Top 25 Pitching Pop Up Prospects (2021)

Up until now, all of my efforts have been focused on developing, refining, and publishing the results of the Pop Up Prospects model for minor league batters. I'm going to take a brief break from those findings to share my progress on the pitching model.

This is the first sneak peak at the pitcher model. I published an initial list to Twitter today and made some refinements based on feedback I received. I'll probably continue to adjust the model for the next month or so, but I'll start publishing results as I refine the model. 

But before you jump to the list, let's get a couple things out there:

Remember these models are entirely based on performance in 2021. The goal is not to identify which pitchers are destined for greatness at the big league level (although that may be a side effect), but to identify pitchers that have performed at a very high level relative to the other players at their level, adjusted for age, park, division, and proximity to the big leagues to a lesser extent.

The pitching tools are summarized into 3 categories:

• CTL is my measure of a pitchers control. It's not easy to do this with minor league statistics, but I'm equating this tool to a pitchers ability to throw strikes and get strike outs. 
• CMD is my tool to estimate a pitchers command. While control is a pitchers ability to throw strikes, command is a measure of a pitchers ability to target locations inside and outside the zone - so I factored in things like walk and swinging strike rate here.
• CON is a measure of a pitchers ability to induce weak contact. So this tool measures a pitchers ability to get ground balls, and avoid fly balls and line drives.

I should remind you that this is entirely performance based. It doesn't factor in a pitcher's ceiling, floor, or prospect pedigree, or anything like that. It's just performance -that's it. Anyways... Here's the list.

Top 25 Pitching Pop Up Prospects in 2021:

0	Name	Team	Age	CTL	CMD	CON	TOT
1	Grayson Rodriguez	BAL	21	75	75	60	70
2	Max Meyer	MIA	22	75	65	60	70
3	Hunter Greene	CIN	21	65	65	65	65
4	Drew Rom	BAL	21	60	60	60	60
5	Taj Bradley	TBR	20	60	60	60	60
6	Tommy Romero	TBR	23	60	60	50	60
7	Daniel Espino	CLE	20	60	60	50	60
8	Tobias Myers	TBR	22	60	65	50	60
9	Kyle Harrison	SFG	19	60	60	60	60
10	Spencer Strider	ATL	22	60	60	50	60
11	Eury Perez	MIA	18	60	60	50	60
12	Matthew Liberatore	STL	21	60	65	55	60
13	Hunter Brown	HOU	22	60	55	60	60
14	Shane Baz	TBR	22	60	60	50	60
15	Victor Santos	PHI	20	55	60	60	60
16	Quinn Priester	PIT	20	55	60	60	60
17	Brayan Bello	BOS	22	55	55	50	55
18	Connor Thomas	STL	23	55	60	55	55
19	Ryan Murphy	SFG	21	60	55	55	55
20	Joan Adon	WSN	22	55	55	55	55
21	Roansy Contreras	PIT	21	55	55	45	55
22	Peyton Battenfield	CLE	23	55	55	45	55
23	Josh Winckowski	BOS	23	55	55	55	55
24	Joey Estes	ATL	19	60	60	45	55
25	Ronny Henriquez	TEX	21	55	55	55	55