Who has best farm system: ATL or Sox?

[Dominikk85]

Both are excellent. The one thing atlanta has is that their prospects have performed, so the braves haven proven to be able to improve their prospects.

 

The jury on that is still out for the sox. Doesn't mean it has to be bad. In the last years they did a solid job with pitching and not so much with hitting but then again they also didn't have prospects who were that talented.

 

Really player developement will make the difference here.the sox basocally only acquired prospects and now they need to develope them.

 

If they do well with that next year and lopez, giolito, rutherford, moncada and others take a step forward I believe they have the best raw talent and could overtake the braves. But if the prospects stagnate and the braves take another jump the braves will be the best.

[Dominikk85]

Not a big deal, but does it irk anyone else that the day a prospect "graduates," they are worth zero in these kinds of rankings? I get that they have become major leaguers, and that lists like this are just a snapshot in time, but I would love some kind of system that uses weights of some kind so players could still factor in in some form. It's not like a guy like Moncada is a prospect with X major league at bats and not a prospect with X+1 major league at bats. It'd be cool if there was room for scale or gradient.

 

Actually not true. Players remain in the prospect list until they have have exceeded their rookie status (130 ab or 50 ip)

[Dominikk85]

I suppose this is as good a place as any, to get a clarification on a question I have:

Using MLB.com's "Pipeline," I don't understand how they derive some of these "overall" grades. For example, here is Alec Hansen's line:

Fastball: 70 | Slider: 60 | Curveball: 55 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50.

How do they compute a 50 overall grade from those numbers?

 

The overall grade is not computed from the single values but is how good you expect the pitcher to be. Basically an estimation of ERA factoring whether he will be a starter or reliever (relievers basically never get a grade above 50 no matter how good they are).

 

50 means future average regular, that is the grade low level top 100 prospects (75-100) get usually.

 

45 means like utility but for a reliever that is a solid grade.

[SonofaRoache]

We've literally had a "top farm system" for about 2-3 months. Some of the expectations you guys have for how fast the turnaround time is going to be are crazy.

 

 

Notice how I said 5-10? If you take Moncada, Lopez, and a few top guys coming next year, we will fall in the rankings to 5-10. That's not a bad thing as stage two is to get guys up here and experienced. That does not mean we are going to win next year, it means we won't have enough top talent in the farm to be top 3 when next season ends.

[JPR]

It was debateable before the Quintana trade. Eloy cease plus Rutherford and the rest of the haul we brought in before the deadline, forget about it! It's easily the Sox

Edited August 12, 2017 by JPR

[steveno89]

I suppose this is as good a place as any, to get a clarification on a question I have:

Using MLB.com's "Pipeline," I don't understand how they derive some of these "overall" grades. For example, here is Alec Hansen's line:

Fastball: 70 | Slider: 60 | Curveball: 55 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50.

How do they compute a 50 overall grade from those numbers?

 

Overall grade is a fluid rating, but does take into account the likelihood of a player reaching their ceiling.

 

A player with a "50" grade currently could still become a very good player, but there are questions as to how likely that happens.

[chitownsportsfan]

Overall grade is a fluid rating, but does take into account the likelihood of a player reaching their ceiling.

 

A player with a "50" grade currently could still become a very good player, but there are questions as to how likely that happens.

 

Just to tack on a bit, scouts use a 20-80 scale to rate tools and then given an overall grade based on those. A "50" overall grade for a prospect is pretty good as it means he has a decent chance of being an average MLB player. In Sickels' terminology this would probably be your "B+" prospect, a back end top 100 MLB guy -- Blake Rutherford for example, with a solid chance to a MLB regular, an outside chance at stardom, and an outside chance at just being a 4th OF or never even making MLB.

 

 

[jenksycat]

Notice how I said 5-10? If you take Moncada, Lopez, and a few top guys coming next year, we will fall in the rankings to 5-10. That's not a bad thing as stage two is to get guys up here and experienced. That does not mean we are going to win next year, it means we won't have enough top talent in the farm to be top 3 when next season ends.

 

The only guy coming out early next year will be Gio. The rest will be mid-late year at best. Add the 2018 draft class and we should easily have a top 3 system heading in to 2019