I wasn't limiting this comment to Phillies farm rankings. I was wondering how relevant they are in projecting future MLB production. Do the higher ranked systems produce significantly more MLB value than lower ranked systems?
I suspect the Phillies system wasn't highly ranked in 2011, despite that Brown was the #4 overall prospect and Jon Singleton was #30. (Kyle Drabek was #12, but I think he was a Blue Jay by then.) And the top 10 listed there produced no stars and probably single digit cumulative WAR. So if they were ranked low, that was accurate.
Boy, what we wouldn't give for the LF or CF version of Cesar Hernandez, who I think was under-appreciated in Philly. A 3 WAR OF would go a long way right now; I imagine that's what they expected/expect Hays to be.
Marsh has a 3.2 WAR.
They might have hoped Hays would add more than just a platoon bat if he could get back to his previous form (2.5 WAR last year) but obviously he was not going to add that much production in two months. They also had to know it was a long shot that he'd truly thrive against RHP.
Really, it was probably just as likely Marsh would come back around to his 2023 numbers against LHP, given the chance, as Hays would do the same against RHP.
And Rojas has 0.5 WAR in just 264 PAs. He's almost certainly played like a 2.0 WAR OF or better since his early season struggles, even if he's not hitting or looking like a Gold Glover the way he was last year (when he put up a 2.5 WAR with just 164 PAs).
Posted in the wrong thread somehow.
Completely unsubstantiated claim. Farm system rankings are likely going to act similar to top 100 or other rankings in the sense they are going to be driven by the best prospects in baseball and they are going to be tiered. There will obviously be shallow systems driven by very top prospects that are dependent on the success of that player (we know top prospects do fail), but I think you are going to see tiered success with a larger gap of success between 1 and 5 then between 5 and 10 or even 15. There is probably a drop at the end, but also these are just minor league rankings so a team like say the current Braves with a young MLB core is not going to have their success determined by minor league rankings as much as a team in a rebuild where that will be the core.
Sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant a 3-WAR OF to play alongside Marsh. I had no intention to denigrate our long-haired hero!
Gotcha. I still think Rojas is a 2 WAR player even as a .600 OPS guy, and a 3 WAR player if he puts it together completely. And Marsh probably loses 1 WAR if he's a full-time CF and hits like he has this year (versus last year).
BA League Top 20s coming out. Today the FCL. Everyone brace yourselves......
1 - Starlyn Caba, SS, Phillies
5 - Eduardo Tait, C, Phillies
11 - Aroon Escobar, 2B, Phillies
THREE in the Top 11. Oh my.
The only caveat is there are no high school number ones competing for prospect lists any more. But it is always good to see the previous international class well represented. And Aroon Escobar has been really under the radar with injuries. He seemed to show much better command of the strike zone this year when healthy along with the power and defense that we already knew about.
Systems is slowly improving and hope to see in Top 10 - I see Cardoza (another three hit day today), Jaeden Calderon, Jonathan Quinonez moving to the states next year.
We have had smaller international pools than everyone else. While a handful of international prospects will skip the DSL, most do a year there. And with our smaller pool we got 3 prospects on a 20-player list from a 15-team league.
That is punching above your weight (i.e. a really good thing).
andyb - how do the current year DSL teams look compared to years past? I am new here but have read a lot of your insightful comments on the DSL teams so just wanted to get your input
While some of those mentioned are decent prospects, next year's FCL team will probably have fewer top prospects. The big money guys (Arias, Mujica, Navas) have been hurt or had lesser years. The 17-year-olds playing well like Quinonez are less heralded (and maybe less toolsy than the top prospects). And some like Cardoza and Calderon are in their second DSL year already so in FCL they will be competing for prospect status with guys a year younger than them.
The guy that fell through the prospect list cracks is probably Alirio Ferrebus. While also repeating DSL he dominated and went to FCL and got hurt before he had enough playing time to make a list. And he could be in Clearwater next season so he'll have to compete with Tait for both playing time and prospect status.
It is also really hard to see if we have any pitching prospects. We are not spending much money on pitching and the best arm might be a guy like Pedro Peralta with no command at all now (see Matt's article about him on Phillies Minor Thoughts). Any 18-year-old arm could have a breakthrough of course. Just hard to count on it now.
With project pitchers, the breakthrough is more likely to come at 20, after a couple years filling out and adding velocity and refining secondary offerings.
The players left in the DSL are either less talented or late bloomers who will surprise simply because if they were already good enough they'd be in the US.
I am not the one asked, but it is a down year for the Phillies in the DSL. Their top Jalvin Arias has missed most of the year to injury. Cesar Mujica ($700,000) and Anderson Navas ($250,000 and touted as breakout) have both been poor offensively. I like the look of Jose Familia ($600,000), but he is extremely young and physically underdeveloped. Nathanael Cijntje ($337,500) was also supposed to be one to watch, but has missed most of the year to injury. When it comes to holdovers, Jaeden Calderon has good offensive numbers, but has some real swing and miss and is down the defensive spectrum (I have also seen him hit some balls quite hard). Victor Cardoza has been on a scorcher since moving from Red from White, but the BB and K rates give you some pause. Alirio Ferrebus was on fire for 3 weeks and that got promoted to the FCL before getting hurt. There are some other guys who physically look interesting, but they are more check back in a year.
Pitching wise there are some very interesting arms, but there aren't any guys who are real prospects yet. Eligio Arias is older and massive, but throws up to 96 with an interesting slider. Pedro Peralta has been a disaster numerically for the second straight year, but just turned 18 and is up to 98 while sitting 92-96 as a starter. Enderson Jean is an interesting RP with poor control. Joel Heredia went on a hot streak for a while and has been their best pitcher. He has a starter's mix and is up to 94. Darling Reyes is another big arm reliever with control problems. Alexander De Los Santos is still 17 and is extremely skinny, but 88-93 with a change and a slider and 2.31 ERA (actually he has been better than Heredia).
To got to the above list, there is no Caba or Tait here. Could there be a Escobar that needs two years in the DSL to develop, sure. There could be some Jean Cabrera types among the arms, maybe a hard throwing RP. It overall lacked a top guys and seems to in a bit of an ebb cycle. Something to note is that the 2023 signing class left very few secondary pieces behind (Calderon, Liranzo who was hurt, Peralta) because $3.35M of the $4.6M 23 budget went to Caba and Wen Hui Pan, which is money very well spent, but let the teams a bit young and starless.
Though we do seem to have hit on some real prospects in the secondary signings in Tait and maybe Ferrebus.
Thanks for the detail. I was more just trying to predict if anyone will make the FCL list next year and unless there are breakthroughs we are probably mainly hoping Arias can do it in a healthy second season. Hard to see any of the pitchers likely to be on the list (and betting that the vast majority of every FCL list is position players anyway).