Not sure if I am putting this the correct thread but the Philly Inquirer has an article today about the Phils Dominican Academy. it mentions 7 players to watch. I can't get into seeing it. Anyone have any details?
gm
The seven are:
Starlyn Caba
Eduardo Tait
Alexis De La Cruz
Nolan Beltran
Aroon Escobar
Wilmer Blanco
Angel Mata
Caba and Tait are sometimes ranked in the top 10 now. Escobar was Acuna's cousin. Think he had a disappointing second season last year. Beltran was always interesting to me as a taller shortstop who was pretty inexperienced coming in (from Colombia I believer).
Tait is the scouting success coming with a $90K bonus.
21 days later
Fangraphs list out today. Only 26 prospects (they rank everyone over a certain value) so system depth has taken a hit. High ranks for Caba, Rincon, and Tait. Relatively low on Crawford. Another mention of MacFarlane TJ surgery unfortunately.
But he also had a long list of "maybe," basically saying that the future of this system depends on whether they can develop talent at the lower levels (DR, GCL, Clearwater) which they've not done a good job at in the past. Half of success is hitting on 1st rd picks and that one big money LA signing each year, the other half is finding hidden gems later in the draft and in LA. Phillies have improved in the top of the draft, maybe Caba means they'll stop wasting money in LA, but we probably won't know if they've improved in the "hidden gems" department until September.
Tait is a good sign, but they need to find and develop some cheap pitching for organizational depth. You need to find guys like SD every year or two, not once a decade.
Every list has a bunch of maybes and of course depends on how low level talent develops. Put that aside though and they rate 26 Phillies prospects at 35+ and above. The 2 other lists out had 31 and 36 and it is not uncommon for Fangraphs lists to have more than 40 prospects in an organization. The list concludes saying the organization is comfortably below-average. One of the reasons is the number of prospects we have traded (not huge but there have been more prospects going out than in) and the fact that we have lost draft picks for free agents. None of that makes the system better however.
The write-up on McGarry is really discouraging. It does seem like we are starting to lose many of our draft bets on big arms with control issues (MacFarlane, Baker, Pipkin). I don't necessarily disagree with that strategy. It is just risky even in the best of circumstances.
The other reason is the "strength" of a farm system is primarily the players a couple years from the majors. Phillies have been thin there for years, and traded a number of players in that pool. Outside of a few outliers, most players in low A and below add nothing to a system's perceived strength b/c it's too early to evaluate them. Phillies have focused on the bottom of the system the last couple years, shaking up scouting, adding developmental resources. Last year Clearwater had a great season. If progress is being made we should see improvement at Jersey Shore and continued above average play at Clearwater, if prospects develop.
One thing to watch going forward, as teams keep players in the DR longer due to roster limits, the quality of play in the DR should probably approach low A level, and the better DR players may start skipping the FCL and go straight to Clearwater.
No reason to put "strength" in quotes. Or use "perceived." It's already all there in your own analysis: the Phillies don't have good prospects at the higher levels and it's too soon to tell if they do at the lower levels (or if the new regime is working). Thus, correct to not rank them highly.
Jim Callis Mailbag features comments on Aidan Miller. Needless to say....Jim Callis is a big Aidan Miller Fan.
Yeah, a little redundant. I think this is the year we start to see if the changes instituted by Manning bear fruit. At least they're scouting better, now the next step is being able to develop 2nd and 3rd tier prospects - can they fix mechanics, teach plate discipline, improve fielding, etc. There are limits, you can't turn an average athlete into a star - but that's also where scouting/development overlap, if you scout for upside instead of floor, a good development program will turn some into stars even if most stall out in Jersey Shore (expect a higher % of outright flops if you take a riskier scouting approach).
What is the evidence we are scouting better? We have no meaningful MLB results from the "new" scouting administration.
I want to say that the Almaraz regime was so bad that it is at least clear the Barber regime has cleared that bar, but in reality three of the current starting nine - Stott, Bohm and, indirectly, Marsh (O'Hoppe) - came from those Almaraz drafts and it is indeed too soon to say anything serious is going to come of the 2020-2022 drafts (and they don't look as good on that Fangraphs write-up as they did to us even just a year ago).
But you are kind of saying their depth is a plus, when the number of good players (i.e. their depth) is also lower than most organizations.
No, I'm saying the strength of the system (as evidenced by the success in the DR and at Clearwater) is primarily in the lower levels where prospects are rarely rated highly (unless they're clearly heads and shoulders above their peers or high draft picks/bonus babies) b/c they have a limited track record. Whether these prospects will continue develop as they rise and if Manning's changes will continue this success at the lower levels remains to be seen.
Good example is O'Hoppe, no one took him seriously until his started performing at high A and AA.
But that is saying absolutely nothing. Is there any reason to believe the Phillies have more of these low level prospects than other organizations? No (and they have fewer ranked 35+ FV prospects than others so it is possible they have less lower level prospects). Is there any reason to think they have more prospects beyond those top 26 than other orgs. Again no. And how often do non-top 30 ish prospects actually make it? Hardly ever if you discount the cup of coffee guys.
So you are basically saying all the national prospect lists are wrong because of course the Phillies have more depth than other organizations in players too far away for the national rankings to notice them. And O'Hoppe was ranked 12th by Baseball America in 2019 after a year in the system so he did NOT come out of nowhere and even after the draft we knew he was an overslot bonus so he was one of the 10-15 guys in the draft to pay attention to.
There is just no reason to think the Phillies have an above average minor league system now or 2-3 years from now. The book is out on Barber still and we really have no idea if they have fixed their development issues. I hope they have. I just don't know that yet.
No. I'm saying if Manning is making a difference it wouldn't show up in these rankings yet, b/c the changes he's making are supposed to be reflected in player development and scouting - getting a high ranking quickly usually requires high draft picks and bonus pools and not screwing that up. Manning has only had 3 seasons, and he's spent the first couple revamping organization personnel and philosophy. Abel, Painter, Crawford & Miller are all ranked prospects, so is Caba, at least we're no longer whiffing badly with top assets (we hope). But later 1st rd picks and hitting on a second tier big money LA player a year isn't enough to build a top farm system.
Where it will show up is the extension of DR and Clearwater success to Jersey Shore, and the emergence of relatively unheralded prospects as they outperform expectations. That is, if a number of guys with too many question marks to be ranked as 35+ prospects (as well as those 35-40 prospects outperforming expectations) answer those questions affirmatively, it will show up on the field at lower levels and be reflected in rankings the next 2-3 seasons. The biggest boost will be to find and develop LA players on a regular basis - outside the first couple rounds the ML draft is skewed to lower upside college players b/c most of the talented HS players are either top of the draft or go to college. B/c college players are 21-23 years old, they're less likely to make big jumps.
Prospect capital is just as good as players developed into successful mlb players if they translate into trades for mlb talent, and their first round picks are routinely showing up in top 100 lists within a year after being drafted which is substantial trade capital. We can assume the turn-around would be happening faster if they prioritized the procurement amateur talent (and keeping picks and bonus money) but they don't in favor of the big league roster.
fish, that is a fair point. Is our prospect capital better now? I seem to recall some pretty highly thought-of guys in the previous administrations, too. It seems better now, but is that just because the top guys haven't been tested yet?
I think we are just not losing our number one picks lately. We went through a decade drafting in the 20s in the first round or losing our pick. We can't lose our top pick any more and we seen to be doing a decent job of drafting guys there that are prospects still a few years later.
The other side is we still lose some draft picks, we still trade more prospects out than in, and we have one of the smallest international pools. So we actually have less prospect capital than most other organizations. Until we see above average development results it is hard to predict us having an above average system in the near future. Even if our development is above average we still will have a tough time having a system ranked above the middle (12-18) if we draft on the low side, continue to lose picks and allocations, and make the occasional trade (even small trades like Hao Yu Lee last year and Ben Brown the year before hurt - they would be top 10 in the system now).