“Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.” — Johann Goethe
Beyond being able to insert Goethe into a baseball post, this quote is an excellent description of farm systems. Acquiring the talent through the draft or by international signings is the easy part as it requires only money to sign them and money to scout them. Reaping the benefits, however, of that transaction is much more difficult, and it requires money, coaching, and patience, and it doesn’t always work out. Figuring out who will succeed and who will fail is incredibly difficult, but it’s fun to try anyway. With that, I introduce the beginning of The Outside Corner’s Top 10 Prospect Lists.
We’ll be doing things a little differently around here, however. While we will have Top 10 lists for each organization, they’ll be in a different form from what you are used to, which I will explain shortly, but we’ll also have a few more posts, including a Top 100, a Just Missed List, a sleeper list, and an overall farm system ranking list to give a fairly intensive examination of the farm systems around baseball.
For now, let’s focus on how the Top 10s will look. Starting things off, I’ll review the system in general. Instead of looking at the success/failure of the minor-league teams, I’ll be looking at promotions and how the prospects did in general, taking note of the situation that the system faces. Then comes the Top 10 list, but as I said, it will look a little different. Here are some of the features:
A Tier System: While the list will be in order of how good I think the players are, they won’t be numbered. The players, instead, will be tiered into Elite, Outstanding, Good, Fair, and Poor (though if the team has “Poor” prospects on the list, that’s not a good sign). The reason I do this is simple. People get very touchy over who is 1 and who is 2, but the whole idea of projecting prospects’ future value is so difficult that I’m not sure the argument is worth having. Instead of that, players grouped in the same tier are generally of equal value, though I may note a difference, and the general order can be argued. This will also hopefully avoid the confusion that all #5 (to use as an example) prospects are of equal value. In the instance of these lists, all Elite prospects (again, to use as an example), etc. will be of equal value.
As for the tiers themselves, this is how they will shake out. “Elite” is for the very best–those who are likely to make several All-Star teams or the Hall of Fame. “Outstanding” is for those who may make an All-Star or two but are shy of real stardom. “Good” is for the solid player that every team needs but may only fluke into an All-Star Game. “Fair” is for the prospect that may ride the bench or be of the AAAA variety. And “Poor” is for the prospect that probably will get a cup of coffee at best and in a marginal role.New Grades: While I’ll certainly use scouting terms such as “plus” and “fringy”, the overall grade I’ll give players will be a bit different from the norm. First of all, the grade will pertain to what I think the player will be during their peak 5-8 years, and it will be what I believe to be is a likely scenario. It won’t be the floor or the ceiling because any player could be anything or could bust. What we want is what is likely, though I’ll note probability, etc.
For position players, you’ll see a general WAR description that would correspond fairly well to what I think they’d score in fWAR or bWAR. “5+” is an MVP-caliber player. “4-5” is your perennial All-Star. “2-4” is your everyday player. “1-2” is a bench player, and “0-1” is your marginal guy (note: these are examples to give you a general range; actual numbers may vary).
For pitchers, you’ll see a number of where they’d fit in a rotation. “1” is for only the very, very best pitching prospects who would end up being a top 20 or so pitcher in baseball. “2/3” are guys you wouldn’t mind putting 1-3 in your rotation, but they aren’t really “aces”. “2/3/4” guys are middle-of-the-rotation pitchers who are definitely starters but aren’t more than average starters, which is still plenty good. “4/5” starters are back-of-the-rotation guys who can start but might relieve and shouldn’t have big bucks thrown their way. “Middle Reliever” prospects are your generic relievers, and “Relief Aces” are your closers and set-up men, or your elite relievers. I use these because I feel they are more accurate and will cause less confusion. Saying “a #2” implies #2 anywhere, and people get confused when their guy is a “#2” but the “ace” for their team and doing well. Also, a “2-4 WAR” player is that on whatever team and isn’t prone to the same problems as a “fringe regular” who happens to start every day for a bad team. I’m not trying to insult anyone’s intelligence, but I want to make this as easy to understand as possible.
The Description: Each player will get a brief scouting report highlighting his main attributes and weaknesses just as you would see elsewhere but not as detailed as in Minor-League Mondays. While I’ll likely note their place on the minor-league ladder, I won’t offer a specific prediction on when the player will arrive in the majors because that depends a lot of factors that don’t have to do with a player’s talent (injuries, service time, roadblocks, etc.), but I will make a mention if they’re close or way far away to at least give you an idea.
Just to be clear, I have not seen everyone involved, and no one who does this has. I have culled the information from online scouting sources like Keith Law, Kevin Goldstein, John Sickels, the guys at Baseball America, team blogs, and others, but I look at tape, stats, and my own scouting reports for every player to help in my analysis. Obviously, feel free to disagree with my judgments. That’s part of what this is about.
Biggest Question: In this section, I’ll address the biggest question each farm system has. Sometimes, it will concern the entire system, and at other times, it will only concern a prospect who could have a big impact on the team but has questions that need to be answered.
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Over the next several months, I plan (though the “best laid plans” caveat) to roll out 3 Top 10 lists a week with one each on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Once we’re done with those (in like January if my math is correct), we’ll roll out the remaining lists. This is a learning experience for all involved, and I simply hope to inform and have some discussion about these prospects. I won’t pretend to know everything and have the ultimate say. Teams spend all their time thinking about it, and they aren’t even perfect at it.
Your last question probably is “When is my team going up?”. Well, that’s a bit of a surprise. There is a method to the madness, and the first person to guess it gets a 2012 Baseball America Prospect Handbook with the supplement. Your first clue is next week’s order: San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Washington.
