See also: IL Batting and Pitching Leaders
See also: PCL Batting and Pitching Leaders

Another season in the books means another season’s worth of data to work with. Ben Badler kicked things off last week with a look at catchers’ caught-stealing rates. Now on to batting and pitching.

We as fans understand that run-scoring environments vary from league to league in the minors, making it difficult to compare, for example, a player’s production in the International League with a Pacific Coast Leaguer’s production. To help level the playing field, we’ll examine how minor leaguers compare, in several core tools and abilities, with the averages. The abilities measured are power and speed for batters and strikeout rate and groundout-to-flyout ratio for pitchers.

Extra-base hits per plate appearance is used to measure power, in lieu of a weighted measure like slugging average or isolated power, because it rewards all types of power hitters, not just home-run hitters. Even advanced prospects generally need more time to refine their home-run strokes. Also, a list weighed toward home runs will feature mostly the league’s oldest players.

A quick-and-dirty version of Bill James’ speed score metric measures running ability. It considers stolen base success rate, raw stolen base attempts, rate of triples and rate of runs scored as a function of times on base. While the benefits of speed are not as obvious as those of power, a player with running ability usually can handle a more demanding defensive position, thus getting more big league looks. Plus, faster players, especially those with power, tend to age better.

The merit of strikeout percentage for pitchers is obvious. Using the percentage per batter faced—rather than the ratio per nine innings pitched—rewards pitchers for strikeout efficiency, rather than those who see more batters due to high walk or hit rates. Groundout-to-flyout ratio is a less obvious choice, but as with strikeout percentage, pitchers who command their stuff in the lower portions of the strike zone tend to be more efficient because of fewer extra-base hits allowed and more double plays turned. Raw groundout percentage would have been used were it readily available to us.

The top 25 players are displayed for each of the four categories.

To qualify for these rankings, position players needed to accumulate one plate appearance per league game—144—the same standard we use for our league Top 20 Prospects lists. Pitchers needed to log one-third of an inning per league game—48—and make at least half their appearances as starters.

A category followed by a plus sign simply indicates how far above or below league average a player was, with 100 being league average. A player with a 173, then, had a rate 73 percent better than league average. A player with a 93 would be seven percent worse. In the case of batters, league averages are calculated with pitchers removed from the sample.

As usual, lefthanded hitters and pitchers are denoted by asterisks (*), and switch-hitters by pound signs (#).

A final note: The following charts are presented as a record of what happened; they do not inherently have predictive value. Comparisons are to league rates only and are not park adjusted.

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

Best Run Differential: Scranton/Wilkes-Barre: +105 (won Northern Division at 84-59)
Fun Fact: OF Shelley Duncan led league with a .577 slugging percentage
Team’s Best Player: OF Shelley Duncan, .295/.380/.577 with 25 HR, 18 2B and 79 RBIs
Team’s Best Pitcher: RHP Matt DeSalvo, 9-5, 2.70 in 113 IP with 102-56 K-BB

Worst Run Differential: Ottawa: -184 (finished last in Northern Division at 55-88)
Dubious Distinction: LHP J.A. Happ had the highest ERA (5.02) of any league qualifier

BATTERS

Two top prospects, Lowrie and Bruce, finished one-two—ahead of sluggers Hessman and Duncan, no less—but more impressive was Pridie’s strong showing. After two straight mediocre to poor seasons, Pridie broke through in a big way in the IL. Other notables here were Moss, Francisco and Fields, three prospects whom IL managers loved. Jones keeps bashing away in the Twins’ system, but he’s a bit one dimensional in that he’s a left fielder/first baseman who’s not a big on-base guy.

With Christian, Gardner and Gonzalez, Scranton was one easily one of the league’s fastest clubs. But don’t overlook Indianapolis with Bixler, Morgan and Davis. Players who appear on the XBH and speeds lists: Torres, Cooper, Richar and Pridie, who at 23 is the youngest of the four. Only Cooper spent the whole season in the league, though his score is boosted by eight triples. Cooper also has seasons of nine and six triples on his resume, but his nine steals are a career high.

PITCHERS

No wonder the Braves were so quick to recall Carlyle, who’s made 19 starts thus far. The Yankees weren’t so lucky with Igawa. All the big guns are here—Miller, Hammel, Garza, Bailey and Niemann—but Howell was the league’s strikeout champ.

Laffey, 22, started 2006 in the Carolina League and ended 2007 in the American League. He doesn’t overpower hitters, but he doesn’t give them much to drive either. Gabbard’s groundball tendencies made him an attractive target for the Rangers, who acquired him from the Red Sox as part of the Eric Gagne trade. Did anyone realize Victor Zambrano pitched well in the IL?

Prior to this season, when the 30-year-old finally made his big league debut, Shearn’s career highlight was probably pitching for Team USA in the 2001 World Cup. The former Astros farmhand got the loss for manager Terry Francona’s club against Cuba in the gold-medal game that November in Taiwan. Now he has new highs, having won his first three big league decisions with Cincinnati.

PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE

Best Run Differential: Nashville: +171 (won American Conference Northern Division at 89-55)
Fun Fact: The Sounds held nearly a half-run advantage in team ERA, 3.57 to 4.00, despite losing RHPs Yovani Gallardo and Chris Oxspring, their two best pitchers to that point, at midseason–Gallardo to the major leagues, Oxspring for a contract in Korea.
Team’s Best Player: 3B Joe Dillon, .317/.405/.605 in 319 AB with 20 HR, 28 2B and 73 RBIs
Team’s Best Pitcher: RHP R.A. Dickey, 13-6, 3.72 in 169 IP with 119-60 K-BB

Worst Run Differential: Portland: -120 (finished last in Pacific Conference Northern Division at 58-86)
Dubious Distinction: The Beavers finished last in the league in slugging percentage (.393) and were the only team not to top .400; they also finished last in average (.254).

BATTERS

Jones took his home runs to Japan. He hasn’t yet played in the major leagues, in part because he’s posted a .334 on-base percentage despite 184 career homers. This list is littered with ex-big leaguers and minor league vets, so it’s encouraging to see Soto, Jones, Schierholtz and LaRoche here. Pascucci was the league’s home run champ with 34, but he gets an asterisk because two of his competitors hit 32 in partial seasons. Ankiel got called to the majors, while Brazell spent time in Double-A.

It would have been interesting to see what Gomez would have accomplished in a full season. Special mention to Crabbe, both for his name and for sparking Nashville to a first-place finish. Guzman swiped the most bags in the league to win his third stolen base crown. But the fact that he’s still in the minors tells you all you need to know about the rest of his game.

PITCHERS

Braden had perhaps the best pitching performance of the season on Aug. 27, when he tossed a three-hit shutout against Colorado Springs. He struck out 17 Sky Sox in that outing while walking none. Furthermore, it’s easy to see why Sacramento was so successful. In Braden, Lewis and Meyer, they had three of the PCL’s top strikeout artists. Saunders had never come particularly close to striking out a man an inning, but he almost did this year, with 84 Ks in 86 1/3 innings.

The reputations of Pelfrey, Albers and Buckner were practically built on power sinkers, so it’s no surprise to find them here. And how about Jack Cassel? He’s been plugging away in the Padres’ system since 2000, when San Diego made him a 25th-round pick from LA Pierce (Calif.) JC. Cassel, 27, earned his first big league start on Aug. 31, and he fared OK, giving up three runs in 5 2/3 innings. He then started the Padres’ 20th shutout on Sept. 17 with six innings.