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Major League Equivalents: Lowell Spinners

By Randy Booth

[editor's note, by Randy Booth] A big thanks goes out to Jeff, my SportsBlogs Nation brother from Brew Crew Ball who put all this together for me with his program.

The following is the MLE (Major League Equivalents) of each Lowell pitcher and batter from the 2005 season. If you are unfamilar with MLE, this is what Baseball HQ says about them:

For those newcomers to the concept, this is a model that was introduced by Bill James in his 1985 Baseball Abstract. He showed that minor league statistics -- appropriately adjusted -- were an accurate measure of what a player's minor league performance might have looked like in the Majors. In addition, due to the wide variations in the level of play among different minor leagues, it is often difficult to get a true reading on a player's potential. For instance, a .300 batting average achieved in the high-offense Pacific Coast League is not nearly as much of an accomplishment as a similar level in the Eastern League. MLEs normalize these variances.

I'll be doing this for all the minor league teams, so look for them (and I promise the stats will get better! I just want to cover all the bases first).

Lowell Batters
First Last AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG OPS
Jacoby Ellsbury 150 30 2 3 0 13 35 .200 .264 .253 .517
Zak Farkes 136 16 4 0 1 4 63 .118 .143 .169 .312
Jay Johnson 231 41 7 1 1 12 70 .177 .218 .229 .448
Dustin Kelly 164 23 4 0 0 13 47 .140 .203 .165 .368
Mike Leonard 74 14 1 1 0 5 16 .189 .241 .230 .470
Jed Lowrie 217 45 7 0 1 18 52 .207 .268 .253 .522
Matt Mercurio 247 36 5 1 1 17 84 .146 .201 .186 .387
Willy Mota 138 18 4 1 0 12 82 .130 .200 .174 .374
Dominic Ramos 277 47 5 2 1 14 98 .170 .210 .213 .423
Luis Soto 259 49 7 1 2 14 80 .189 .231 .247 .478
Mitch Stachowsky 117 18 2 0 2 2 96 .154 .168 .222 .390
Jason Twomley 253 42 10 2 2 13 138 .166 .207 .245 .452
Mark Wagner 73 10 1 1 0 5 12 .137 .192 .178 .370
Yahmed Yema 227 45 10 1 0 9 37 .198 .229 .251 .480

As you can see, there is nothing too special here. Lowell, which is the short-season A-ball team for the Red Sox, is obviously a far ways away from the majors, and good stats there prove to be Christian Guzman-like numbers at the major league level.

Jed Lowrie had a very good season at Lowell (.328/.429/.448), but his MLE is very poor (like I said, this is usual because we're talking about short season A-Ball) with a .207/.268/.253 line. He did (or would, in the case of MLE) lead the team in walks, however.

Jacoby Ellsbury is in a very similar boat to Lowrie, but doesn't quite have the line that he does. Also note: Luis Soto.

Lowell Pitchers
First Last IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP BAA
Adam Blackley 74.0 118 107 31 41 48 13.01 2.15 .347
Clay Buchholz 41.3 49 39 6 16 25 8.49 1.57 .283
Ismael Casillas 32.0 45 36 0 14 22 10.13 1.84 .319
Gene Flores 21.3 33 39 0 13 8 16.46 2.16 .340
Argimiro Guanchez 36.0 68 55 3 23 23 13.75 2.53 .386
Matt Hancock 37.0 65 74 17 20 19 18.00 2.30 .369
Hunter Jones 28.0 42 32 6 9 17 10.29 1.82 .333
Christopher Jones 24.3 33 23 3 9 14 8.51 1.73 .311
Brian Marshall 23.0 27 19 3 16 17 7.43 1.87 .281
Blake Maxwell 45.7 45 45 3 20 16 8.87 1.42 .247
Modesto Ozuna 22.7 36 52 3 21 8 20.65 2.52 .346
Mario Pena 82.0 140 133 17 18 17 14.60 1.93 .363
Ryan Phillips 67.0 65 55 6 55 34 7.39 1.79 .244
JT Zink 48.0 66 45 6 32 14 8.44 2.04 .314

Here's another less-than-spectacular pitching line. There are a lot of Mike Remlinger-type numbers here. Well, wait a minute. That'd be an insult to all these fine, young pitchers. Shall I say ... Alan Embree? Ryan Phillips has the best MLE ERA of the group at 7.39 (his Lowell ERA was 2.28). Now here's the stat you might actually want if you were an Embree or Remlinger: Phillips' .244 BAA. For comparison reasons, Mike Timlin had a .277 BAA in 2005.

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