Determined to continue as a professional athlete, Tebow signed with the Mets in the fall of 2016. To Tebow’s credit, he reached the Triple-A level with the organization in 2019. However, he struggled to a .163/.240/.255 line with four home runs in 264 plate appearances there. Tebow ultimately put up a .223/.299/.338 line with 18 HRs in 1,048 trips to the plate in the minors.

Source: Tim Tebow Retires From Baseball – MLB Trade Rumors

This caught my eye because I had no idea Tim Tebow was playing prefessional baseball.  He didn’t show up on any MLB roster after a quick search using the career tab on baseball-handbook.com.  Entering his name into the minor league box produced some results.

Tim Tebow Minor and MLB Career

If he played a single game in MLB that record would show up here.  In 2019 at age 31 he was ranked #57 in the bottom 200 at AAA level which is very bad.  He did OK at an almost completely average pace in 2017 and 2018.  Playing average at those levels does not bode well for a player expecting to make it onto an MLB team at some point.

Had there been normal baseball in 2020 with a minor league season he might have figured out triple-a but probably not.  Based on his 2019 numbers  the Mets don’t want to waste time on him.  He could have tried out in Japan or Korea, countries that played pro baseball in 2020, but he probably wouldn’t make those squads either based on his 2019 results.

Apparently there might be a normal baseball season this year.  Since the local bars around here are stuck with Comcast us north side Cubs fans will probably be stuck watching the White Sox with our $3 PBR pints.  Still can follow the Cubs on MLB gameday but that’s not as much fun.  White Sox look to have a good team this year so this blog will be covering them too.

The Baseball Handbook site will be undergoing a major reorg as I’m learning about canonical links and SEO.  Since there are so many crisscrossed  linked pages on that site there needs to be order to the madness.  Some D3.js player and team graphs are up as well as more accurate historical rosters.  Many database and coding errors were discovered in the process of generating these graphs.  This will make the the Tier Combo simulator more accurate as it relies on historical results to generate an expected probability.

Much more to come this year.  Until then ….

In the final part of this 2019 Minor Leagues series we’ll cover A+ ball which is one level below AA and a half level above A.  Although it’s possible to go farther down into A and across the ocean into Japanese and Korean baseball it’s too cumbersome and most players end up in A+, AA, or AAA before playing in MLB anyway.

This model only calculates value on a per season basis.  There is a lot more involved in player development than simple value but if a player can’t dominate a minor league he probably won’t make it in MLB.

This post will cover Cubs and White Sox A+ team.  The White Sox have been sellers the last bunch of years so their players should be percolating up through their system.

The A+ class of players includes all 30 affiliates split into three leagues; Carolina, Florida, and California as described here.

Myrtle_Beach_Pelicans_car Team Status

The Cubs A+ affiliate, Myrtle Beach Pelicans, having a terrible season both in wins/losses and BAT/PITCH.  This probably does not bode well for prospects.  Let’s look at their top players.

Top Myrtle_Beach_Pelicans_car Players

Nobody is ranked although there are a couple of high Win% listed.  There are a lot of negative players on this team causing all the losses.  There is no point in showing the bottom of this list.

Winston-Salem_Dash_car Team Status

The White Sox A+ affiliate, Winston-Salem Dash, having a pretty good season so far to go along with their very interesting name.  What is a Dash BTW?  Both White Sox and Cubs affiliates in the same Carolina A+ league.

Top Winston-Salem_Dash_car Players

Not sure who any of these players are but Luis Robert is tearing up A+.  His batting average is 0.453 right now.   Players in A+ rarely get brought up to their MLB team unless maybe for September call ups.  White Sox fans may see many of the above players next year or the year after that.

Top 25 A+ Players

I don’t know any of these players and there are no Cubs in top 25 in this class of baseball.  All the above players are very young looking at the age columns and all of them will probably be in AA next season or even this season.

That is all for minor leagues this season.  An end of season minor league update might be made in the off season when there is nothing else to post about.  Until then ….

This part will focus on the AA minor league.  As always this model compiles data from all AA class players which include  30 MLB affiliates from Southern League, Texas League, and Eastern league as described here.  All AA class players are thrown into one soup bowls and ranked together, batters and pitcher, exactly how it’s done for MLB and any other league.

Players can only be compared to players of the same class.  This means stats from AAA league cannot be combined with stats from AA or A league or MLB league.

This model takes two minor league snapshots, one at halftime (now) and one after season is over for historical purposes.  This report will cover the Cubs and White Sox because — just because ….

Tennessee_Smokies Team Status

This is an old form team status record showing the run differential used to calculate BAT and PITCH.  It shows PITCH is very under water, BAT slightly above water, and slightly below  Unearned Runs above average (UR).

Top Tennessee_Smokies Players

WinPct and Age are necessary for minor league reports to show context to the WAA value.  Players move around and sometimes there are players who spend most their career in minor leagues who never could make it in MLB.   The Age column helps determine those players.

This model never sorts on rates unlike what occurs in much of Sabermetrics..  You can’t say a car traveling 65 mph traveled farther than the car traveling 55 mph because you’re missing an important component to the equation — time.   Baseball stats are frequently used by sports announcers and others to deceive by cherry picking favorable time intervals using rates ( hello OPS/OPS+  ) to justify some narrative.  But I digress …. The WinPct rate is included in these minor league tables for informational purposes only.

Can’t comment on any of these players except Robel Garcia who just got called up to the MLB Cubs and hit a couple of home runs already.  His 0.907 rate is quite exceptional.   He’ll show up on our radar the rest of the season and hopefully for a long time in the future.

Birmingham_Barons Team Status

White Sox’ AA team also having a bad year.  Both BAT and PITCH under water.  LR is lucky runs, runs scored without anyone receiving an RBI, like from a balk or wild pitch.  They’re called lucky because it takes no skill from the team that benefits from such tomfoolery but those runs still count when determining who wins a game.

Unlike UR, there is absolutely nothing a team can do to improve Lucky Runs which is why they’re now left out of the MLB team status record.  They’re included in the long form because it’s symmetrical with UR.  LR is part of the BAT books, UR is part of the PITCH books.  All books must balance in this data model; every run must be accounted for.

Top Birmingham_Barons Players

Can’t comment on any of these players because don’t know who they are.  The rankings and WinPct are commentary enough.  Notice that there are a lot of pitchers in Barons’ top ten which doesn’t jive with the very below average PITCH in their team status.   BAT and PITCH are derived from run differential which is a seasonal stat.  Minor league teams are in much more flux than MLB teams and the above shows top ten, not the complete set of players who played this season.  High negative value comes off the books when a player leaves a team and new guys to a league  start out at WAA=0.

Top 25 AA Players

These are the top 25 in AA class baseball which encompasse Southern, Texas, and Eastern leagues.  This model does not project prospect value. The above only shows the number of wins they brought their respective teams this season. The above top 25 dominated AA class baseball this season.

Note: In the off WordPress site it will be possible to click on any player above to see his entire career across all 4 leagues covered here; A+ , AA, AAA, and MLB.

All Star break now and there’s one more minor league, A+ , to cover.  Simulation reboot still a work in progress.  That will unfold second half of this season until the playoffs.

The Playoff Horse Race does not look that much different than Part 4 of that series so no need to publish another one of those for a couple of weeks.  A baseball season is a marathon and most teams move either up, down, or sideways at a glacial pace.

That is all for not.  Until then ….

Two snapshots of minors are taken, one halfway through the season and the second at the end of  season which is around September sometime.  This three part series will cover AAA , AA, and A+ minor leagues.  AAA is the highest where many players get moved up and down from MLB.  AA is next and A+ last.  Japanese and other leagues are not covered for simplicity reasons as most MLB players will at some point end up in one of the three league covered here.

The first part to this series will cover AAA.  Both Cubs and White Sox teams will be shown as well as the top 25 players ranked according to this data model.

Iowa Cubs Team Status

This is the old form team status table showing runs scored (Rs) , Runs Scored Against (Ra) and LR (Lucky Runs).  Lucky runs are those scored where no one got an RBI.  They are irrelevant but included for symmetry with UR (Unearned Runs above average) which is relevant.

The above shows Iowa has had pretty good pitching so far this season but batting suffered.  They also have a winning record with a team WAA of 48-36= +8.  Let’s drill down to their top players.

Top Iowa Cubs Players

Nine out of  these guys are ranked in top 200 of AAA which includes all 30 MLB franchise affiliates in both PCL and International leagues.  This model treats the entire class of AAA equally like it treats both AL and NL in MLB equally.

Minor league ranks are not that important since players frequently move from league to league throughout the season.  Minor league records displayed here include a WinPct calculated from WAA and PA or IP as described in this post. A WinPct greater than 0.500 is above average, above 0.600 good, and above 0.700 very good.

Age is also important for minor league players.  At age 36, Jim Adduci has been a professional minor leaguer but his bat has been instrumental to the Iowa Cubs’ winning record this year.

Colin Rea started in 2013 and didn’t play well during his MLB career.   Good numbers in minors don’t necessarily translate into good numbers in MLB.  This model merely shows the past and what these players did this season.   Alzolay for example came up to the MLB Cubs and got shelled.  The above shows he dominated AAA but MLB is so much more difficult.

Note that the 0.788 WinPct for Addison Russell showed he dominated his time in AAA before coming up to the MLB team.

There is a lot more that goes into scouting players which is outside the scope of this data model.  Let’s continue on to the White Sox.

Charlotte Knights Team Status

The Knights have a winning record ( +9 ) and decent UR.  BAT slightly above water and the opposite for PITCH.  Based on Pythagorean Expectation they should be around even steven for the year so they must be doing something right to exceed that.

Top Charlotte Knights Players

Dylan Cease just had his MLB debut and Evan Marshall is also on the MLB team now.  Don’t follow the White Sox so don’t know any other player above.

Top 25 AAA Players

I don’t know any of these players so can’t comment.  The numbers speak for themselves.  There are some extremely high WinPct here and as always, just because a player dominates AAA does not mean they can even make in MLB.  Even Javier Baez struggled his first couple of MLB seasons.

That is all for AAA league.  AA is next and then Aplus and then … All Star break.  Until then ….