Via MLBTR, Baseball America has an interesting analysis of team with multiple top level prospects.
It’s well known that the Cubs have an outstanding core of hitting prospects of Bryant, Soler, Castro, Almora, Rizzo, but it’s it is a crap shoot on how far that core will actually take them.
Baseball America went back to look at various touted prospect lists. Some of those
groups (those of the 2006 Diamondbacks, 2011 Royals and 2004 Brewers)
didn’t produce obviously exceptional results in wins and losses,
although at least the Royals and Brewers would probably argue that
they’re happy with how the intervening years unfolded. The other two
great prospect groups (the 2007 Rays and 1992 Braves) helped produce
great results by any standard, even if the Braves’ subsequent run was
fueled largely by pitching that was already in the big leagues at the
time.
It is also interesting to read how well the teams did in turning over their prospects for additional assets (a comparison of WARs).
But the statistical take away from this story is that of the five top prospect heavy teams, only two had success, and one of the those (the Braves) had the boost of stellar pitching in order to succeed. In essence, a team with prized prospects only has a 40 percent chance to be a core on a winning franchise, but in reality, a twenty percent chance with real help in other areas like pitching.
