In the depths of the minors, signs of progress

[bmags]

It has been mentioned that AZL has been fun, it has been. AZL has often sucked while Great Falls was the fun one, where we sent older college prospects to face competition likely worse than what they just played against and laughed as they dominated.

But the real progress we are seeing in AZL this year is about getting earlier production from Intl and HS prospects, though we just have not had a lot of HS prospects in general.

A major caveat here is the rankings are based on qualified batters, so in some cases I fill in the gaps.

I make a line in the sand in age to make a cohort 18 and younger for the rank columns, and total rank is for all players. What we see: Jose Rodriguez is producing really well! Will it matter? Well who knows. But the "suck in AZL and then be great" hasn't been a great route either.

2019 performers, wrc+, rank (total in class), rank (cohort)

The noticeable thing? Jose Rodriguez and Gladney both top ten in their cohort. Ramos just after that. Lost in this is Diaz, who is only at 50 PAs, but would be basically our best by wrc+  (he's at like 195)

2018

Weaver and Comas were both respectable in being over 100, and both are doing fine in Great Falls. Mieses is performing way better this year.

2017

We were so pumped for Lenyn Sosa! He survived at 17 and dude keeps surviving. That's because this is a taste of what we looked at before

2016

Woof. And that was an improvement from 2015, when Nunez as a 17 year old had a .365 OPS, Alfaro had a .436 ops, Adolfo had a .636 ops and felix mercedes had a .625 ops.

So, how does this fare against all players in AZL, from 2016-2019?

Notice I included bush, who was so freakin good they moved him up right away.

DJ Gladney, Ramos, Rodriguez all stick out, all top 6 in their literal ages, and top 15 in the 18 and under cohort. Bush would have led all of them had he stayed down at that same pace.

So who are the league leaders 18 and under during this time?

How did Tatis the Traded do?

He had a 107 wrc+ as a 17 year old in AZL.

Now, we know Abrams story, Ruiz is a top prospect for Royals, and the Giants have a bunch of high bonus latam players like Luciano who look awesome.

Does this mean these guys will be top 10 prospects? No, but considering how few of the low production younger players we saw come through, and how Bush and Sosa who survived/thrived look like they can develop into top 20 guys, this means we may be really finding depth and improving latam scouting and drafting. And hopefully player dev.

Let's see what happens next.

[bmags]

note this would not include Gladney's day today, where he hit his 4th homer.

[smellysox]

This is very interesting. Thanks for doing this bmags! Breaking all of this down - this does give me some hope for player development. 

[oldsox]

Bmags, get a life.

And, why don't you talk about Ben Bailey

[danman31]

Good stuff. It's been less than a month though so we'll see how it plays out. I remember a couple of the guys getting off to hot starts in Arizona and then slumping the rest of the way. It does show how ridiculous Bush was last year.

[bmags]

3 hours ago, danman31 said:

Good stuff. It's been less than a month though so we'll see how it plays out. I remember a couple of the guys getting off to hot starts in Arizona and then slumping the rest of the way. It does show how ridiculous Bush was last year.

Yeah the reason I felt good about it was the power numbers they banked are good enough already to stand out. A lot of the hot starts last year were heavily average dependent. But Sosa stood out a few years ago being 17 and not striking out. These guys are hitting for power but k’ing. We’ll see how they finish. 

[Chicago White Sox]

4 hours ago, oldsox said:

Bmags, get a life.

And, why don't you talk about Ben Bailey

What kind of shit post is this?  Bmags put together an awesome assessment of some of our AZL prospects and this is all you got?  Hopefully this just sarcasm and I’m simply missing the boat.

[Chicago White Sox]

Thanks for putting this together @bmags.  Really interesting group of bats down in the AZL.

I really think the system is at interesting inflection point when it comes to talent acquisition vs development.  IMO, we are actually seeing some legit young talent coming from the draft & LatAm (with issues that will need addressing) and this is the group that will really test Getz’s player development staff.  If we don’t see a good chunk of the Kanny, Great Falls, & AZL guys make it to High A and/or AA eventually (and hopefully a couple beyond that) it will be clear our player development function is still a major problem.  If we do, it may be proof that Getz has finally modernized our development function and provide hope for the future.

Edited July 5, 2019 by Chicago White Sox

[bmags]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Thanks for putting this together @bmags.  Really interesting group of bats down in the AZL.

I really think the system is at interesting inflection point when it comes to talent acquisition vs development.  IMO, we are actually seeing some legit young talent coming from the draft & LatAm (with issues that will need addressing) and this is the group that will really test Getz’s player development staff.  If we don’t see a good chunk of the Kanny, Great Falls, & AZL guys make it to High A and/or AA eventually (and hopefully a couple beyond that) it will be clear our player development function is still a major problem.  If we do, it may be proof that Getz has finally modernized our development function and provide hope for the future.

Getz does deserve credit for paying attention and integrating broader mlb trends into our minors. Considering the rapid pace of improvement or overhaul within player development currently happening, it will be difficult to know if the sox are keeping up. But they did not just sit on their hands and ignore it, so he does deserve some credit.

But, when teams are supplying the same major league resources across their minors, we would see it impact the performance of the sox players in the minors if they didn't adjust. So to some extent the positive regression we are seeing in places like Birmingham, and anecdotal notes on Rutherfords video consumption in Fegans latest piece, are showing an org at least close to giving the prospects what they need.

There is also just a sample issue here on the AZL that I've often come back to with whether the sox can develop young talent: they haven't really tried. so their notable mistakes are more notable because they are the only examples. 

 

[bmags]

Y2Jimmy let me turn this into a futuresox piece and dealt with my crappy table images. I’ve been on vacation but thought some may still enjoy a more updated list. Cheers

http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2019/07/desert-oasis-putting-the-young-performers-in-the-arizona-league-in-context/

[TomPickle]

 

[Dominikk85]

When tools and performance coincide at a young age it is definitely a good sign. That is no guarantee either but if you have a good k to bb ratio, some pop and good tools at a young age it means a high ceiling and a decent floor which is quite rare. 

 

Of Course it is a low level but if there are tools and young age it is much likelier to transfer to higher levels than if an older polished player does it. That's why franco became a top10 prospect almost immediately after showing some early low  level performance because he was a high signing with top of the scale tools.

Btw cj abrams looks really good so far albeit in rookie ball batting over 400 with 8% Ks and 2 bombs. Vaughn of course has been doing great too although he was also expected to do this more because he is older and more polished. Still it doesn't mean drafting vaughn is a mistake even if abrams turns out better because this early performance by abrams is already some plus outcome while vaughn was expected to do it so that is some risk that went right for the padres.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

On 7/4/2019 at 1:33 PM, bmags said:

It has been mentioned that AZL has been fun, it has been. AZL has often sucked while Great Falls was the fun one, where we sent older college prospects to face competition likely worse than what they just played against and laughed as they dominated.

But the real progress we are seeing in AZL this year is about getting earlier production from Intl and HS prospects, though we just have not had a lot of HS prospects in general.

A major caveat here is the rankings are based on qualified batters, so in some cases I fill in the gaps.

I make a line in the sand in age to make a cohort 18 and younger for the rank columns, and total rank is for all players. What we see: Jose Rodriguez is producing really well! Will it matter? Well who knows. But the "suck in AZL and then be great" hasn't been a great route either.

2019 performers, wrc+, rank (total in class), rank (cohort)

The noticeable thing? Jose Rodriguez and Gladney both top ten in their cohort. Ramos just after that. Lost in this is Diaz, who is only at 50 PAs, but would be basically our best by wrc+  (he's at like 195)

2018

Weaver and Comas were both respectable in being over 100, and both are doing fine in Great Falls. Mieses is performing way better this year.

2017

We were so pumped for Lenyn Sosa! He survived at 17 and dude keeps surviving. That's because this is a taste of what we looked at before

2016

Woof. And that was an improvement from 2015, when Nunez as a 17 year old had a .365 OPS, Alfaro had a .436 ops, Adolfo had a .636 ops and felix mercedes had a .625 ops.

So, how does this fare against all players in AZL, from 2016-2019?

Notice I included bush, who was so freakin good they moved him up right away.

DJ Gladney, Ramos, Rodriguez all stick out, all top 6 in their literal ages, and top 15 in the 18 and under cohort. Bush would have led all of them had he stayed down at that same pace.

So who are the league leaders 18 and under during this time?

How did Tatis the Traded do?

He had a 107 wrc+ as a 17 year old in AZL.

Now, we know Abrams story, Ruiz is a top prospect for Royals, and the Giants have a bunch of high bonus latam players like Luciano who look awesome.

Does this mean these guys will be top 10 prospects? No, but considering how few of the low production younger players we saw come through, and how Bush and Sosa who survived/thrived look like they can develop into top 20 guys, this means we may be really finding depth and improving latam scouting and drafting. And hopefully player dev.

Let's see what happens next.

hurry give Hahn your list so he knows who to choose when he trades for lottery tickets.;)  Great job !

Edited July 30, 2019 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside