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  "description": "Welcome to year 2 of Hobby+. This all started when I created a stat-driven formula to track the best non-debuted prospects out there who don’t have Bowman cards – with a hobby-driven formula, that is. Well, this is the inverse of that. This includes every non-debuted prospect that DOES have a Bowman card, from 2021 releases forward. Pitchers are new for this year, but I’ve been fine-tuning the formula for a few years now. \n\nWhat I’m showing in Hobby+ is expanded from my list of non-debuted prosp",
  "path": "/2026-hobby-primer/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-02T16:01:01.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.prospectslive.com",
  "textContent": "Welcome to year 2 of Hobby+. This all started when I created a stat-driven formula to track the best non-debuted prospects out there who don’t have Bowman cards – with a hobby-driven formula, that is. Well, this is the inverse of that. This includes every non-debuted prospect that DOES have a Bowman card, from 2021 releases forward. Pitchers are new for this year, but I’ve been fine-tuning the formula for a few years now.\n\nWhat I’m showing in Hobby+ is expanded from my list of non-debuted prospects with no Bowman cards, so we can all keep tabs on who’s showing out well in certain areas, who’s improving in-season, and who might be undervalued in the hobby. Undervalued in general terms, that is. I’m not interested in getting into price wars!\n\nSo, what makes this list different? A few things. Below are my explainers for each pop-out I’ll be keeping tabs on. Each section has a link to a sheet with the Top 100 for each pop-out. The color-coded names refer to the product the player is first seen in, with a key at the top of the sheet. There are no breakouts for pitchers. What we’re looking for in pitchers is fairly simplistic.\n\n## Age-Dependent Power\n\nAge-Dependent Power tracks age to level and values that very highly – the hobby likes their prospects young. If a young player is hitting a bunch of homers at a high level, he’s going to be high on this list. So this list, in a bubble, will have a lot of teenagers, as you can see from the chart below. It’s not a complete picture though, and not intended to be.\n\n## Hitting Skill\n\nHitting Skill is more simple. It’s based in K% and BB%, with threshold values for each, ratio values for each, and some level adjustments for the DSL and Complex (where pitching is bad). This list, as you may expect, has quite a few power-vacant players, but it’ll be important to check in to see if those guys are seeing improvement to their impact at the plate. If those guys start ripping a high number of doubles and a few homers, they start to become a lot more interesting.\n\n## Hobby+\n\nThe third pop-out is Hobby+ itself. This is a combination of the other two (weighted differently), with a little kicker for SB. It’s the most complete picture, in my mind, that we can get through a hobby lens for a prospect using only statistics. I’ll call out caveats with a player’s real-life skill set when I do updates. As we all know, stats can be dumb.\n\n## Pitchers\n\nThere’s a fairly fine line to walk for pitchers to maintain hobby relevance – they need to start, they need to strike out a lot of hitters, and they need to accumulate good statistical performance over the course of the season – they need to be an awards contender, in other words. But we don’t need to hit that benchmark to maintain hobby relevance as a prospect. We just need to have signs that a player _can_ be that. So, my pitching formula values all of that. Strikeouts speak for themselves, but they are quite an important part of the formula. The caveat with that is, for very young pitchers, K% is sometimes a trailing indicator – but it’s also not totally statistically predictable. So that’s something we’ll look to find in updates. Things like high walk rates and giving up a lot of hard contact is also important – if a pitcher can’t go deep into games, they’re not likely to put up big lines year over year. Youth relative to level, of course, is also part of the equation.\n\n## The Plan\n\nWhat’ll be most interesting is tracking improvements to each of these three categories plus pitching from period to period. In-season improvements can be tough to see if a player struggles out of the gate. I’m hoping to spot trends within this to identify players to get in on early!\n\nMy plan is to do updates and breakdowns periodically – at least 2 weeks apart. Last year it was 2 weeks fairly regularly until the season to write the 2026 Bowman Chrome came.",
  "title": "2026 Hobby+ Primer",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-02T16:01:05.765Z"
}