Phillies Prospect Lists

[allentown]

But most players on the top ten lists ended up as flops.

The vast majority of minor leaguers end up as flops. The majority of actual stars were rated. Many successful major leaguers fall in between those extremes. I think how a major league organization perceives its minor league talent does impact the ratings. The Phillies consistently talked down Howard -- this wasn't for strategic benefit, they actually did not value him, repeatedly trying to trade him cheap.

A lot of top 10 lists really are weak. Look at all the guys on our top 10 lists for this winter who have major issues, starting with the injury questions around our #1. As many top-rated pitching prospects seem to fail because of injury as all other reasons combined. Guys like Carrasco, and to a lesser extent Biddle, have made it but their arrival was greatly delayed because of injury.

[Austinfan]

And that's my point, there are only a few "sure things" among prospects, and Crawford was generally considered one of them. Even on the top 10 lists, most will flop, while some of the players in the 30-50 range will rise rapidly as they physically mature or make a change in swing mechanics or develop a secondary pitch.

So while you'd like to land uber talents, there's a lot of luck involved, but if you maintain serious prospect depth and a good development staff, you can create some luck.

I think Howard was very similar to Hoskins, college 1B who were underrated b/c you have to hit so much to have value at 1B, and how many prospects turn out to be .900 OPS guys?

[allentown]

Players are expected to develop as they mature. More years and pitchers are expected to have the 3rd pitch, etc. That is why part of the criteria for lots of lists is proximity to MLB. Just being the same guy with normal, unsurprising rate of develop will move you up the rankings -- both from proximity, but also from the guys on top of you either making it to MLB or aging out, or falling off by injuries. It takes a lot more scouted talent to make the top 10, or top 5, out of GCL than out of Reading. Garcia was a top-rated youngster, who put up excellent numbers in GCL. He made the list. Guys in GCL with as much scouted talent as listed guys are going to have to achieve greater proximity with the same skills, normal development to make the list. This isn't bad list development, it's normal blending of risk and ceiling in the ratings.

Ryan Howard didn't put up the sort of numbers in the low minors, which would put him on a top 10, without proximity, especially since he had a poor collegiate draft year. It was his AA/AAA/MLB age-24 season which gave him both a big dose of proximity, plus stats which popped for the first time in his career. 48 HRs in a season have a way of doing that.

[andyb]

It is kind of a meaningless point. You imply guys outside of the top 10 have a better chance of success and that just is not true. I would venture that somewhere around half of top 10 prospects end up with some sort of major league career beyond a cup of coffee. That is actually pretty good. It is hard to define the Phillies roster from last year but more than three quarters of the players were top 10 prospects. Probably more than 80%.

You keeping making this nonsensical point that all prospects do not succeed. Of course that is true. It is also true though that it is very rare that non-top 10 prospects (at any point in their career) become solid major league regulars. So if top 10 prospects have a 50% chance of making it and everybody else has a 5%-10% chance, wouldn't you want to have better top 10 prospects.

Depth is important. But probably less important than hitting on top picks and high priced international talent. All your posts do is try to avoid the point that the minor league system is midlevel at best. Missing on high number 1s matters if you miss several years in a row and you seem to be avoiding that reality by trying to change the subject.

[allentown]

Yes, the first and 2nd rounders are critical. They are also the fairest way of judging the regional cross-checkers and front-office staff. Why wouldn't the guys on whom the bulk of the bonus budget is spent be the place one should look to and expect to find future stars. Not every one of them will make it, especially if you are picking H.S. kids but there are 3 salient points: these are the guys the organization loved the most, this is where almost all the money went, this is where the cross-checkers and front-office opinions are felt. When a guy farther down the draft, other than round 11. makes it, it is more often than not kudos to an individual area scout. Success in spite of, more than because of, the higher ups in the organization. To me, it is very rational to judge the ability of the guys up the scouting and general manager ladder based upon the first two rounds. Same with Latin American scouting. When a few guys stand out for size of bonus -- those are the guys that TPTB have fallen in love with. They may be the only signees that state-side management has significant eyes-on personal knowledge of. With a $1 million bonus, the quick failure of Encarnacion is a significant deal. If Ortiz doesn't make it, that will be a REALLY big deal. It is one thing to be able to identify a raft of good mid-level undeveloped talents for small-medium bonuses. It is a very different thing to be able to identify the likely super stars. We obviously gave that designation to Ortiz, hence the blow-out bonus. Toronto assigned that likely status to Vlad, Jr. and gave him a blow-out bonus. They hit on Vlad, Jr. The jury is still out on Ortiz. Clearly Sal and his crew, with whatever upper management overview they have to pass their choices through, do very well on pitchers and low-bonus IFs and catchers. They have yet to demonstrate that they can identify a primo position prospect. We need to be able to do that, regardless of how much mid-level depth we have on the farm. We looked at Senzel, we looked at Moniak. We seem to have made the wrong choice. Randolph = meh. Now, development may be part of the problem. But no question about it, there is a problem -- a very big problem. Jordan and 4 hitting instructors aren't gone for no reason. I'm sure the scouting side is also being looked at. Nola stands out as a brilliant recent years pick. Beyond that, who obviously stands out?

Ask any upper manager in any line of work what he thinks of lower managers who make above average $100-250K decisions, while routinely blowing the $1-4 million decisions. The answer won't be favorable, and it shouldn't be. You are supposed to focus on the big $ decisions and get them mostly right.

[Austinfan]

The importance of depth is that while the "lesser" prospects may have a lower individual probability of success, having enough legitimate prospects raises the expected value of success for the whole organization.

Only a few uber-prospects have high probabilities of success and high ceilings. And that's luck as much as skill (did every team that passed over Trout have bad scouts?).

A decade ago, one thing that characterized the Phillies farm system was a total lack of depth, once you got past the top ten lists you were often looking at dregs, players with limited ceilings at best.

So yes, they need better drafting at the top, and better targeting of LA bonus babies (but frankly, outside of 3-4 players each year, I think the rest of the top 30 are equivalent to 2nd-3rd rd picks in terms of probability of success, because projecting 16 year olds is much harder than projecting 18 year olds).

The 2000s Phillies hit on a bunch of 1st and 2nd rd picks, but little else.
The 2010s have seen some hits later in the draft, and better talent out of LA, but too many misses at top,

[allentown]

(but frankly, outside of 3-4 players each year, I think the rest of the top 30 are equivalent to 2nd-3rd rd picks in terms of probability of success, because projecting 16 year olds is much harder than projecting 18 year olds).

Vlad, Jr. and Ortiz were both top 3 bonus guys.

[schillingfan]

This argument is like arguing whether it is better to be rich or good looking? It's a false dichotomy. There's no reason not to be both. We should make good picks with the 1s and 2s AND have good depth. Having just one of our 1s be a star would make our team better. It's not a choice or an either or. We should be able to do both.

[allentown]

We do need to be able to do both and it's becoming very obvious that we are doing badly at the most important part. Individual area scouts and Sal and his crew seem to do a good job on the depth guys and likely don't have to sell hard to the higher ups to sign the guys they want. The higher ups are very involved in the big bonus signings, so that's where I place the blame. We aren't doing well with the guys the upper levels of the organization fall in love with a pay the $million+ bonuses to. It is these primo signings which are the purest reflection of organizational philosophy in choosing talent.

[andyb]

The argument is slightly different than that. Our top 10 is not that great compared to top 10s that we have had in recent years, and most likely the rest of the league. The argument that AF posits is that this does not matter because we have depth. In general, however, most decent major leaguers do get ranked in the top 10, especially after a couple of years in the system. A mediocre top 10 does matter. While our depth helps us maintain a system somewhere in the middle, it is just not a substitute for having stars.

Nobody here has ever argued that depth does not matter and that prospects can't come from anywhere, but that is another story.

[andyb]

BA Chat ongoing:
https://www.baseballamerica.com/chat/?1544450661

[bigegypt0417]

Good write-up on Luis Garcia

Just 18, Phillies shortstop prospect Luis Garcia already...

[bigegypt0417]

Matt Winkelman on Twitter

[andyb]

Which was my point on Howard. Lots of upside there, but the stats against lower level competition should be discounted somewhat when ranking him against guys like Medina.

[Austinfan]

But you missed this point:

"Now back to the flaw with Howard. He was a redshirt sophomore when the Phillies took him in the 2nd round of the 2017 draft. He was a walk on as a freshman and didn't move to the rotation until a bit into his draft year. There was a lot of inconsistency in his delivery early"

Prospects aren't cookie cutter - Howard has an unusual development path for a college draftee, he's probably a year behind most junior draftees, and that year was spent in A ball learning how to pitch. But you can't teach a high 90s FB (you can tweak mechanics for 1-2 MPH, but the rest of the jump is physical maturity).

[andyb]

I did not miss any point. Even given his relative inexperience compared to other college pitchers, his stats were in Low A ball against either younger hitters or lower level prospect.

It is you who completely miss my point. Which is that the raw stuff and projectability DO elevate his prospect status. But the performance against low A hitters is not enough to elevate him to being our 3rd best prospect. He has gone from maybe 18th (last year MLB.com) to somewhere in the 7-10 range. That recognizes his tools and inexperience. But it does not elevate him all the way to number 3 where guys like Medina and Romero have simply done more things at a younger age against better competition. Your argument is cherry-picking. My argument is balanced. You keep saying I am ignoring his performance. That is not true. I am just discounting it somewhat when asked to justify a really high ranking. As the Winkelman comment notes, we really have no idea if he will polish his slider and change (or if he will get hurt like lots of other young pitchers that touch 100). There is huge risk in any pitcher that has not gone beyond Low A. He needs to do more against age-appropriate competition to justify that type of ranking.

[zambonir]

If I didn't know what you were arguing about I could just as easily read AF's post as an argument for not ranking Howard #3, if he's a year behind a typical prospect it seems like he should be ranked lower.

Of course at the end of the day a debate over whether he's #3 (at some site I've never even read before), #6 or #8 is like debating whether Neris is better than Arano or Pivetta is better then Velasquez. No one is ranking him outside a Top 30 or something. Whereas the quality and quantity of the verbiage suggests you are debating a much bigger gulf of opinion, like whether Howard is the next Nola or the next Ben Lively. (Not that I'm against the verbiage!)

[andyb]

Spencer Howard could be the next Max Scherzer. Or he might never master his secondary pitches to the point where he is basically a AAAA starter or maybe a useful bullpen piece. Lots of ranges of outcomes. And risk.

With Sixto I feel he is almost certain to be a productive major leaguer if he is healthy (a big IF). The whole point of rankings is to rank players even if it is a silly exercise among prospects with a huge range of outcomes. Maybe the Fangraphs point of making rankings, but assigning players to a future value (i.e. 45 FV) group is a better approach. Do the simplistic ranking, but at the same time present players in broad groups that are more instructive since it is really hard to rank prospects with limited information (and we as fans have less info than scouts or reporters).

[zambonir]

Just came across this which I assume is what Winkelman was responding to.

Another coveted pitching prospect emerges in Phillies’ system

[Austinfan]

If he has a FB and slider, Howard is almost a bullpen lock with that stuff, unlike guys like Cordero, he also has good command.

Whether he's ahead or behind Medina, the age doesn't matter, as a college player he pitched a lot less than Medina, so should be expected to be behind him at the same age - but the key is whether he'll progress to being a ML pitcher, not whether he's better or worse at 22. So it's the development track that matters. Kilome was a hot prospect early on, but never progressed.