BP farm rankings

[gunnarthor]

Posted today at BP - the top farm system list. Twins #1 (and Cleveland, Det and Chicago in bottom 10). Jason Parks, BP's prospect guru, loves the Twins. He had a podcast about the Twins org a while back when he did the teams top 10 and was really complementary. "No team in baseball can boast the same level of top tier talent on both sides of the ball and impressive depth at every level."

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22906#commentMessage

[beckmt]

This sounds great for the future. Let's hope the future is soon.

[deanlambrecht]

Thanks for posting. Great info.

[twinsfan34]

Curious, if they have a list of their top Ranking Farm Systems (as far back as it'll go) and then looking out say...3-5 years...how those teams records were and what level of improvement (if any) - similar profiles to the Twins now...might be interesting for projections.

[pierre75275]

And thats without even mentioning guys like Adam Walker and Travis Harrison. The Twins will be good for a long time.

[bird]

As Parks points out, we shouldn't expect to be ranked #1 for more than one year. In our division KC isn't far behind (#7) and Cleveland (#20) and Chicago (#21) are both improving. Detroit (#27) is in rough shape.

 

What caught my attention is the rankings of a few teams that were thought to be so exceptional at drafting and developing talent: Tampa (#26), Oakland (#28), Atlanta (#24) and Washington (#28).

 

 

I'm convinced that the international market will continue to be more and more important compared to stateside talent.

[Mike Sixel]

Superb, even.

[bird]

Superb, even.

 

mike, you're such a damn Pollyanna.

[Jim Crikket]

Cedar Rapids is listed as the Twins' "must-see affiliate" by BP for the second straight year. That's great for folks down here in CR and I'm looking forward to seeing the pitchers listed by BP as being projected to spend some time with the Kernels.

 

That said, I think New Britain will be at least as interesting to see this year. The Miracle will be pretty interesting too.

[oldguy10]

"good for a long time" is an assumption, isn't it? Sure the future looks bright but a lot can go wrong with some of the prospects in that they will never perform up to high standards thus resulting in lackluster teams. Sorry to be so pessimistic but I think we need some realism peppered in with the optimism about the young players.

[gunnarthor]

Sorry to be so pessimistic but I think we need some realism peppered in with the optimism about the young players.

 

Maybe but you're also forgetting that some no name prospects will deliver pretty big. None of these guys were ever ranked by BA - Koskie, Santana, Radke, Mays, Baker, AJ Piersznski (sp), Dougie baseball, Jacque Jones, Valencia, Dozier, Duensing, Ford and they all gave the team at least one pretty darn good season.

 

And Buxton and Sano are both fairly safe bets. Both are extremely young for their levels. Both have shown strong understanding of the strike zone - that's what killed high ranked prospects like Young, Wood, Marte, Francouer. Ben Badler and Keith Law both recently wrote that Buxton, in particular, is extremely safe since he's shown no flaw in his game. And the Twins do have real depth, as Parks noted. And a few really nice lottery tickets in the low minors. Not all will pan out but some will.

[bird]

Maybe but you're also forgetting that some no name prospects will deliver pretty big. None of these guys were ever ranked by BA - Koskie, Santana, Radke, Mays, Baker, AJ Piersznski (sp), Dougie baseball, Jacque Jones, Valencia, Dozier, Duensing, Ford and they all gave the team at least one pretty darn good season.

 

And Buxton and Sano are both fairly safe bets. Both are extremely young for their levels. Both have shown strong understanding of the strike zone - that's what killed high ranked prospects like Young, Wood, Marte, Francouer. Ben Badler and Keith Law both recently wrote that Buxton, in particular, is extremely safe since he's shown no flaw in his game. And the Twins do have real depth, as Parks noted. And a few really nice lottery tickets in the low minors. Not all will pan out but some will.

 

Perfectly said. This group of prospects, all the way to a look at our 50 best prospects, is so vastly superior to what we were looking at just a few years ago. Take the catching position for example. Matt Koch is highlighted in today's Strib. He was an All-Star at A+ ball, and yet he doesn't even make any of 20 different ranking lists as a top 50 prospect except for one. (If he turns into something, thrylos gets a gold star for ranking him as his #22 prospect). A few years ago, aside from Wilson Ramos as our consensus third best prospect, we were looking at terribly flawed prospects at the position: Danny Rams, Jose Morales were the cream of the crop. In 2014, even Dan Rohlfing and Kyle Knudson, who are on no one's list, are probably as talented as those guys. And we have some really legitimate catching prospects in the system, guys like Pinto, Stewart, maybe Koch, and Navaretto. If you look at the comparison position by position, it's a truly awesome and deep improvement, especially the pitching talent. So pessimism and skepticism are warranted in regards to an individual prospect, but the system is just far too laden with high-level talent and so deep at every level to suppress optimism. I've been following the team since inception and the minor league system fairly closely for a couple of decades, and I've never seen them amass talent like this. The optimism is definately warranted.

[diehardtwinsfan]

"good for a long time" is an assumption, isn't it? Sure the future looks bright but a lot can go wrong with some of the prospects in that they will never perform up to high standards thus resulting in lackluster teams. Sorry to be so pessimistic but I think we need some realism peppered in with the optimism about the young players.

 

I think you bring up a valid point here. The value of a strong system, especially one that is long on both depth and high end talent is that accounting for the fameouts, it will still produce some good minor leaguers. Quantity of both quality and questionable prospects, which the Twins have a lot of, is why they should be good for a long time.

 

Is it possible that these guys never pan out? Absolutely. But given the sheer volume of them, it's still a very good sign.