For my birthday, I’m giving myself a present.

That present? A good scolding.

You see, I’m an upside-chaser. I see minor league stats to die for, and I reach, trying to find that lightning in a bottle that will get me a title. The good news is that I’m usually the first guy to get hot prospects on their way up, and sometimes it works out. The bad news is obvious, but it bears repeating. Young players have adjustment times, good minor league stats don’t always translate, and not all prospects work out.

Want a case in point? I was discussing Jay Bruce with a coworker, and he mentioned that he was offered the young player in a trade, and that he wasn’t interested in Bruce. Immediately, my ears perked – Bruce for a song? I’m interested. But then my coworker said a name that I remembered, but had repressed for a long time.

Kevin Maas.

Kevin Maas was a lefty masher that was supposed to take over for Don Mattingly at first base for the Yankees. He came up to the big leagues in 1990 after good minor league numbers, good scouting reports, and much fan fare. Then, he promptly broke the record for the fewest at-bats to 10 home runs (72). Cue hysteria. Maas-mania got such that, well, I’ll let Wikipedia say it:

"Like Mattingly, Maas was a left-handed batter. As a result many of his home runs went into the right field stands. About halfway through the season a group of a dozen or so young ladies began wearing "Maas-tops" to Yankees home games and sitting in the right field stands. Whenever Maas hit a home run to right, the girls would get up, remove their tops and jump up and down until Maas finished circling the bases. However after a few home runs the women were banned from entering Yankee Stadium."

Now take a look at his career stats. Maas had one good year. Then? Nada.

After a decent first year (and 21 home runs in 252 at-bats is beyond decent, despite the bad batting average), Maas fell off precipitously. In a full year in the bigs in 1991, he only hit two more home runs, and the average plummeted to .220. After that, he never topped 11 home runs again, and only played another 179 major league games.

Can we learn anything from Mr. Maas? Conventional wisdom is that we learn a general life lesson. We learn that not all prospects pan out, that some hot starts are only hot starts, and that young players with hot starts should all be viewed through a skeptical eye. All of these things are true.

But, as with most Conventional Wisdom, this is not the whole picture. Looking at his minor league numbers, we do see a good overall line: .280/.370/.494. And we see what would normally be considered good: his slugging percentage went up in every full year, gradually coming from .455 in his A- ball year, to .582 in his 194 AAA at-bats. His 360 to 576 BB/K ratio was pretty good, and his 68% contact rate was about average. The power looked real, and he came up and mashed. What’s not to like?

First off, the caveat is that hindsight is 20/20. Looking backwards like this is not always productive, and can lead to fallacies. But let’s pretend we were going to have a critical eye with Maas back in 1990 – we are in a dynasty league, and someone has offered us Maas for Paul O’Neil and our little-known prospect named Jeff Bagwell. O’Neil might be a good stopgap it would seem, but Bagwell only hit 4 home runs in the minors. On the other hand, he also hit .333 and was moving to a team that needed a first baseman. Kevin Maas? Why he’s a power hitting 1B already!

Except that there were warts if you looked close enough. Bagwell was 22 and walked more than he struck out in A ball. Maas, at 22 in the midst of his longest stint in one league, hit .278 / .353 / .435 with only 53 BBs to 108 Ks. Now look at AA, the other long stint Maas had in one league, and you see a .263 / .376 / .446 line that was equally uninspiring. This might hint that he could tear through leagues when he was only there for a little while, but would have trouble after scouting reports were circulated. That certainly held true in the major leagues.

One thing you also have to do when looking at minor league numbers is think about age. At each of these stops in the minors, Maas was probably at the league average or older, making sure that he was physically developed beyond his peers. He signed at 21, meaning he was a college senior, and it doesn’t get much older than that at A- ball. When seen through this light, he seems less interesting – here he was, at 25, after being of average age at every stop in the minors, and being physically close to his peak, in the major leagues. That he would peform at what could have been guessed was his peak (his freshman SLG would have been a .041 improvement over his career minor league rate) before falling off may have occurred to some baseball people at the time.

Put it this way: the Astros targeted Bagwell as a young 1B prospect, not Maas.

So the elephant in the room is Jay Bruce once again. And, possibly, any other highly-regarded prospects coming up.

Bruce = Maas? No way.

A quick check of Bruce’s stats show that both Maas warning signs are not in play here. Bruce signed at 17, and was raking in the minors at 18. Every year after that in the minors, he got better despite being younger than his peers. And, no matter how long he stayed at a level, he continued to rake. Bruce, loved by stats guys and scouts alike, seems to be in a better position to succeed over a long period of time than Mr. One Hit Wonder, Kevin Maas.

Jeff Francouer? Frenchy was younger than his peers, and despite a fluctuating line, showed good power at every spot and had consistent numbers no matter what the length of each stay was. He may not be what we thought he was when he burst on to the scene, but his minor league numbers never really said he was a .300 hitting power corner outfielder. A .282/.325/.478 minor league line does not usually forecast a prodigious slugger.

Hunter Pence? Pence signed at 21 and was average or older in the minors. But his worst season in the minors, a .283/.357/.533 with 28 homers at AA, was much better than Maas’ best season in the minors.

Matt LaPorta is already 23, so despite his 1.035 OPS for the minor leagues, perhaps we should temper our excitement a little. Carlos Gonzalez and his .287/.341/.475 line might not look exciting, but he’s 22… now. Meaning those numbers came in 579 at-bats before the age at which LaPorta took his first pro at-bat.

Not only is Mike Aviles’ .297/.338/.464 minor league line not terribly exciting, it’s come in 6 minor league seasons since he turned 21. He’s been older than everyone in his leagues, he’s managed to bat for a good average despite a middling eye for the plate, and now he’s in the majors at 27, widely considered the peak year for hitters. Looks like a recipe for a good year, and perhaps nothing much thereafter. He looks the most like the new Kevin Maas.

Kevin Maas can teach us that consistency and age are two things that are lurking behind every minor league stat. He can also teach us that every prospect doesn’t make it, and every hot start should be looked at critically.

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