The Hardball Times

Treading and retreading

by Jeff Sackmann
August 06, 2009

The main purpose of the minor leagues is to identify, filter, and develop talent for the big club. The closer you get to the show, though, the less clear that purpose is. At the Triple-A level in particular, it's hardly a prospect paradise.

The various goals of Triple-A result in some weird lineups. On Tuesday, the Nashville Sounds, for instance, had Corey Patterson, Alcides Escobar, and Joe Koshansky batting two-three-four in their lineup. I'm not sure how to characterize Patterson's role at this point in his career, so let's just say that those guys don't exactly serve the same purpose for their parent club.

In fact, we can summarize some of those functions as follows:

• The extended roster. Think of it as the 26th through 30th (or so) spots on the 25-man roster. Your seventh and eighth starters, a reliever or two (probably with a bit of major league experience), a utility guy, and your third catcher.
   
  
• Prospect finishing ground. This is why Oklahoma City's roster includes Justin Smoak and, until recently, included Neftali Feliz. Some teams will skip prospects straight from Double-A to the bigs (as the O's did with Brian Matusz this week), but most youngsters still spend at least a month or two in Triple-A.
   
  
• Roster filler. If those other guys are going to play baseball games, they need more teammates. If one of these guys plays well enough, he can usually be promoted to the "extended roster" group, especially if he pitches. Particularly if he pitches for the Mets.
  

What interests me is the way different clubs balance these three competing priorities on their Triple-A rosters, and how they fill out the first and third groups. Everybody loves an underdog story, especially when the underdog turns into a quality setup man working for the major-league minimum.

A surfeit of savvy

Some teams seem to like veteran presence in their Triple-A clubhouse. After all, why waste a pick in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft when you can sign Abraham Nunez instead?

To get an idea of which teams have which predilections, I ran some numbers. I took the age of all players who had 30 or more at-bats or batters faced for each Triple-A club this year. I've included the average age, the median age, the average age of batters and pitchers, and the number of players who fit into each of three age groups.

Here are the results:

Org  Team              Average  Median   <26  26-29  30+  Avg Bat  Avg Pit  

STL  Memphis              25.4    25.0    20     15    4     24.8     26.1  
OAK  Sacramento           25.5    25.5    21     17    4     25.7     25.4  
MIN  Rochester            25.6    25.5    18     18    0     25.4     25.9  
MIL  Nashville            26.4    26.0    12     15    5     25.8     26.9  
CIN  Louisville           26.5    26.0    15     15    7     26.7     26.2  
SDP  Portland             26.6    26.0    17     22    7     26.5     26.7  

TEX  Oklahoma City        26.7    26.0    11     11    6     26.4     26.9  
FLO  New Orleans          26.7    26.0    17     19    8     26.9     26.6  
BAL  Norfolk              26.8    26.0    15     20    7     27.4     26.1  
DET  Toledo               26.8    26.0    13     18    7     26.9     26.7  
SEA  Tacoma               26.8    26.0    14     22    4     27.1     26.4  
LAA  Salt Lake            26.8    26.0    14     20    6     26.6     26.9  

CHC  Iowa                 26.9    25.5    21     14    7     27.5     26.2  
ARI  Reno                 26.9    26.0    16     21    5     26.9     26.9  
PIT  Indianapolis         27.0    26.0    12     22    6     26.8     27.1  
NYY  Scranton/WB          27.0    26.0    21     19   10     26.9     27.0  
TOR  Las Vegas            27.0    27.0    13     17    6     27.5     26.5  
WAS  Syracuse             27.0    27.0    14     23    9     27.0     27.0  

HOU  Round Rock           27.2    26.0    15     15    8     27.2     27.2  
BOS  Pawtucket            27.3    27.0    11     25    5     27.3     27.3  
CLE  Columbus             27.3    26.0    20     10   13     26.8     27.8  
SFG  Fresno               27.4    26.0    15     17    6     26.4     28.6  
ATL  Gwinnett             27.4    27.0    16     20    7     27.5     27.4  
CHW  Charlotte            27.5    26.0    13     17   11     28.0     27.0  

TB   Durham               28.0    28.0    11     16   11     28.1     27.9  
KC   Omaha                28.1    27.0     8     23    8     27.4     28.9  
COL  Colorado Springs     28.2    27.0    10     17   11     27.6     28.5  
NYM  Buffalo              28.6    28.5    13     15   18     28.3     28.9  
LAD  Albuquerque          28.7    29.0    13     14   16     27.6     29.6  
PHI  Lehigh Valley        28.8    29.5    11      8   19     29.5     28.2  

MLB  AVERAGE              27.1    26.5  14.7   17.5  8.0     27.0     27.2

That, my friends, is a lot of data. There probably isn't much meaningful to say about the middle 15-20 teams on the list. The difference between an average age of 26.7 and 27.5 isn't worth much. It is interesting to see where your team fits on the scale, though.

Let's go to the bullet points to highlight some notable findings:

• Youth movements. The three youngest Triple-A teams are affiliated with the Cardinals, A's and Twins. I'm not surprised. If anything, I wouldn't have guessed that there were four players in their thirties in the entire A's sytem. Amazingly, not a single 30-something has gotten much playing time for Rochester this season.
   
  
• 21 "prospects." It's too much to assume that anyone under 26 is a prospect, but especially when it comes to relief pitchers, players of that age do still have some potential. The teams with the most under-26s are the A's, Cubs and Yankees. The A's we've already discussed, and the Cubs always seem to have a lot of young (if not spectacular) pitching ready to deploy. The Yankees are something of a surprise, though.
   
  
• Few "prospects." It's disappointing to see the Royals so close to the bottom of this list. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with having an old Triple-A club, but it doesn't seem like a good characteristic for a organization in rebuild phase. Maybe I'm uncharitable, but I do wonder what function Tim Hamulack, Brian Buchanan, or Tim Raines Jr. serves for that club right now.
   
  
• Veteran presence. The Mets, Dodgers, and Phillies have the oldest top affiliates. That's pretty much what I expected, though it does represent something of a shift in the Dodgers organization in the last few years. The Phillies take things to a whole new level, with half of their Triple-A players in their 30s. In fact, when Japanese teams scout for American players, they may well start in Lehigh Valley. Check out Tuesday night's lineup:
  
  
  
  • Jason Ellison, CF (31)
    
  • David Newhan, 2B (35)
    
  • Mike Cervenak, DH (32)
    
  • Andy Tracy, 1B (35)
    
  • Michael Taylor, LF (23)
    
  • Terry Tiffee, 3B (30)
    
  • John Mayberry, RF (25)
    
  • Miguel Cairo, SS (35)
    
  • Paul Hoover, C (33)
    
  
  I didn't even look for a particularly egregious one. That was the first lineup I found. For some of us, tracking the minors reminds us how old we're getting. Thank you, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, for reminding us of our youth.
  

Clearly, the age distribution of a Triple-A affiliate isn't some hidden secret of success. In every segment of the table above, you'll find major league clubs having great, middling, and poor seasons.

As long as you have some MLB-ready pitching ready to step in and a few prospects to keep fueling the organization, maybe the "filler" really is just that. If so, consider this an open letter to Dayton Moore. I can fill a roster spot like nobody's business. And I'm still under 30!


Jeff Sackmann is the creator of MinorLeagueSplits.com. With Kent Bonham, he founded CollegeSplits.com. Jeff and Kent blog about college baseball and the draft, and you can follow them on Twitter for bite-sized snacks of minor league and college stats. Jeff also has an email address.

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