Throughout 2019, The Dynasty Guru maintained projected peak wOBA leaderboards to help indicate the best minor league hitting performances throughout the year. The final 2019 update to the leaderboards was posted on 9/3/2019, at the end of the minor league season.  To view these results, please follow this link.

We’ve finally turned the page on the 2010s.  In the spirit of the New Year, I find myself reflecting on what has been and what lessons can be learned for the future.  The result of this, of course, is a list of the best offensive seasons we have witnessed over the last decade, as judged by Jordan Rosenblum’s infallible and highly scientific peak wOBA projections.  If you’re just interested in the results, skip to the list already!  If you’re interested in hearing some of the context behind why I have put together this list, read on!

Near the end of the 2019 season, I wrote an article detailing the top minor league hitters of the previous decade by aggregating their overall minor league numbers and the projected peak wOBAs of each season they played.  The purpose of the article was to get a sense of how well Jordan’s research and our methodologies can help predict future success.  The result was an impressive list of 101 players from the 2010s.

During the time I was drafting this article, Jordan and I discussed and debated whether multi-season or single-season results (with that single-season being the current or most recent one) is more important in predicting future success.  I won’t attempt to describe Jordan’s position, but in general, I fall on the multi-season side of that discussion.  To me, the more data to slice, dice, and analyze, the better; though for me that also comes with the caveat that a player can show signs of greatness sometimes before greatness shows up regularly in the box score.  I have rather simple reasoning to support my position – if a mediocre hitter is suddenly a great or very good hitter, it seems just as possible/likely, that he has gotten lucky (even for a full season) as it is that he has truly improved.  So, while I have no problem jumping at a prospect posting huge numbers in his first 30 minor league plate appearances, when a player spends two years in the minors posting uninspiring numbers, then turns around in his third season to put up surprisingly good numbers, I am almost always skeptical.

In the Dynasty Guru offices (if you didn’t know, we each have 500 square feet of office space in our sky-rise, desks made of marble, and crystal computer screens [what’s that now?- Ed.]), a variation of this debate manifested while discussing who deserved higher placement in outfielder rankings between Kyle Tucker and Dylan Carlson.  Carlson had a great, breakout season last year, moving all the way up to Triple-A while posting an overall slash line of .292/.372/.542.  Tucker, by 2018’s standards, had a down year, though he rebounded from a dreadful start to finish with solid .266/.354/.555 line before receiving a cup of coffee and producing more solid numbers for the World Series runner-up.  Carlson is the younger of the two (by a considerable 1.5 to 2 years), and the reasoning is that he had the better season and should be ranked higher as a result.

Both are rock-solid prospects, but for me, their seasons were close enough that I think their fuller body of work merits examination.  In fact, I may take that a step further and suggest that perhaps past performance should almost always be taken into consideration.  In the aforementioned Top Minor League Hitters article, Tucker ranks 62^nd overall with a .368 overall peak wOBA, while Carlson ranks 94^th with a .356 peak wOBA. In evaluating their track records, to me, Tucker’s remains well ahead of Carlson’s, and as such, I fall squarely in the #teamtuck camp.

Nonetheless, part of being a successful General Manager is keeping your biases in check.  So, it only seemed fair to buttress 2019’s Best Minor League Hitters of the Past Decade article with a look into the 101 best single seasons for minor league hitters, based on our future peak wOBA projections.  Between the aggregated list and the single-season list, which of these lists is more helpful in helping predict Major League success?  We’ll leave it to you to decide!

The Top 101 Minor League Hitting Seasons of the Past Decade

Bold* denotes that this was in the 2019 season

Observations of the Top 101 List

• Right off the bat, I am struck by the higher “whiff” rate (players that did not become successful pro ball players), than with the aggregated rankings. This may be expected as there is likely a good deal more “luck” that can play into the equation. Whiffs on this list include Jhailyn Ortiz, who has come nowhere near his 2017 performance in two subsequent minor league seasons, Oswaldo Arcia, Chris Parmelee, Avisail Garcia, Scott Van Slyke, Vince Belnome, Stone Garrett, Josh Rutledge, Andrew Calica, Jon Singleton, Vicente Lupo, Jesus Montero, and Desmond Lindsay.
• Will Malcom Nunez rebound in 2020 or is he destined to join this list as well? Add young hot performers with confidence, but as I quoted in my Tenets for Fantasy Success article, “don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”
• Of that list, only Singleton and Montero were highly regarded as prospects. Further, Singleton and Arcia are the only two that appear on this list that were also on the Best Minor League Hitters of the Past Decade
• Juan Soto leads both lists. Was there ever any doubt?  I also remember that impressive break-out campaign for Giancarlo Stanton – who did *not* make the cut for our Best Minor League Hitters of the Past Decade
• Does anyone else remember how good Jurickson Profar looked as a prospect when he was coming up before the injuries kept setting him back? Peak wOBA projections do, as his 2011 season ranks #71. That ranking also suggests that he may have been overrated as the #1 prospect in 2012.  Above him in the ranks for 2011 are Oscar Taveras (oh what could have been!) and Anthony Rizzo.
• While we’re on the top prospects train:
  • Jason Heyward (2010’s top prospect) did not make the list
  • Mike Trout’s (2011) best season ranks #6
  • Byron Buxton’s (2013, 2014, and 2015) best season ranks #38
  • Yoan Moncada (2016) did not make the list and 2017’s Shohei Ohtani did not play in the minors
  • Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.’s (2018) best season ranks #3.
  • Wander Franco’s (2019) best season ranks #33
• Joey Gallo is the only player who has 3 seasons in the top 101! I maintain my position that Gallo will have a ridiculous peak career (you will want to be a part of it!).  The players who made the list twice are Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Mike Trout, Carlos Correa, Oscar Taveras, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber, Wander Franco, Byron Buxton, Wil Myers, Eloy Jimenez, Jon Singleton, Xander Bogaerts, and Fernando Tatis Jr.  Not a bad list to be on!
• Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Altuve never received a lot of prospect fanfare before they embarked on their impressive careers, but they can be found here!
• Ten players from 2019 made the list. What a perfect ratio! Those players include, in order of highest peak wOBA projected, Yordan Alvarez, Austin Riley, Josh VanMeter, Wander Franco, Luis Robert, Gavin Lux, CJ Abrams, Keston Hiura, Alexander Mojica, and Gilberto Jimenez.

Since we all love lists so much, below are more lists related to these rankings and the Best Minor League Hitters of the Past Decade rankings!

Players that Made Both Lists

Players that Only Made the Single Season List

*Bold denotes that 2019 was the player’s first year in the minors

Overall, the aggregated rankings seem to provide the best quality results but has certainly also missed some high-risers such as Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Altuve.

It seems the best approach to finding top prospects seems to be: stay mindful of the full body of work, but also keep an eye out for statistical climbers while weeding out remarkable-but-lucky performers. Over the next decade, we at the Dynasty Guru pledge to do our part to help you sort through the sea of prospects!