fangraphs top 100

[gunnarthor]

Marc Hulet at fangraphs ranked his top 100. I think fangraphs is probably a touch below the other lists that have come out but it's still nice to see a top 100. He has the 6 Twins:

 

16 Buxton

17 Sano

65 Hicks

65 Arcia

77 Gibson

78 Meyer

 

Interesting to see another list with Buxton above Sano. Twins, Rays and Cardinals all have 6 prospects in the top 100.

[jay]

All of the Twins are twins in the rankings. 16-17, 65-66, 77-78.

 

There's something going on with all these coincidental twins for the Twins lately.

[Mike Sixel]

This continues to make my point, if they has taken any of the players taken after Buxton, their system would be ranked the same. IMO, the growth from the draft was about being awful the year before.

 

It is a talented low minor league system, let's hope they beat the odds and all turn out.

[bird]

Not at all sure what your point is, mike. Gleeman just did a nice analysis about why the Twin's system improved so dramatically in one year's time. Last year's picks are a big part of the vault in rankings (Buxton, Berrios), but not all of it. The continued progress of Hicks, Gibson, Arcia, Rosario, and Sano were huge. As was Ryan's pickup of Meyer and May.

 

Yes, the low minors are rich in talent, mike. Less than a year ago, you described the upper minors as having "no" talent. A quick inventory bebunks that: Plouffe, Parmelee, Hicks, Hendriks, Gibson, Dozier. You're still short-changing it, don't you think? Prospects that will start the year in AAA or AA include Arcia, Benson, Herrmann, May, Wimmers, Santana, Pinto, Tonkin...

 

The improvement in the farm system is the result of stellar results from the organization for a number of years now.

 

Obviously, if one's standards are that anything less than producing an ace and Mike Trout represents failure, and that a high relative ranking is meaningless, then there's no argument.

[Mike Sixel]

Hicks was not in the high minors last year, and Dozier, well, the jury is out on him. Gibson was out all last year. Hendriks could be a AAAA pitcher, but I still hold out hope he is a 5. Only Plouffe and Parmalee were in AAA/MLB and healthy last year, so I don't understand your point about last year at all. Heck, it is somewhat likely Gibson pitches less than a half year in the majors this year, so I'm not sure how much that helps this year (thought it surely helps next year's draft spot).

 

At no point have I asked for Trout (as a matter of fact, I've said over and over again that I am not asking for that), I've stated over and over that if you won't sign free agents, that you need to be better at producing legit starters from your minors than other teams. And, the last few years, the Twins have not done that. No DH, 1B, C, 2B, SS, starting pitcher has come up from the minors (even as a backup) in how many years? The LFer is a FA, the CF is a AAAA player (until Hicks is up), the RF was a DH last year, and is an unknown this year. The 3B only played last year (they almost DFA'd him) because of ineffectiveness of their orignal plan (though I am a believer in Plouffe, and currently count that as the success last year). Diamond was a nice pickup, let's hope he continues to "over achieve" and be a number 3. I'd give them partial credit for that, but I'd consider him more of a FA than a player they developed in the minors.

 

The improvement in the farm systems is driven by three things:

1. Bill Smith spent a lot of money overseas. I'm grateful, for that anyway, that he was the GM when these guys were available and you could spend whatever you want overseas.

2. Good trades, I hope, by Ryan last year.

3. Sucking badly and getting lots of picks last year.

 

My point on Buxton is that people are giving Ryan all kinds of credit for that great pick, but that picking pretty much any player at that spot would have resulted in the same "credit" that the Buxton pick gets by people that rate systems. The rest of the picks are driven by not signing their own players to contracts and getting extra picks, and of sucking. In other words, it wasn't some great genius of picking Buxton that fixed the minors, as some on this board have claimed, but that if they had taken Buxtion, Zunino, Gausmann, Zimmer, they would still have had a good first pick in the draft. Any of us could have made that first pick, and been as right or wrong as the scouting director was, so far as we know today.

 

Not sure how I'm shortchanging this year's system...."it's a talented system"....not sure where in that whole post I short change the system as it stands today.