Evan Longoria: An Elite Prospect?

by Jacob Larsen on Mar 2, 2007 5:24 PM EST

In a surprise move, coming with the unveiling of Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects List, Baseball America named Evan Longoria their 7th best prospect (6th, if you don't count Daisuke Matsuzaka as a prospect like myself).

Oh, what a firestorm this ranking begat.

SBN's own Eric Hz was one of the many against such a high ranking of Longoria.

All biasness aside, Longoria had one of the biggest debuts that a college hitter has had in awhile and was very surprising considering such a lackluster scouting report that he came into the draft with. True that he was considered to be the best position player in the draft, but many didn't consider 2006 to be a great draft class for hitters. Drew Stubbs was the only other "big name" college hitter coming out of that draft class and there were already questions, before the draft, about his ability to hit. With all this, Longoria still produced far more than he was expected to. Most scouts seen a ceiling of 20 HRs for Longoria, at his peak.

So what'd Longoria manage to do?

He managed a .315/.360/.597 line with 18 HRs in 62 games (248 at-bats) spread out between 3 levels. His season didn't stop there, he added 3 more HRs in the Southern League Playoffs in which he was one of the biggest factors in Montgomery's "Road to the Championship."

While most of the argument against Longoria isn't regarding his production in his debut, many people deem this as Baseball America's "hype machine" getting the best of them again and their knack for choosing "The Next Hottest/Biggest Thing" over prospects that fans believe have proven themselves to be superstars already.

So scratching Alex Gordon off the list, seeing as he's regarded as the Top Prospect in Minor League Ball in 98% of all prospects lists, here's how Longoria stands against other "fan faves" in 2006.

Evan Longoria, 3B, TB- 18 HRs, .315 Average, .957 OPS
Brandon Wood, SS/3B, Ana- 25 HRs, .276 Average, .907 OPS
Ryan Braun, 3B, Mil- 22 HRs, .289 Average, .871 OPS
Justin Upton, OF, Ari- 12 HRs, .263 Average, .757 OPS
Andy LaRoche, 3B, LaD- 19 HRs, .315 Average, .924 OPS
Jay Bruce, OF, Cin- 16 HRs, .291 Average, .871 OPS
Andrew McCutchenson, OF, Pit- 17 HRs, .294 Average, .809 OPS
Troy Tulowitski, SS, Col- 13 HRs, .291 Average, .843 OPS
Billy Butler, 3B/OF/DH, KC- 15 HRs, .331 Average, .887 OPS

While people can use the "Small Sample Size" argument for Longoria, who had half as many ABs than a majority of these hitters, his stats are pretty good for a guy that had already completed a full college season in which he had a .353/.468/.602 line with 11 College HRs in 200+ College ABs..

Looking at those stats, listed above, you'll notice that Evan may not lead any of Batting Average or HR categories, he leads them all in OPS. Take it with a grain of salt, but when you've just finished a full college season and posted those stats in another 248 ABs...you've got a pretty decent career ahead of you.

If you're complaining now about his ranking, I'd be worried about when BA's next Top 100 rankings come out with him in his first full season in the minors with 15 more pounds of muscle added to his frame and the knowledge that he acquired by being in big league camp.

Is Longoria an elite prospect? Who knows, but sometimes it's better to let the stats do the talking.

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Re: Evan Longoria: An Elite Prospect?

Men lie, women lie, numbers don't.

by R.J. Anderson on Mar 2, 2007 5:34 PM EST reply actions

Re: Evan Longoria: An Elite Prospect?

Actually 1 season's numbers can obscure the truth . I think Even looks to have a solid future, but remember his production - including a solid performance at AA, was on average at lower levels than many on your list - not all, many. Still very impressive though, and rthat can't be denied.

by nyyfaninlaaland on Mar 3, 2007 3:02 PM EST reply actions

Re: Evan Longoria: An Elite Prospect?

Sure like to nit-pick at everything, don't you?

by Jacob Larsen on Mar 3, 2007 6:09 PM EST up reply actions

I love Longoria

I ranked him #2 on my personal Rays Top-25 because I firmly believe he's for real. I went in thinking it was basically a lock for Briggy to be #2 but Longoria's power numbers changed my mind.

Scouts/BA are saying he has legit 30+ homerun power with the potential to hit .300 too. I'm not a big fan of looking at his overall numbers because it's really not fair to the other prospects. He started at a level lower than every single one of them and got a chance to pad his stats with a 1.366 OPS there (albiet in a couple weeks, it was still a big boost to his numbers). However, if you just look at his AA stats, they are very impressive if you include the playoffs.

284/.291/.537/828 is a pretty good line, albeit in a small sample size. His IsoP is an impressive .253. Needs work on his plate dicipline, but he has, from everything I've read, an increadible make-up and is a hard worker. Plus, he's already mentioned that he needed to cut downn on K's an increase his BB total.

Compared to the other top 3B prospects not named Gordon.

LaRoche in his first taste of the SL:
.273/.367/.445/812

Braun:
.303/.367/.589/956

When compared to LaRoche, Longoria showed signifigantly more power, but LaRoche has a signifigant edge in plate dicipline. Longoria was also a full year younger than LaRoche was when he made his debut in AA.

While Braun's numbers are more impressive, there are questions about his 3B defense (he'll most likely have to move to a corner OF spot making him slightly less valuble),and he was 2 full years older than Evan. Evan's ceiling is certainly just as high as Braun and maybe higher. The only thing Braun has on Longoria in terms of long term potential is speed. He stole 26 bases this year.

I think it's pretty clear he's the 2nd best 3B prospect in the minor, at least in my view. BA agree's, all 4 staff members that had their Top-50 published in the prospect handbook had Longoria rated as the 2nd best 3B prospect in the minors. Placement on the list is a very subjective thing. Should he have been lower? I don't know, the only hitter I would have ranked ahead of him personally was Justin Upton because his upside is Ken Griffey Jr. But I can see how he wasn't ranked above him because Upton's work ethic was questioned by scouts this year.

All in all, Longoria seems to be clearly be an elite prospect. He adjusted extremely well to the minors and was widely considered the best hitting prospect of this draft.

by Tyler on Mar 4, 2007 11:33 PM EST reply actions