 21 and 22 year olds out of the equation.

 

Also, I think most of the false positives we've seen go through Helena have been hitters. I think it's easier for a polished college hitter to clean up on the second tier of college pitching coming off a full season of innings in college. Pitchers who dominate there are worth a little more excitement, I think.

[gregmag]

Molitor fan, this is an interesting point. There is pretty strong evidence that, as others have said, big numbers from 22 year-old hitters in R+ don't often lead to glory, but I think you're right that we can't just chalk it up to age. One factor that may matter is attrition. Players fall off the development path at every level, and my sense is that more players fail at the rookie levels than higher up the chain. To put it another way, the average player in R+ is 21.75, but you don't see many legit 25.75 year-old prospects at AAA. Most hitters who have substantial big-league careers hit the majors by 24 or 25. So, in that pool of 21.75 year-old R+ hopefuls, you have to figure that the subset of real prospects will skew toward the younger side. Now, we might assume that, fine, rookie ball separates the wheat from the chaff, but doesn't hitting like Tony Festa or Lou Palmisano did count as wheat? I don't know . . . age differences at the outset of careers seem to have powerful predictive force, maybe relatively more powerful predictive force than performance.

 

All of this is about hitters. As filthyfrog said, pitchers are different. They're inherently harder to predict, and they also have that critical injury nexus in their early 20s. I'm not sure that, health and team control being equal, I wouldn't take the future of a 22 year-old pitcher who's dominating rookie ball over a 19 year-old pitcher who's similarly dominating AA.

[SoCalBrewfan]

It's not just age relative to league, though that's obviously a huge, huge factor for prospects. The Pioneer League has also historically been a high-offense environment, so you need to discount the offense a bit...a college hitter thus has two caveats to be considered.

 

Pitchers, on the other hand, often struggle there. Thus, for example, a 4.40 era by Odorizzi at age 19 was actually very promising, particularly with his peripherals. Will Inman in Helena was even better at the same age, suggesting that you might want to look at more than just stats for pitchers anyway.