I think 75% might be high for a multi-year career for Joseph Martinez. Martinez got righties out quite well last season, but he has never gotten lefties out in any season of his four-year minor league career.

He looks a little like a ROOGY to me. He does have control and is a ground ball pitcher, so he might not be limited to the ROOGY role. But he’ll be 26 next season, so he needs to develop fairly quickly.

Is awfully, if not fantastically, optimistic. I’d agree he probably has a 75% chance of appearing in the majors, but a AA player with a 75% of a multiple year major league career is a super prospect.

Let’s do this. Not a comprehensive answer or study by any stretch, but a representative snapshot that gets us out of our own personal biases for our own prospects. I’ll look back to the oldest Prospect Handbook I have (2003) and look at all the 15-20 range prospects from only the top 10 ranked organizations and see what kinds of names I come up with.

1. Indians: Josh Bard, Dan Denham, Johnny Peralta, Travis Foley, Matt Whitney, Luis Garcia (note, also had Ben Broussard 23, Ryan Church 25 and Coco Crisp 26 that year).

2. Braves: Zach Miner, Jung Bong, Gregor Blanco, Dan Meyer, Trey Hodges, Ryan Langerhans (prospect list included Wainwright, Betemit, Marte, Franceour, Thorman, Horacio Ramirez, Kelly Johnson, Adam LaRoche, and way down at 28, Brian McCann).

3. Cubs: Alfredo Francisco, Steve Smyth, Billy Petrick, Matt Bruback, Ricky Nolasco, John Webb (led by Hee Seop Choi, the Cubs had been ranked #1 in 2002 and #2 in 2001, but with Pie the last of this group who still has any kind of career in front of him, this class has turned out to be quite a bust).

4. Twins: Brad Thomas, Sandy Tejada, Beau Kemp, Trent Oeltjen, Grant Balfour, Matt Vorwald (awesome group led by Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Resotvich, Denard Span and JD Durbin, but after 10 it’s pretty sparse with only Balfour and Juan Rincon 22 making an impact on the majors).

5. Angels: Jake Woods, Nathan Haynes, Robb Quinlan, Quan Cosby, Nick Touchstone, Brian Specht (that group is certainly not representative of a class that included KRod, Kotchman Bobby Jenks, Jeff Mathis, Ervin Santan, Joe Saunders, Brendan Donnelly and Derrick Turnbow in the top half and Eric Aybar 21 Alfredo Amezaga 22 Alberto callaspo 23 and Chone Figgins 28 in the bottom half)

6. Blue Jays: Dominic Rich, Miguel Negron, Chad Pleiness, DJ Hanson, Tyrell Godwin, Tracy Thorpe (the 20-30 range is just as faceless as this bunch and the top 10 includes more busts than hits, though Dustin McGowan, Jayson Werth, Alexis Rios, and Vinny Chulk are all int he Top 10).

7. Phillies: Carlos Cabrera, Erick Arteaga, Carlos Rodriguez, Brad Baisley, Eric Valent (there’s the kernel of a World Series Champion here with Utley 2, Hamels 5 Madson 6 and Howard 8, but you sure wouldn’t know it from looking at 10-30, thins out fast).

8. Marlins: Kevin Hooper, ABraham Nunez, Eric Reed, Victor Prieto, Robert Andino, Scott Olson (Olson’s a great #20, and Josh Willingham follows at #21, but on the whole this is another class with superstar talent at the top, Miggy, Adrian Gonzalez, Willis, Hermida that thins out fast)

9. Mariners: Kevin Olore, Michael Garciaparra, Kenny Kelly, Ryan Anderson, Jeff Heaverlo, JJ Putz (Putz is the only hit in the bottom 15)

10. Devil Rays: Gerardo Garcia, Pete LaForest, Delvin James, Elijah Dukes, Shawn Riggans, Matt White (class is led off by Baldelli, Hamilton, and BJ Upton, just imagine if Baldelli stayed healthy and Hamilton stayed clean, what an OF).

11. Giants, just cuz: Merkin Valdez, Noah Lowry, Jason Ellison, Carlos Valderrama, David Cash, Dan Ortmeier (is it just because I’m so familiar with them that I instantly think this is the best group I’ve named so far? This was the classic class of lost potential, headed by Foppert, Ainsworht, Jerome Williams, Francisco Liriano and Todd Linden).

Interestingly, with the major exception of the Cubs and to a lesser degree the Blue Jays, the notable thing about these organizations looking back is that they were in fact ranked pretty well. The Indians, Braves, Twins, and Angels had tons of prospects who would turn into major leaguers and help lead them to conteder status, the Rays and Phillies had some pennant winning talent.

Still, the lower teens is much more hit than miss. The final tallies, of this range in the best organizations in the game, circa 2003. Out of 66 players:

12 established major leaguers (to err on the conservative side I included Gregor Blanco and Elijah Dukes in this list)

16 appeared in the majors but were unable to establish themselves there (eg Jake Woods, Abraham Nunez, Eric Reed, Robert Andino, Jung Bong, etc)

8 have never appeared in the majors but are still plugging away in the minors

36 are out of American professional baseball. Of those 36, 30 never appeared in the major leagues (some overlap with the cup of coffee group here).

Those numbers, frankly do strike me as fairly representative of the futures that await people in this area of a good organization’s prospect list. More than half will be out of baseball in a few years, about a third will plug away as career minor leaguers with an occasional Crash Davis like trip to the show, about a fifth or a sixth become major leaguers (with the majority of these being bullpen pitchers and bench players).