The Language of Player Evaluation

I've been in a couple of trade chats this winter, and each time I've asked or been asked to rate the players involved in the conversation.

This might be a valuable tool league-wide. No one is forced to disclose their opinion of a given player, of course, but quantifying our opinion may make it easier to understand. It's the same reason that saying a beautiful woman is a "9", as opposed to "hot." Both are good, but they approach the answer differently.

With that in mind, I present to you the Walden Evaluation Metric. I tried to insert some examples, which of course you may disagree with, but the rating system calls for rating a player from 0-100, with guidelines as follows:

98-100: Elite of the elite, crème de la crème. Players that are league-wide recognized as slam dunk #1 overall picks without debate. A guy who has put up Cooperstown numbers for a few years. E.g. Arod, Pujols.

90: Excellent players that are the more typical #1 overall pick, but may carry some debate with them around going #1 depending on the quality of the draft. No debate, though, that they’re a top of the 1st round type of talent. E.G. Peavy, Reyes.

80: Very good players that might typically go mid- to late-first round. Not a really strong candidate for top of the draft, but would only be available if MR’d. E.G. Teixeira, Ca. Zambrano.

70: The loosey-goosiest category. Legitimately good players that would make the bottom half of a good 13-man roster, or would be drafted 3rd roundish if made available. E.G. Harden, Zito, Torii Hunter, most decent catchers, the middle of the pack of ICA SPs .

60: Players that clearly belong on a 22-man team but clearly don’t belong on a 13-man team, even if not MR. E.g. Ryan Garko, young players expected to be immediately good but aren’t yet (like Jered Weaver), Currently great players who are injury risks (like Jim Thome), Nick Swisher, Chien-Ming Wang

50: A replacement ICA player. Bottom of the draft selections, or players who are the best of the unrostered players. A throwaway ICA player. E.g. Casey Blake, Mark Teahen, Doug Davis.

25: A replacement MLB player. MLB players who have no business on an ICA roster, and aren’t much better than a typical AAA callup. E.g. Cesar Izturis.

0: A bad MLB bench player. MLB players who have no business on an MLB roster, and whose organization would be better off with a AAA callup. E.g. Jason LaRue.

My hope is that this gives us a new language when talking deals with one another. Use it if you like, or don't, but when I tell you that Ryan Braun is a 92 in my book, or I ask Curt what he thinks Ben Sheets's Walden Metric is, now you'll know what I mean!