Thoughts on Rankings and Grades

Humans love lists!  I don't know what it is, but whether it is a list of favorite movies, music, travel destinations or athletes, you can write exactly the same things about them in a random order and nobody will pay a scrap of attention.  As soon as you rank them it some sort of order, any order, you will have people flocking to read and then quoting the rankings to others.  Maybe it's just the moral certainty of thinking you know that movie X is the 3 best of all time vs movie Y which is only the 5'th best as opposed to the ambiguity of the actually review?  I don't know.

Just an example of how crazy all this is, there is probably no more subjective experience in life than listening to music.  I recently bought the Rolling Stone Neil Young Collector's Edition.  They did a ranking of Neil's top 100 songs.  I was happy to learn that, like me, Rolling Stone thinks Powderfinger was his best song.  On the other hand, I can think of at least 50 Neil Young songs that I like better than Cortez the Killer which was RS's #3.  Love is a Rose is a song I like a lot, and it did not even make the top 100!  From a rational standpoint, it makes no sense at all to rank something this subjective, yet, I guarantee that Rolling Stone sells a lot fewer copies if it published the exact same reviews of each song, but in a random manner.  Maybe it somehow makes us feel more secure if we know that someone who is considered an authority likes Powderfinger as much as we do?  Maybe it makes us feel superior if we know of a great song that doesn't get ranked at all?  I don't know.  I mean, I really don't care if 9 out of 10 music critics think Tommy is a better album than Quadrophenia.  I personally find Tommy to be virtually unlistenable while I have listened to the entire Quadrophenia album more times than I can count!  Still, we love our lists and rankings and grades.  Lists give us something in a neat, concise package that we can compare, discuss and argue about with others.

Let's take a look at the Giants prospect rankings for 2014 and at Joe Panik in particular.  Last year, I ranked him #11 on my Top 50 Giants Prospects list, not particularly high at all.  BA had him at #9, John Sickels at #13 with a C+ grade.  A lot of rankings had him a lot lower.  Marc Hulett of Fangraphs did not have him in his top 15.  Beyond the Boxscore did a composite of multiple rankings and had him at #15.  Rankings like that in one organization that is generally regarded as weak to begin with will usually generate some yawns and a mental checkbox that this guy might get a cup of coffee someday.  What Joe Panik did for the Giants in 2014 might have caught you by surprise.  On the other hand, if you took the time to read what was said about him in some of those rankings, you might not have been as surprised.

Here's what John Sickels had to say about Joe Panik in his #13 writeup:  "Seems like a useful utility player to me, but there is a chance he can be more than that.  Still showing the contact approach that sometimes correlates with unexpected offensive growth in late 20's."

Now, here is what I had to say in my more extensive discussion:  "2013 was a rough year for the former first round draft pick…."  I then went on to detail his stats from AA Richmond including the fact that his XBH's did not drop off as much as his SLG% would make it appear.  I then went on, "When you add in the difference in league average OPS….Panik did not have nearly as terrible a season as it may appear, and he actually had a higher percentage of his hits go for extra bases."  "Assuming he stays healthy and moves up to AAA Fresno, I think we'll see a much better season out of him in 2014."  "If he can hit .280-.290 with an OBP of .340-.360, he will be a valuable middle infielder regardless of his power and he should be able to hit the gaps regularly.  He should be ready for his MLB debut about the time Scooter is done."

Well, Scooter was done an lot sooner than I or anyone else thought, but damn!  Joe Panik was ready!  But back tot he point of this post.  What gave you a better picture of Joe Panik's future, the various rankings on the lists, Sickels C+ grade, or the comments made by both Sickels and me in the discussion?  I would submit if you simply read my discussion in a vacuum, without the knowledge of where he ranked or what grade Sickels gave him, you would have had a much better idea of who Joe Panik was as a prospect and what his future might hold than you would with the added frills of the rankings and grades.

This is why I constantly preach to not get too hung up on the exact order of prospect rankings.  It really did not matter one wit whether Joe Panik was ranked #9 or #15 or somewhere in between.  What mattered was the information in the write-ups that followed.  In fact, I would go so far as to say the rankings and grades got in the way, producing a biases in people's minds that made their interpretation of the discussions less complete and accurate!