This is the fourth annual installment of my "guys I got wrong" piece. I'll look at players who've become much better big leaguers than I ever forecast them to be, and try to explain where I made mistakes in evaluating them.
Last year I began including some players I didn't discuss much as prospects or young major leaguers, errors of omission that are errors nonetheless. I've continued that this year to talk about some guys who never received much praise or publicity anywhere, not just from me.
Note: When discussing grades, I am referring to the 20-80 grading scale that scouts use.
A.J. Pollock, CF, Arizona Diamondbacks
I had Pollock rated just ninth in the Diamondbacks' system going into the 2012 season, which in hindsight seems particularly silly, as Pollock had had a solid 2011 campaign in Double-A, hitting .307/.357/.444 after missing all of 2010 due to injury. I thought Pollock could hit, but more in the .270-280 range without power or walks, and I didn't at all foresee him becoming an elite defensive center fielder; his UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) is plus-16 per 150 games over an average defender in his major league career.
When Pollock was an amateur at Notre Dame, he used the middle of the field and almost flung the bat at the ball, getting no lift in his swing. He was also a 55 (above-average) runner in-game, which made him more of an average or slightly better defender in center. The Diamondbacks saw more raw power from him in their pre-draft workout, and he ran faster in that workout than he had in college, all factors in their decision to take him 17th overall in 2009. Their player development staff has done a lot of work on his defense and getting him to pull the ball for power, and after several years of changing his leg kick, he went back this year to what used to work for him when he was younger. Add to that his outstanding work ethic and you get a player who has produced 7.2 WAR (per Baseball-Reference) this year.
Joe Panik/Brandon Crawford, IF, San Francisco Giants
I discussed both of these players about a month ago in a piece on sustainable breakouts, saying I was more confident in Panik's than in Crawford's. Since then, Crawford has continued to perform as he did prior to the first half of this year. His .244/.282/.443 second-half line reflects my original view of his bat: He had some power but a below-average hit tool and poor OBP skills. (He has always benefited from drawing extra walks when batting ahead of the pitcher; even this year, he has a 15 percent walk rate batting eighth, and a 4.5 percent rate when batting anywhere else.) That said, I never expected him to hit enough to have a 19-homer season as he has had this year.
Panik has had a miserable second half, playing just three games since Aug. 1 and ending up on the 60-day disabled list for a lower back issue that wouldn't go away. Before his back acted up, he had an outstanding four months, especially in terms of making contact -- his 42 strikeouts in 432 plate appearances would have given him the eighth-best contact rate in MLB this year had he qualified -- while playing solid-average defense at second. I don't foresee much growth from here, as his swing is not at all conducive to power and he has never been a high-walk guy, but he looks like he can be a solid 3-WAR regular going forward.
Billy Burns, OF, Oakland Athletics
This one is simple: I saw Burns as an 80 runner who could stay in center field but had no power and didn't look like he could hit or get on base. He has hit .297 this year with a .341 BABIP, without walks or power and playing just average defense in center, but that has been good enough for 2.5 WAR, which makes him a fringe regular -- a bit more than I thought he'd be.
Jake Arrieta, SP, Chicago Cubs
I never ranked Arrieta better than 92nd overall (going into 2009) on my top 100 prospects while he was still with the Orioles, seeing huge stuff but consistently below-average fastball command without any particular reason to think it would get better. He had a 5.46 ERA in 358 innings with Baltimore, and if anything, it seemed like I'd overrated him. The Cubs got him to slow down his tempo, made his slider more of a cutter, and let him go back to the third base side of the rubber where he was most comfortable. He has been one of the top three pitchers in the NL this year. (It's interesting that both Arrieta and Kevin Gausman have had trouble after the Orioles' coaches moved them to the opposite sides of the rubber.)
Matt Carpenter, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals
Here's one of those things I don't understand about my own rankings: I had Carpenter ranked sixth in the Cardinals' system going into 2011, but even though he had a great season in Triple-A, including more walks than strikeouts, I didn't have him in my top 10 for St. Louis the following winter.
It wasn't my own evaluation, as I never saw Carpenter play before he was established in the majors, but I don't even have any notes on him from that second winter. Carpenter was old for his levels in the minors, as the Cardinals drafted him as a fifth-year senior out of TCU -- I'd give you a list of all the good big leaguers who signed as fifth-year seniors, but I can't name any right now -- and I remember getting pessimistic reports on his defense at third base. But he has been capable both there and at second, and has been among the top 10 in the NL in walks over the past three seasons, with top-10 OBPs as well in 2013 and 2014. Clearly I should have had him among the Cards' top couple of prospects and somewhere in the top 100.
Alex Wood, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers
I had Wood as a probable reliever out of the University of Georgia for two major reasons: his awful arm action and his lack of an average breaking ball. He has improved the latter, with a hard curveball now that he didn't have in college -- more to the point, he had one but couldn't throw it for strikes -- and it has been the seventh-best curveball in baseball since the start of 2014, per Fangraphs' pitch values.
Wood's delivery is still hard to watch, perhaps the most "un-starterish" of any current big-league starter, but he hasn't been hurt in pro ball. I still flinch when I watch him pitch, but he has two successful years' worth of above-average work in MLB rotations, far better than I forecasted when Atlanta made him a second-round pick.