Top Rated Farm Systems--Fox Sports

[Flash Tizzle]

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5418188

 

Grading the top farm systems

 

As you've probably noticed, for the last several weeks we've been counting down our list of the top 100 prospects in baseball.

 

Top 100 prospects for 2006 ...

 

Dayn Perry is counting down the Top 100 youngsters in the game. Check back weekly as we get closer to No. 1.

 

Last week, we wrapped it up by bestowing top honors upon outfielder Delmon Young of the Devil Rays. This time around, we'll put the finishing touches on the prospect countdown by taking a look at the systems as a whole and how they've graded out.

 

While evaluating systems based on the top 100 prospects in all of baseball leaves out a few key elements (namely, the depth of a particular system), it will provide a decent thumbnail idea of which organization's minor league corps is the best.

 

For starters, let's rank each system based on how many prospects they placed in the top 100:

 

As you can see, the Dodgers stand above the fray in this regard, and the D-Backs and Marlins are right behind them with eight prospects each among the top 100. The Jays, Cards, Mets, Reds, Rockies and White Sox, meanwhile, have not a single prospect in the top 100.

 

Top 100 prospects per team

Team  Prospects

Dodgers  9

D-Backs, Marlins  8

Indians  7

Angels  6

Brewers, Cubs  5

Pirates, Red Sox, Twins  4

Braves, Mariners, Orioles, Padres, Rangers, Royals  3

A's, Astros, Devil Rays, Giants, Nationals, Phillies, Tigers, Yankees  2

Blue Jays, Cardinals, Mets, Reds, Rockies, White Sox  1

 

While depth is important, it's also vital to have at least a handful of top-shelf young players in the system. Those with two or fewer in the top 100 don't have as many premium prospects as they should. Those with five or more, on the other hand, are in good shape in terms of high-end talent.

 

Let's switch gears a bit and bring prospect ranking into the calculations. To do this, we'll devise a quick-and-dirty point system for the top 100. And I do mean "quick-and-dirty."

 

We'll award 100 points for the top spot in rankings, 99 for the second spot, 98 for the third sport and so forth, all the way down to one point for the 100th-ranked prospect.

 

Below, we ranked the organizations based on their point total for each prospect in the top 100. Here's the results:

 

Prospect rankings by team

Ranking  Team  Points

1.  Diamondbacks  529

2.  Dodgers  462

3.  Marlins  391

4.  Angels  335

5.  Indians  278

6.  Red Sox  255

7.  Royals  238

8.  Pirates  215

9.  Brewers  199

10.  Twins  172

11.  Mariners  171

12.  Cubs  144

13.  Nationals  143

14.  Tigers  139

15.  Orioles  132

16.  Phillies  130

17.  Braves  118

18.  Yankees  117

19.  Devil Rays  116

20.  Padres  111

21.  Rangers  96

22.  A's  88

23.  Rockies  87

24.  Mets  85

T-25.  Cardinals, Giants  83

27.  White Sox  64

28.  Blue Jays  37

29.  Astros  22

30.  Reds  10

 

As you can see, in the point system, the Diamondbacks leapfrog the Dodgers into the top spot.

 

Other observations:

 

# NL Central clubs occupy three of the bottom five spots. That's good news for the Brewers, who rank in the top 10 and have young talents like Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy already in Milwaukee.

 

# Don't be fooled by the D-Rays' modest ranking. A number of talented youngsters — B.J. Upton, Scott Kazmir, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli and Jonny Gomes — have already exhausted their rookie status and thus were ineligible for the top 100. If you expand it to pre-arbitration-eligible talent, the Rays have the best system in the AL.

 

# Speaking of players who had previously exhausted their rookie status, Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez, were he still a prospect, would've been a ridiculously easy choice for No. 1.

 

# As profoundly impressive as Arizona's prospects already are, keep in mind that they'll enjoy the 11th overall pick of this June's draft. Good times ahead for Snake fans.

 

# The Blue Jays' "college players or death" approach to the draft clearly isn't working. They've picked in the upper half (or thereabouts) of the first round in every draft since J.P. Ricciardi took over as GM, yet they have the worst farm system in the AL and haven't graduated any high-ceiling talents to the major leagues. It's time for a more diverse approach.

I'm sure I'll hear "the method for evaluation is absurd," or, "We had the Top Rated System in 2000--how did that go?" IMO, none of the team rankings appear unreasonable. The analysis (while not BP quality) suggests trades done this season by Williams decimated our minor league system. If we reep the rewards of another World Series championship, however, none of this will matter.

 

It's interesting to note that if you were to judge talent according to the point system provided within Perry's article, holding onto Giovanny and Young would have propelled our ranking from 27th to 8th. Even higher than my beloved Twins minor league club. Philadelphia would move down to 27th, Diamondbacks to the 2nd position.

 

Another noteable name:

 

62. Cesar Carillo, RHP, Padres, 21

Acquired: 1st round, 2005, U. of Miami

 

Carillo is very close to being ready for the majors. He boasts a low-90s fastball with good movement and a hammer curve, plus a changeup — that's a full arsenal. On the downside, his lean frame may cause durability issues down the road. Last season, Carillo showed exceptional command at two levels, and he'll open the 2006 season back at Mobile. He could be a member of the Padres' rotation for good by September. Consider this a conservative ranking.

[SSH2005]

We just traded away three highly rated prospects this offseason. Shouldn't this have been expected?

[Flash Tizzle]

We just traded away three highly rated prospects this offseason.  Shouldn't this have been expected? 

Yes. I don't know who's debating that point. I'm certaintly not.

 

These rankings posted on Fox Sports merely prove the impact of losing Young and Gonzalez using a simplistic point system. Haigwood wasn't included on the list, but can't be discounted.

 

I don't believe anyone can doubt we're in trouble short term concerning overall talent. So goes the risk when attempting to repeat as World Series champions. I'm not questioning Williams motive, so there's no need to go through a debate of "would you rather have a good system or a champsionship?" Aside from Sweeney, Owens, and possibly Fields (although all have their question marks), the depth in our system right not is not pretty. Right now being the key point. All three may be major league contributers one day, but not immediately.

[Gene Honda Civic]

So we only quote Dayn Perry when he's making a point for us? I thought he was the anti-christ of Soxtalk.

[Flash Tizzle]

It's not merely his own worthless opinions in this instance. I'm sure he enlisted help from outside sources to compile the list.

 

If there's another website out there which suggests otherwise of our minor league system, someone can post it. Cheat, has Baseball Prospectus, Hardball Times, or any other baseball orientated website said differently?

[Gene Honda Civic]

It's not merely his own worthless opinions in this instance. I'm sure he enlisted help from outside sources to compile the list.

 

If there's another website out there which suggests otherwise of our minor league system, someone can post it. Cheat, has Baseball Prospectus, Hardball Times, or any other baseball orientated website said differently?

I believe the BA book ranked had us 12th overall before the departure of Young. That's what I was told when it was being put together, but I didn't get the book, so I can't tell you for sure.

 

We were in the same boat in before the 2003 season, when all of our pitching prospects who had us as the top ranked system in 2000 proved to be busts. I hadn't joined up here, but I was reading. At that time even Jason and the futuresox boys weren't arguing against us having one of the worst systems in baseball. -- We had Reed, who we got just 6 months earlier, and Borchard, and Rauch, and Honel. There was nobody else. Nobody of note anyway. -- Honel was a 20 year old who got a taste of AA, and had a minor league ERA under 3, while K'ing almost a batter per 9. In other words, he was just like Gio, who already has some injury/durability concerns surrounding him.

 

Haigwood, Young, and McCarthy were in the system, but you wouldn't have considered them prospects at that point. They weren't making any Top 10 lists. None of them had even made it to "A"-Ball yet.

 

I'm not disputing that the system looks thin right now. The point is there are guys you don't even know about who are going to rocket through the system. There are going to be draft picks who help replenish what we've lost. The turn around is quick on these things. And as we know from our top rated system of 2000, these ranking don't really mean all that much anyways.

[SSH2005]

Great point. The whole point of the draft is to replenish farm talent every year anyways. I love KW's method. Trade away unproven talent for proven talent. I will take that method any day of the week over keeping every single prospect until they either get injured or never end up panning out. The Cubs do this with almost every pitching prospect they have and look where they are at.

[SSH2005]

By the way, anyone want Dayn Perry's autograph?

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/events/

The Baseball Prospectus 2006/Baseball Between the Numbers Spring Tour

 

Come join your friendly neighborhood Baseball Prospectus authors for an evening of baseball talk, book signing, and heartwarming lessons we can all grown on as we celebrate the release of not one but two new books. Watch this space for added events!

 

Chicago —March 30, 5:30 pm

DePaul University Bookstore

1 East Jackson Blvd.

Chicago , IL 60614

Author(s): Nate Silver, Dayn Perry, Rany Jazayerli.

I know I'll be there! Someone should bring him a photo of Podsednik to sign.

Edited March 18, 2006 by SSH2005

[WhiteSoxfan1986]

We just traded away three highly rated prospects this offseason.  Shouldn't this have been expected? 

 

I kind of expected us to be higher than 27th. I will put much more stock into BA's rankings.

[YASNY]

Having been a Sox fan for over 40 years, I really don't care that KW 'decimated' our ml system. He got us a World Championship. I've seen generations of prospects, one after another, come to the club and bust. He achieved what all other Sox GM's have failed to do. I don't feel another WSC is needed to justify the 'decimation' of the farm system. I'm glad he's going for it and all that, but suffer through 4 decades of futility before striking gold, and then tell how important the 'prospects' are.

[GoodAsGould]

It seems every other post you make Yasny it has something to do with how long you been a whitesox fan.... I think we get it

[SSH2005]

Having been a Sox fan for over 40 years, I really don't care that KW 'decimated' our ml system.  He got us a World Championship.  I've seen generations of prospects, one after another, come to the club and bust.  He achieved what all other Sox GM's have failed to do.  I don't feel another WSC is needed to justify the 'decimation' of the farm system.  I'm glad he's going for it and all that, but suffer through 4 decades of futility before striking gold, and then tell how important the 'prospects' are.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Agreed.

[Balta1701]

Great point.  The whole point of the draft is to replenish farm talent every year anyways.  I love KW's method.  Trade away unproven talent for proven talent.  I will take that method any day of the week over keeping every single prospect until they either get injured or never end up panning out.  The Cubs do this with almost every pitching prospect they have and look where they are at.

Um, I think in response to that, it's also worth noting that another thing which helped "Decimate" our farm system (to use other people's words) is the fact that currently 3 and Soone to be 4 guys from our minor leagues will have come up to the big leagues within the last year to fill key roles, BA, Jenks, BMac, etc. That takes a decent chunk out of your minor leagues too, but they're not guys who are being traded away.

 

KW's mastery, IMO, has been not only in using prospects to get players, but using them to get players and cash in some circumstances, and then using some of them to fill in other holes. I.e. He traded away a couple of prospects and created a hole in order to get Thome and a metric f***ton of cash, but he held onto another prospect who will make the league minimum for several years. He traded away a key outfield guy to get Vazquez, but doing so makes it so that BMac has more time to acclimate to the big leagues, helps our team this year, and all without forcing us to find another outfielder in FA. He's held onto other guys (Sweeney, Fields, Owens) who may be needed to fill in key spots for us within the next few years.

 

He's traded away a bunch of talent, but he picks his guys and holds onto them, and when they work their way in, they save a ton of cash. So he's not just doing 1 thing...he's playing a balancing game, trying to bring youth onto the squad while still trying to pull in veterans. And it's worked very very well.

[Jordan4life_2007]

Having been a Sox fan for over 40 years, I really don't care that KW 'decimated' our ml system.  He got us a World Championship.  I've seen generations of prospects, one after another, come to the club and bust.  He achieved what all other Sox GM's have failed to do.  I don't feel another WSC is needed to justify the 'decimation' of the farm system.  I'm glad he's going for it and all that, but suffer through 4 decades of futility before striking gold, and then tell how important the 'prospects' are.

 

This thread should've ended with this post. Some people are just never satisfied. Prospects? Are you kidding me? Ask Cubs fans what they would rather have. A loaded farm system or a World Series title with a legitimate chance for another? Actually, some of those idiots might actually choose a loaded farm system. Anyway, keep doing what you're doing Kenny.

[santo=dorf]

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Mar 18, 2006 -> 03:24 AM)

By the way, anyone want Dayn Perry's autograph? 

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/events/

I know I'll be there!  Someone should bring him a photo of Podsednik to sign. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Or print out one of his articles.

 

As if it isn't clear that BP is a waste of money, here's something from Dayn's Archive:

 

According to Baseball Prospectus, after the exciting win in Game 4, the Red Sox now have a 9.1 percent chance of prevailing in the ALCS and a 4.0 percent chance of winning the World Series ... If the Red Sox stay alive by winning Game 5, then SP Curt Schilling, despite his injured ankle, will start Game 6 in New York ... The Yankees may be poised to make SP Pedro Martinez, a pending free agent and Boston's starter for Game 5, a three-year, $45-million offer this off-season ... DH David Ortiz is batting an even .500 in the 2004 postseason. 2B Mark Bellhorn, meanwhile, is batting .080 ... CL Keith Foulke has yet to allow an earned run this postseason.

Link

[Randar68]

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5418188

I'm sure I'll hear "the method for evaluation is absurd," or, "We had the Top Rated System in 2000--how did that go?" IMO, none of the team rankings appear unreasonable. The analysis (while not BP quality) suggests trades done this season by Williams decimated our minor league system. If we reep the rewards of another World Series championship, however, none of this will matter.

 

It's interesting to note that if you were to judge talent according to the point system provided within Perry's article, holding onto Giovanny and Young would have propelled our ranking from 27th to 8th. Even higher than my beloved Twins minor league club. Philadelphia would move down to 27th, Diamondbacks to the 2nd position.

 

Another noteable name:

 

This article was totally preposterous. An entire farm system rated just by top 100 players rated by a couple of services.

 

The same services that generally don't rate or under-rate prospects at the lower levels (which constitute 1/2 to 2/3rds of the entire system).

 

Lumsden wasn't healthy and he's a better prospect when healthy than Gio. Sweeney has been generally underrated in the past 12 months and Fields has been discsounted because of a rough first full-season (albeit in AA)...

 

I'm not as concerned about our farm system as some of you are. We are in the 15-20 range in the overall scheme of things IMO. 27? Puhlease.

 

Oh, and by the way... Robert Valido is a better prospect than at least half the guys on his top 100 list.

Edited March 20, 2006 by Randar68

[Flash Tizzle]

This article was totally preposterous.  An entire farm system rated just by top 100 players rated by a couple of services.

 

The same services that generally don't rate or under-rate prospects at the lower levels (which constitute 1/2 to 2/3rds of the entire system).

 

Brian Anderson and Brandon McCarthy aren't included, which is fine, but they've yet to make their mark in the majors.  Lumsden wasn't healthy and he's a better prospect when healthy than Gio.  Sweeney has been generally underrated in the past 12 months and Fields has been discsounted because of a rough first full-season (albeit in AA)...

 

I'm not as concerned about our farm system as some of you are.  We are in the 15-20 range in the overall scheme of things IMO.  27?  Puhlease.

I can't disagree with the simplistic system used to evaluate players. With his connections to Baseball Prospectus I assumed Perry wasn't merely deciding which players have received hype, and blindly placing their name on an arbitrary talent list.

 

Honestly, after about #20, you have to be guessing who goes where. How can people decide the difference between #60 and #85?

 

It just happens the Foxsports article was the only one I've come across (without subsciption) which rates the minor league system of teams overall. I invited whoemver had conflicting assessments to post them. What gave it creedence, IMO, is the top and bottom teams appeared to fit my understanding of most talented/least talented systems.

[YASNY]

It seems every other post you make Yasny it has something to do with how long you been a whitesox fan.... I think we get it 

 

Get past the "how long I've been a Sox fan" and focus on the point that the length of my Soxfandom is brought up to emphasize. Then maybe you'll 'get it'.

[whitesoxfan101]

I'm just going to enjoy the fact we had the top ranked major league system at the last week of October last season, and we made that system better this offseason.

Edited March 22, 2006 by whitesoxfan101

[Soxbadger]

Im glad YASNY brings a different perspective.

 

Its much different for a Sox fan who prior to last year might be thinking they would never see a World Series win in their life time.

[BlackBetsy]

Having been a Sox fan for over 40 years, I really don't care that KW 'decimated' our ml system.  He got us a World Championship.  I've seen generations of prospects, one after another, come to the club and bust.  He achieved what all other Sox GM's have failed to do.  I don't feel another WSC is needed to justify the 'decimation' of the farm system.  I'm glad he's going for it and all that, but suffer through 4 decades of futility before striking gold, and then tell how important the 'prospects' are.

 

Agreed. Moreover, we all tend to overrate Sox prospects b/c we fall in love with them. Prospects are just that - some pan out, some don't. Jeremy Reed looked like a world beater in AA in 2003, but look at how he's struggling in the majors - he's an average to below average offensive performer in centerfield. And I thought he was the bomb.

 

That said, Chris Young was pretty much my favorite position player prospect of the last 10 years or so. The Sox have had some pretty high-ceiling prospects in the last few years, and that's a credit to the club. Even more to their credit, they kept Brandon McCarthy, who may be the highest ceiling of them all.

[Gene Honda Civic]

Here you go Flash....

 

White Sox ranked 14th best farm system by Baseball America

[SpringfieldFan]

What's the concern? With his ML roster, KW has the tools to practically fill in whatever minor league rating he wants. If he really needed minor league talent, heck, he could just trade one of the six starters for it. Presto - in one day its an elite rated system again. It isn't a far-fetched theory, either. When this roster shows it cannot bring home the trophy anymore, you will start seeing all the minor league prospect you want.

 

SFF

Edited April 17, 2006 by SpringfieldFan