I suspect there's only a limited correlation, b/c rankings are generally based on "name" prospects (high draft picks and bonus babies). Unknown prospects who fly up a farm system are often recognized only when they're on the verge of the majors, then they stop counting for rankings - so a high draft pick who slowly moves up the ladder helps rankings more than an obscure prospect who flies up the ladder, even though the latter is more likely to be a star.
That's why we were so excited that Muzziotti, who'd been signed by a more competent, albeit rules-violating franchise (those two things might be related!), fell into our hands.
MLB site has the top prospects of each team for each year.. not the system rankings that I can find.
Like here is the Phillies 2011 top 10
https://www.mlb.com/prospects/2011/phillies/24
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......
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.
