We’re basically at the end of “Prospect Season” now … and the last of the major pundits (mlbpipeline.com) has published its org rankings. We talked about the Nats system top X in a previous post, now here’s a more macro view on how our system looks in general.
Short answer: “Not Good, Bob!”
(TV reference, anyone?)
Anyway. Here’s links to the major pundits and their system rankings:
- MLBpipeline.com (Jim Callis, Johnathan Mayo): Nats #29
- MILB.com (Sam Dykstra) : Nats #26
- Athletic.com (Keith Law): Nats #29
- Baseball America: Nats #24
I havn’t seen anything from Fangraphs (i’m not sure they do entire system rankings), Baseball Prospectus now has their entire site behind a paywall, ESPN is in a transition year after Law left, and John Sickels at the Athletic (who has done rank ings in the past) seems to have re-focused his attentions for now, so we’re down to these four major pundits.
I’ve seen a couple other rankings (one from Bleacher Report, another from Myworldofbaseball.com) that are mostly driven by the rankings of the top prospects in each system, which is a somewhat limited way to view an entire system comprised of hundreds of prospects. If a system has (say) three top 100 players that are sure fire MLBers then absolutely nothing else in the time line … how strong is that “system” in general? I’d rather have a ton of percolating talent than having a top heavy system. This generally describes why there’s sometimes wild differences in the way systems are ranked, especially in the Law rankings (b/c he’s heavy on ceiling and is the anti-famous
Nats observations: Both MLB and Law have the Nats at #29. MLB says that “trades and free agent signings” have led the system to be depleted. Law says the team “worked the heck out of the system” in trades to acquire players. Neither mention the poor drafting at the top levels over the past seasons (as I laid out in a previous post). MILB and BA are a bit more friendly, perhaps because they still think rather highly of some of our more “famous” prospects (Romero, Mendoza, Antuna etc).
Overall system ranking observatiosn:
- Everyone has Tampa #1. Pretty scary given that they won 96 games in a very difficult division last year.
- There’s generally a consensus on the rest of the top 5 farms: San Diego (who was #1 last year by most rankers), LA Dodgers, Atlanta are mostly considered for top 5 by the pundits.
- There’s a huge disconnect between Law and the rest of the industry on some of the systems: he has Detroit far lower than others, while he has the Yankees and St. Louis generally far higher than others.
- but at the bottom end of the rankings, also some consistency: Milwaukee is dead-last on every list. Washington, Colorado, Houston, Cincinnati and Boston also generally at the bottom.
Its ok to be at the Bottom of these rankings if you’ve used your system to get to a WS title. Washington, Houston, Boston are definitely in this category. Cincinnati has really shredded their depth lately to stock up and make a run, so their low ranking is understandable. Colorado’s location here is a bit more of an indictment of their approach lately.
Its incredible that the two wealthiest teams (Yankees and Dodgers) continue to not only win 100+ games but maintain among the strongest farm systems. How does this happen? They both should have the least amount of assets to leverage in the draft and the IFA market (by virtue of having the smallest bonus pools for being among the best teams), yet they both continue to churn out prospect after prospect. They’re both clearing doing something right.
Lastly its notable that a couple of the serial “tankers” of late (Baltimore, Miami, and Seattle in particular) have made huge strides in their system rankings over the past couple of years. They’re on the Houston and Chicago Cubs plan of bottoming out to build back up. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes in the next few years.