Minor League Games - Thursday, August 2, 2018

[Clawsgirl22]

Parkinson to Clearwater... brown to Lakewood

[schooldoc]

The other, supposedly more "exciting" promotion did not, in fact, happen today. If Medina pitches well tomorrow, I suspect it could be his last Threshers start though. We'll see.

[saycheese]

This is very accurate. We are very deep but just lack the upper blue chip prospects. Now that can change some especially if Bohm gets back and plays some this year and players like Randolph (who is young for AA) have the light go on. A guy like Gowdy who is rated in the mid 20's was a 2nd round pick and his rating is most likely due to not playing this year. If he comes back and shows his potential he could easy break into the top 10.

[Austinfan]

Hoskins and Martin show the difficulty of projecting prospects, both college 1B, Martin 4th rd 2015 ["Could be a fast mover and seems right in line with 2014 pick Rhys Hoskins"] and LH to boot, Hoskins 5th rd 2014. Who'd have thought four years later Martin is headed to a new profession and Hoskins to a perennial Allstar game spot.

[Squire]

...and right on cue MLB.com releases their current Top 10 systems and we are not on it.

[andyb]

With significant graduations and no obvious hits on recent high picks it is not a surprise we get downgraded. There is more depth there and that is certainly important, but it is hard to say how valuable that depth is until we see top 10-20 prospects emerge from it. This is part of the reason why spending to the international max is really important, especially as we embark on an era when we don't have picks in the top 10 or even 15. The current record of Randolph, Moniak, Gowdy (counts as a number 1 because of bonus level), Haseley and Bohm is pretty underwhelming even if there are signs of life from Moniak and Haseley. Those guys are playing better but still not up to the expectations of a top pick or a top 10 pick.

[fish]

With significant graduations and no obvious hits on recent high picks it is not a surprise we get downgraded. There is more depth there and that is certainly important, but it is hard to say how valuable that depth is until we see top 10-20 prospects emerge from it. This is part of the reason why spending to the international max is really important, especially as we embark on an era when we don't have picks in the top 10 or even 15. The current record of Randolph, Moniak, Gowdy (counts as a number 1 because of bonus level), Haseley and Bohm is pretty underwhelming even if there are signs of life from Moniak and Haseley. Those guys are playing better but still not up to the expectations of a top pick or a top 10 pick.

That kind of failure to execute makes it hard to sustain a turnaround for the big league club. Pretty disappointing that for all the money and effort they are putting into the system, the methods haven't resulted in any new cream rising to the top.

[Squire]

I'd also like to point out that the only critical words of Johnny Almaraz and/or Joe Jordan are written on this board.

Everyone just chalks up Randolph....Moniak.....Haseley to "well its a crap shoot"

[baseballoldie]

Wouldn't 20 some teams passing on Mike trout kind of support that it's a "crap shoot"? And even though the Angels got trout, they haven't been able to surround him with other home grown players that have led to a championship. The Angels farm has historically been near the bottom which would also support that it's kind of a crap shoot. I'd be interested in seeing who has been the best at drafting players the last 5-10 years.

[Austinfan]

Any one player is a crap shoot, a sizeable sample is scouting.

But the Phillies are a funny team, not only have they struggled with 1st rd picks (though it's way too early on Haseley and Moniak, and even Randolph is showing signs of life), but how many of their big money >$1M Latin players have made it?

They did a very good job however trading for prospects, Eflin, Pivetta, Velasquez, Arano, Willams, Alfaro.
And they do a good job with bargain basement LA players.

[andyb]

how many of their big money >$1M Latin players have made it?

There are not many of those. Encarnacion was a failure. Ortiz and Garcia are doing well but way too soon to tell.

On the other hand we have had some success in the $500K-$1 million range. Guys like Grullon and Pujols look pretty good for their bonus level at this point. Gamboa, Morales, Brayan Gonzalez and Nicolas Torres look pretty good from recent years too. Your argument that spending money on the top 10-20 prospects is not worth it really does not have a whole lot of data behind it. We are doing better on our higher dollar signees now.

There is also a huge difference in the draft between the top 10 and picking towards the end of the first round. And it really looks like they are going to net a below average set of talent from that group. That is why our system ranking is going down no matter how you want to explain it away. Yes we have had graduations the past two years that have hurt our system rank. But we have also been picking at the top of the draft, a fact that should help our system standing. And the bargain basement signings do not make up for that. All teams have some success with low dollar and late round signings.

We may be a bit better than average there, but really you have no clue about that because all teams get talent late and with low dollar international signings. An argument saying we do well there is basically an argument to ignore the failures at the top of the draft.

[Austinfan]

The top 20 in LA get more than $1M.
$500K gets you players in the #50 area.
Gamboa, Gonzales are meh right now so is Brito, Torres is the only one living up to his hype.
We spent a lot of money on Morales, and he's off to a slow start.

The best LA players in the minor leagues:
AAA: Suarez
AA - Grullon $575K, Canelo, E Garcia, Rivero
A+ - Gamboa $900K, Pujols $540K, S Sanchez, Medina $70K, Llovera, Russo,
A - Duran, Rodriquez $100K, Brito $650K, Cumana, Ortiz $4.2M, Muzzioti $750K, J Garcia
R+ - L Rodriquez $300K, Marchan $200K, B Gonzalez $900K, Guzman $60K, Morales $720K, Silva $100K

[julio]

Torres is the only one living up to his hype.

Hype? Baseball America writes a bit about these guys, but there's precious little else.

It often seems that some phans' expectations are largely a product of their own fertile imaginations.

[andyb]

So much wrong here it is hard to know where to start. The fact that you think Nicolas Torres is better than guys like Brito and Brayan Gonzalez shows you just don't understand any of the age versus level stuff. It kind of matters that Torres had an extra year in the DSL (and may be less good defensively) than guys like Brito and Gonzalez.

And just because some low dollar signees become better prospects doesn't mean that high dollar guys are still not more likely to be prospects and more likely to be stars.

And when you throw a complete non-prospect like Cumana on a list it shows you completely do not understand anything about tools and experience. Tools matter. It is why guys like Pujols get better and guys like Cumana really have only a slim chance. Guys like Llovero and Rivero and Canelo and Russo are not great prospects either. But put them on a list next to the higher dollar guys and I guess they are just as good.

The fact is that we have done pretty well in the $500K-$1 million range in terms of the percentage of players signed in that range become decent prospects. Between Grullon and Pujols, Gamboa, Brito, and Arauz, Muzzioti and Brayan Gonzalez and Francisco Morales. Even go back to Tocci. These guys are getting to AA and AAA or are on a path to do so. Some will make the majors, some will not. But just about all of them are showing up as real prospects. Think of them as 3rd-6th round picks because that is what their bonus level is.

[Austinfan]

They're not decent prospects until they produce, until then they're just "names."
That is, someone projected them at 16 years old and they haven't yet fallen off the earth.
All of these prospects have a "slim chance" until they get to Clearwater (pitchers) or Lakewood (hitters) and produce.

Right now Gamboa, Brito and Gonzalez haven't hit, and the last good field, no hit LA player we had was your favorite whipping boy (probably because Galvis never got a big bonus or made one of those lists of top LA prospects).

Prospects rating in the long run are crap, the only thing that matters is making the majors, over the last 8 years or so: Hernandez, Galvis, Franco, Ramos, Neris, Garcia, made it to the majors. Kilome was traded, Encarnacion cut, S Gonzalez moved for a bag of baseballs, Pinto had a cup of coffee. Villar, Santana traded and made it, Arauz?

[tom81]

That kind of failure to execute makes it hard to sustain a turnaround for the big league club. Pretty disappointing that for all the money and effort they are putting into the system, the methods haven't resulted in any new cream rising to the top.

One of the benifits of having a contending team that is the youngest team in the majors is that we really don’t need much in the way of reinforcements to sustain the turnaround. We don’t start having to worry about losing guys to free agency till 2022 when Nola and Valasquez become eligible. With so many young guys under team control we also have a low payroll and can afford to patch holes that develop via free agency. I’m not concerned that there is no stud position player in AAA knocking on the door, those guys are already here. The guys in the lower levels will develop and be ready when needed.

[Austinfan]

We may not have anyone this yearr (Though Cozens has gotten hot, Quinn is looking like he belongs, Valentin should be back next year), but Reading is starting to fill up, so position players should be arriving in 2019 and 2020 (Grullon, Listi/Hall, Haseley, Pujols, Hernandez). The young IFs should be knocking on the door by 2021-22.

The key is keeping the flow into A ball, both doing a better job at the top of the draft, but also the later top ten draft picks and the lower cost LA ($100 to $500K) signings, as well as a few LA "finds."

The "donut" should fill in the next two years if the A ball players are for real.