This post isn't for proving any kind of hypothesis, but rather, is gonna be simply for doing some math fun for the heck of it with Surplus Value tiers and Rate of Change, hopefully to stimulate some thought in regards to giving Surplus Value amounts for prospects outside the Top 100.
The data I'm using can be found here.
Pitchers #1-10 are worth 69.9M in Surplus Value, while Pitchers #76-100 are worth 15.6M in Surplus Value. If we do an average rate of change, in the form of (69.9M - 15.6M) / 100, we'd get a per-spot amount of $387,000. I know that a #1 pitcher is much likely to be worth more than a #10 pitcher, and likewise with #76 and #100, so this is pretty rudimentary.
The same for hitters: Hitters #1-10 are $73.5M, and Hitters #76-100 are $20.6M. Average rate of change = (73.5M - 20.6M) / 100 = $529,000 per spot.
However, there's obviously a lot more prospects than just the Top 100. While there's currently thousands of active minor league players, there's a much lesser amount that are labeled as "prospects" that a team may target in a trade. As such, every team usually has a composite or conglomerate of Top 30 lists. Each of the 30 teams with a list of Top 30 prospects means there's 900 prospects on these Top 30 lists. That means that there is a list of 800 prospects who make a Top 30 but not the Baseball America Top 100 (SN: I'd like to think that everyone who makes the BA Top 100 makes their team's Top 30, so that's an assumption we can safely make).
Going back to the TPOP article, the Hitters #76-100 are $20.6M in Surplus Value. What follows is pretty much a load of BS probably, but fun to look at that may aid in rosterbation: Let's do an average rate of change calculation for Hitters #101-800. Another assumption to make is that there will be guys in this very-large tier that do not ever make the Majors, and thus give a Surplus Value of $0. So, we will do the calculation as this: For Hitters, it is ($20.6M - $0) / (900-100) = $25,750 of Surplus Value per spot. For Pitchers, it is ($15.6M - $0) / (900-100) = $19,500 per spot.
If we run with these two figures, and keep the current belief that 1 WAR = $8M, along with the fact that a MLB player will make $500K in each of his first three years, we can begin to make some basic projections about the Production of these 800 prospects. For one, it means that the #900 hitter in all of baseball will have $0 Surplus Value, and the #101 hitter will have ($20.6M - $25,750) = $20,574,250 of Surplus Value. The #900 pitcher would have $0 Surplus Value, and the #101 pitcher will have ($15.6M - $19,500) = $15,580,500 of Surplus Value.
So using those two figures, I've made the SV for every Hitter and Pitcher in tiers of 100 spots, from 101 all the way to the 900th prospect. I chose tiers of 100 not only for convenience, but because the difference between say the 849th and 850th prospect is nearly impossible to think of. I take the average of the Surplus Values for the two end spots in each tier.
- Hitters 101-200: $19.299M
- Hitters 201-300: $16.724M
- Hitters 301-400: $14.149M
- Hitters 401-500: $11.574M
- Hitters 501-600: $8.999M
- Hitters 601-700: $6.424M
- Hitters 701-800: $3.849M
- Hitters 801-900: $1.274M
- Pitchers 101-200: $14.615M
- Pitchers 201-300: $12.665M
- Pitchers 301-400: $10.715M
- Pitchers 401-500: $8.765M
- Pitchers 501-600: $6.815M
- Pitchers 601-700: $4.865M
- Pitchers 701-800: $2.915M
- Pitchers 801-900: $965K
Let's try one out. When Baseball America released their 2017 Midseason Top 100, Lucas Sims was a guy who was left outside the Top 100, but he's a guy who has been in the minors for a while and we know what kind of pitcher he is in terms of stuff. He's got some good stuff and he's racked up quite a few strikeouts as a starter. Would you mark him as a Pitcher in the 101-200 range? I believe I would. So we take the Surplus Value of $14.615M, and we can plug it into the basic equation of SURPLUS VALUE = PRODUCTION VALUE - SALARY. In the first 3 years, he will make $1.5M. Plugging in the Surplus Value of $14.615M and doing some addition, his production value will be $16,115,000. Use the rate of 1 WAR = $8M, and we can say he would provide about 2 WAR in his first 3 years.
So what could this be used for? This would be a general idea of Surplus Value with guys who are going to be on a team's Top 30 Prospects list but not Baseball America's Top 100. Regarding exact ranking, when thinking of trades and such for these kinds of prospects, I'd try to take an average ranking of a guy in a variety of Top 30 lists. I know there's definitely a large amount of assumptions here that are going to be bucked in reality, but it's a general idea of approaching trades for rental guys that the Braves will be exploring with a Jaime Garcia or Brandon Phillips.
