27 thoughts on “How we stack up: The Construction of a Farm System”

1. A little too much is made of the strength of system rankings, IMO. As you correctly point out in your analysis, the difference in systems is tied to the high ceiling talent. The Phillies wanted Chritian Yelich in 2010. The Marlins selected him one spot ahead of Biddle. The Phillies could have made out better by selecting Tajuan Walker, for slot money(but didn’t.) That one move knocks the Phillies overall system rating down significantly.
   Based on the Baseball America OFP ratings, the #16 pick in June, should automatically become the Phillies #1 rated prospect. The highest rated current prospects are 55 High (Biddle) and 60 extreme (Quinn). Last years #16 was 70 exteme (Giolito), the #17 pick was 60 extreme (DJ Davis). That is what made it imperative that they keep that pick, and not waste it on a less than star talent.
   These system rankings are so fluid, because one pick can influence the overall rankings. The Phillies will get an automatic bump, the minute they draft #16. If they add another Roman Quinn level talent later, they shoot up in the rankings.

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2. An interesting article, but I think you missed the obvious. Please list the average $/yr spent in the draft and international bonuses over the past 5 years. That’s where the difference is. The Philies may have roughly the same ratio of prospects from the various sources, theres are just a notch lower than the prospects of the other teams, however. The difference is not from where our players come, but how many of them are first rounders, or big bonus guys. Super intelligent scouting only gets you so far. To a great extent, you get what you pay for.

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   1. PS, the Rays also go HS heavy and they have the 4th best system. One effect of High School heavy, in addition to higher average risk of players reaching their potential — it takes longer to turn around a bad system. College draftees can be at the upper levels of the farm in their second or third season. Not so with HS. Larry Greene and Quinn ended last season in short-season league, while college draftee Asche was at Reading, and he wasn’t even as primo a pick. If you judge wisely on a college pick in the first/supplemental round, he rockets up the system and you get bonus points for proximity/low risk in addition to high ceiling. That’s why a HS pick at #16 won’t necessarily move the arrow all that much over the course of the next two seasons. It is too far down the draft to have earth-shattering potential, too young to be moderate risk, and so very far away from the bigs.

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      1. I believe the Phillies need to go the reverse way of the Rays this year and draft a college player. Tampa went to collegiate bats and arms to turn around their org. sooner than later with Longoria and Price and now that they are winning they have resorted to high schoolers in hopes that when their current run is over they will have top prospects to plug back in. It is something the Phillies should have realized a couple years back. Burrell, Utley, and Howard were collegiate bats so the Phils turned to High Schoolers like Hewitt, and Drabek the only problem is that they have been fixated on HS’s for too long. Not trying to compare us to Tampa but, logically this would seem to be the best way to go given the fact that the Phillies may not have Howard, Utley, Rollins, Halladay, Lee, and Ruiz in 2-3 years. There aren’t enough impact prospects that are projected to be ready then. You could also argue that they can trade and sign big league ready players, but with these mega deals being thrown out those elite stars going on the market is going to start to decrease.

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         1. It’s easy to say that the Phillies need to draft a college player to have a quicker impact but your examples aren’t really the norm. Longoria was 3rd overall and Price was first overall. Anyone the Phillies get won’t be as much of a “lock” to contribute quickly with the 16th pick. Drabek was an 18th and Hewitt was a 24th. Drabek was good enough to get us Halladay so I’m not sure how terrible of a pick that was.

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            1. Raunado, Jackie Bradley for Boston? Better?

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   2. While the amount you spend can have an effect, it does not tell the whole story. The Mariners signed Tajuan Walker (70 High) for 800K, after the Phillies picked Biddle (55 high) and payed 1.1 milllion. The Red Sox picked Jackie Bradley (60 Medium) the next pick after LGj (50 High) and payed him the same money. The Phillies take those players, and they are a top 10 ranked system, for the same amount of money spent. Meanwhile if they select Stetson Allie in 2010 and Tyler Greene in 2011 as their top picks (both logical picks at the time), they are probably the worst system in the game. You just have to make your picks count.
      Most of the teams that have spent high (except Detroit and Boston) have drafted high. The Phillies haven’t drafted high. Either way, it is talent evaluation/projection, not money spent, that makes your system.

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3. Thanks Matt for the clarification on how prospects are ranked by BA. I’d like some statisticians to comment on what seems to be rankings with a heavy bias on the “upside” of the prospect. It is a no risk ranking bias with little else to recommend it. The money comment by Atown should be part of that, but I imagine the money is based on the level of the pick. I’d say the bell curve would be a bit narrow. This is an amateur’s view. What do the professional stats people say?

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   1. The money only partially represents the level of the pick. Even for first and second rounders, some teams (Phillies) did not go over the suggested slot under the old draft system, while others did in a big way. Even with the Phillies, a guy like Colvin, taken late in the draft, got a much larger than slot bonus. Under the old system, you got to spend whatever you wished on the international kids. The Phillies never chose to spend much. So we got a lot of 3rd-tenth round equivalent guys, while other teams got the equivalent of first and second rounders. The real way that money is not everything, in additon to draft position, is that the scouts need to pick the best players on which to spend the money.

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4. When discussing the value of the Phils success with drafting and international signings, we must look back to see how successful their choices have been and we need to remember how many of those choices have been traded away for the sake grabbing at the brass ring over several years.

   Without naming them now we can see that if they had been retained the system would now likely be rated among the top 8-10. Start with D’Arnaud…….etc.

   The plan seems to be now to go for HS pitchers like the Giants have done. And so they are likely to do so again in ’13, BUT I hope that their #1 pick is a college right-handed outfielder who could progress quickly. Thereafter, HS pitchers.

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   1. Agree with you this time Art mostly …

      In terms of the college OF, here’s the flip side. All else (i.e., talent) being equal, of course a college guy is going to go higher – proximity plus lower risk than a similarly talented HS kid, plus there tend to be fewer of them, as the majority of the most talented HS kids get big enough bonuses to skip college. Thus, the few “can’t miss”/high ceiling college prospects go much higher than mid first round. Obviously there are exceptions, but they don’t tend to be apparent in advance.

      Given the current system – a number of decent position player prospects, but not much in the way of potential stars – you can make the argument that the team needs to take a flier on a higher upside college kid. They need a couple star position players to remain contenders.

      Not saying you are wrong necessarily, but most likely a mid first round OF is going to have a ceiling as an average regular. If you don’t think Ruf is going to make it as an outfielder, even a young, cost controlled outfielder that projects as an average regular could help the team. But if you draft a college kid in the first round, that’s what you should expect – again, of course there are exceptions, but EXPECTING such an exception is no way to run a minor league system.

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      1. With the new system, is it a terrible idea to take a “ceiling as an average regular” OF at 16, pay him less than slot(my question only works if the player does take under RD 1 slot), then throw the extra money at high ceiling HS kids in later rounds? (I do agree with Artd that i would like to see HS pitchers heavy in the first 10 rds.)

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5. I think many of the comments here finally recognize the fallacy in ranking minor league systems because they can drastically change with one or two picks. I am not suggesting the ranking system is a complete waste of time – rather, what appears to me is to say one system is a # 2 and another is a # 23 is spurious and fails to account for physical and psychological maladies that could dramatically alter a rating if it happens to a top pick. Moreover, in many instances a player can appear out of nowhere – and alter the system’s grade because he finally grows into his body etc. Come June I suspect the Phillies will draft the “best available talent” whether its high school or college – but like some, I would rather they draft a college position player.

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   1. Rankings are not static. Certainly as struggling players burst out into a great season a farm can rise in the rankings. The next time it is ranked, these changes will be reflected. That doesn’t mean it is silly to rank farm systems, just that any ranking is a freeze frame at a specific point in time. At this point in time, we are in the bottom third of MLB. After this season, things may well be much better.

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6. Do the Phillies plan to throw Jesse Biddle this spring?

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7. Usually towards the end of ST they’ll give some of their younger prospects a spot start. So I have a feeling Biddle will get a chance before it’s over.

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   1. The end of spring training is where you see the darkhorse prospects who have impressed get time. Stutes, Rosenberg, Bonilla all were brought up when they were never on the radar now we all know them

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8. Ruf has not look comfortable at all compared to when he played in September last yearTommy Joseph on the other hand looks like he belongs

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   1. Maybe Ruf needs to gain back the 15 lbs or so he lost from his off-season workouts.

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9. Gary Brown, a successful tools laden outfielder and now the Giant’s #4 prospect was drafted #24 in the first round of the 2010 draft. BA says he may have some creases to smooth out and will spend 2013 at AAA in preparation for a late 2013 or early 2014 entry to MLB.

   I have not researched more examples but I’m sure there have been many a #16 choice who have made it as hitters out of college. Hope we can do even better at #16.

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   1. Well first of all, what Brown looks like to me is a guy who, if he “smooths out his creases,” is a guy who will be … an average major league regular. Maybe a little better than that. Not a star. (Opinions vary; some people DO think he could be a star; most don’t, and some don’t even see him as more than a 4th outfielder.) That aside,I said there were exceptions. But the NORM is not that. You hope that we get someone better than Brown; I think that’s not a likely expectation of a mid first round college kid. (Actually, in some ways Brown is a bad example for you, in retrospect the worst of both worlds – the high risk of a high school player without the proximity of a college player.)

      If your expectation for a draft pick or prospect is the top 5% upside, you will be disappointed 95% of the time.

      And, frankly, you SHOULD research it. Your expectations are off base. Of course, it depends in part on what you mean by “making it as hitters.” I said myself that getting an average major league regular with a college kid picked in the middle of the first round is a good possibility. In past discussions, you’ve taken statements from me that Asche could be an “average major league regular” as being negative. It isn’t that. But the Phillies, with their core aging, DO have a distinct lack of likely star level position players in their near future, and a need for same.

      Really, this gets back to the whole unreasonable expectation that people have for the #16 pick, except it in some ways is even more true of a college kid. The price you pay for proximity and less risk is a lower ceiling. .

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   2. I decided to take my own advice and do a little study. Not much time today, so it was quick and limited. But, with SSS caveats, here it is:

      I looked at 5 years, 2004 to 2008, and 5 mid first round picks per year, 14 to 18. I found more or less what I expected. The only real “stars” are two HS kids – Heywood and Lawrie. There are certainly college kids who contributed, but none on them “stars.” The best was Stephen Drew, who had a couple of borderline “star” seasons, but mixed that in with some well below average seasons. Ike Davis was also a college guy with some but limited success.

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      1. Huh? Ike Davis has had one very good year, one year where he played like an MVP for 36 games, and then a slightly below average year with a .240 BABIP. Overall he’s averaged about 3 WAR/162 games. I’d call that better than “limited success”. I wouldn’t call him a “star” yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a few 4-5 WAR years in front of him.

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         1. I would. But let’s at least wait for him to be a star before we call him that? 3 WAR/162 games is above average but not a star. And he is already 26 YO,, coming off a below average season. There’s at least a decent chance that he will never be better than he was in his rookie year.

            But big picture (and I’ve looked at some more data as well). There’s a lot of college kids picked in the middle of the first round or later. There are very few stars. (Among position players, Ellsbury is the best I’ve found so far in the past few years; obviously go back a few more years, and the Phillies provide a couple of examples). Of course, you can say that about any mid first round pick (something to keep in mind for those who think the team’s mid first round pick is going to turn the system around). But I suspect that a more thorough study would confirm what my little study indicated: you’re much more likely to get a star with a high school pick at that stage of the draft. And of course that HAS to be true, given the advantages of a college pick (proximity and lesser risk) unless team’s are drafting irrationally.

            As I said, you can still make a case for a college pick. But for the Phillies in particular, I think a case can also be made for picking a high ceiling HS kid instead.

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10. Err ah: Brown was drafted out of college.

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11. wasnt brown drafted, cause he wanted to play baseball, he had a scholarship to florida for football. i believe.maybe i am wrong.

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    1. Wrong Brown guys. They’re talking about Gary Brown

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