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February 1, 2013 Prospects Will Break Your HeartSt. Louis Cardinals Top 10 Prospectsby Jason Parks
State of the Farm: “Would you believe in a love at first sight? Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time.” The Top Ten
What Happened in 2012: Simply put, Taveras emerged as the premier offensive star in the minors, hitting for average and power in Double-A against much older competition.
BP Comment Quick Links jtwalsh (1154) This system has an amazing turnaround over the past 5 years (from worst to first?) especially considering the success of the major league squad over that period. Is there something here to be learned? Who would you credit? mattgioia (34248) i don't think you can give credit to 1 or 2 people. they drafted the right people and then they developed them. That's an organisational success. cjmart29 (47451) Agreed, but since Luhnow oversaw the turnaround of the system, quite a bit of credit should given to him IMO. Certainly bodes well for the challenge that lies ahead for the Astros. lboros (25679) jeff luhnow (now the Houston GM) deserves most of the credit. he developed the international presence that brought in Taveras and Martinez; he revamped the scouting system; and he combined sabrmetrics with good scouting. made great hires all around. batts40 (5854) Shaun P. (676) 8. Matt Adams Dan W. (42065) Matt Adams = Jason Kubel, right? I'm not asking for a comp - I'm just saying that it's pretty clear that they're the same person. Has anyone stopped to figure out what will happen when ARZ and STL play this year? This could be the greatest scandal since the Mark Reynolds blindness saga. BillJohnson (2635) This is a very solid analysis. I would have made a couple of minor tweaks -- swapped Rosenthal and Martinez, bumped Adams' future potential up half a notch (it's "potential," after all; you nailed the most probable trajectory), and maybe moved one of the Garcias, Anthony or Greg, into the #9 and/or #10 spot. But these are a matter of taste. John Douglass (53235) Entering 2008 Freese was coming off a .396 wOBA in a high-A season he played at a completely age-inappropriate 25 years old. Boggs was a AA starter with only a 17% K rate and a K/BB under 2.00 at age 23. Jay had split a year between high-A and AA that was unremarkable, especially as a somewhat finished draft pick from the U. bheikoop (32208) A general question. John Douglass (53235) BP's WARP doesn't credit any RP with a 3-win season for at least a few years. That's a rare animal. Rivera was 4.6 in a year he pitched over 100 innings and he hasn't gone over 2.2 in any other season. LowDraw67 (68995) Wow. What a system. delatopia (19303) With this very possibly being the #1 system, their 11-15 prospects would easily make other teams' top 10s. Could you please provide a list of who those guys would be? Thanks. BillJohnson (2635) I'm not the good perfesser, but to help him along, here are a few other names you might hear about: David Martin (62094) I remember seeing a video clip of Carlos Martinez from last summer and it seemed to my (untrained) eye that the finish to his delivery was a little less out of control than i remember seeing. I remember thinking that in the previous season he had a much more pronounced odd-looking leg kick after he released the ball. Have you heard of or seen any evidence that his "violent" mechanics are improving? LeoCat (65417) I haven't seen you post an "8" yet? Can you tell me the last "8" you've graded? smallflowers (38782) Respect the 8. LeoCat (65417) Yeah thanks, read the article when it came out. I was asking when and if he ever gave a prospect a grade total of an "8" and if so who was the last? The article defines how an "8" is evaluated in each category (arm,speeed, etc) not total grade. But thanks for the effort on the reply. Karl Barth (6412) Billy Hamilton's speed is an 8. cjmart29 (47451) 7+ for Taveras' potential is as close as it gets, but IIRC I think JP mentioned once that you likely would not see an 8 from him, as even 6 is a difficult/stressful grade to give on bestow. tmangell (33575) Professor, what about the Cards' minor league scouting/administrative staff post-Luhnow? Do we have the people in place to carry on Luhnow's success in rebuilding the Redbirds' farm system? Maybe an idea for a good article to not only rank each team's prospects, but also their staffs as well. Thanks for the awesome work on each team - great for fantasy and reality also! The success of the farm is never the singular work of one man, in this case Luhnow. He played an important role, but the same can be said of the scouts that first identified the talent and the player developmental staff for nurturing that talent. The Cardinals have a ton of prospects, but they also have a ton of talented on/off the field personnel that make it all happen. The staff in place will keep the pipeline flowing. Feb 01, 2013 11:05 AM Richard Bergstrom (36532) Might be interesting some day to see an article on which organizations do best at finding talent, which do best at developing pitchers, hitters, fielders, etc. Perhaps identify the kinds of things they do. For example, what do the Braves do that helps them continually churn out pitching prospects that usually perform around league average and are durable? bline24 (33712) Last year KG had Shelby Miller ranked #1 in the organization and said he was a future star in the mold of Matt Cain. This year you have him ranked #2 and project him as a no. 2 starter. Do these differences reflect a difference of opinion between you and KG on Miller's upside? a slight downgrade from last year due to 2012 performance? or is Miller essentially the same guy, but Matt Cain is only a no. 2 starter on this scale? Evaluations change as players get closer to maturity (or at least graduation from prospect to player). Of course, it's also a subjective exercise, so what I call a number two might be a number one to others. Feb 01, 2013 11:08 AM jhensley (66341) From what i remember from older scouting reports, there were also questions on Cain when he was coming up. Not that he wouldn't be good, but I don't think he had a #1/"Ace" tag on him either. A #2 tag is very high. Richard Bergstrom (36532) For a long time, people thought Matt Cain was also a number 2. He was underrated for a very long time. Rage of Snider (68789) Lots of people still think Matt Cain is a #2 (myself included.) I'm not sure if you're talking about him being underrated as a prospect, but BA has him as the 13th and then 10th best prospect in baseball his last two eligible years Richard Bergstrom (36532) Underrated as both a prospect and as a major leaguer. John Douglass (53235) The other side of that coin is he's a little overrated by some. I don't think he is a genuine number one/ace, and he might have been a tick overrated as a prospect when he was higher on BA's prospect lists in 2005-2006 than Tulowitzki, Fiedler, Hamels, Josh Johnson, Pedroia, Andrus, McCutchen, Braun, Hanley Ramirez, and Ryan Zimmerman. Richard Bergstrom (36532) Well, based on that list, I'd still take Cain over half of them especially considering some of their durability issues. As an aside, I'd take Braun, McCutchen and Fielder easily before Cain. Hamles and Cain is almost a wash. John Douglass (53235) Ending up a #2 isn't either. It means you're one of the top 0.05% percent of people who competitively pitch baseballs. John Douglass (53235) I'd add: look at shortstop WAR up to/including age 23 all time. Andrus is top ten. He's far more a standout than Cain, who's among a lot of ~4 WAR SP. Richard Bergstrom (36532) Because WAR counts defense and defense can be all over the map. John Douglass (53235) Because a player who gets on base 34% of the time and plays plus D at SS over 600 games before playing in his age 24 season is an incredibly valuable and rare player. Richard Bergstrom (36532) Hey Andrus is definitely a positive asset. However, if we play the WARP game, the difference between Andrus and Cain is 0.5 WARP over the last four years in Andrus's favor. He's also had a declining FRAA FWIW. I'm just saying Andrus isn't clearly better than Cain and it may come down to a matter of taste. John Douglass (53235) Andrus as a 20-23 y.o. in those four years was a half-win more valuable than Cain at 24-27 in the easier league, so maybe Andrus > Cain by a lil more than the half-win gap in WARP esp given Andrus' youth. Richard Bergstrom (36532) I thought WAR was supposed to normalize between league difficulty differences. DarinRuf18 (70013) ive gotta disagree strongly with several of the assesments mentioned above. first off, a player's propsect ranking relative to other prospects should really have no impact on whether or not that player is under/overrated...secondly, to say that there are only about 8 true #1s is what seems "goofy" to me...just off the top of my head....Strasburg, Halladay(assuming last year was the result of an injury), Kershaw, Lee, Sabathia, Price, Verlander, Lester(prior to last year), Weaver, Felix, Hamels, Greinke, and Cain are all number 1s...and you could make an argument for guys like Sale, Gio, Dickey, Darvish, Waino, and Cueto among a few others...still, i think theres at least 15 #1s right now, if not more...pitching is dominant...also, in terms of WAR, over the last 3 seasons, Cain has 12.3 WAR, while Andrus has only 10.6 WAR. John Douglass (53235) Look at the pitching leaderboards, pick your site, pick your WAR, pick your range of years. There's clear separation between real aces and the rest of the pack. Richard Bergstrom (36532) Basically, for a mid 90s comparison, it's like saying Pedro Martinez is an ace and Tom Glavine's a #2. indianacardinal (52516) As a Cardinal fan since 1955, it is very exciting to enjoy both the high level talent and the depth of talent, to go along with what has already surfaced to the majors. DarinRuf18 (70013) interesting to see that Lynn is ranked ahead of Rosenthal in the top 10 under 25....question though...im not crazy to think that Rosenthal's ceiling as a starter is much higher than Lynn's, am i? AJ (60598) Not to get off topic of the #rig or Oscar Taveras, but Are we ever going to get the promised report on Trevor Bauer (traded post-Indians Top 10, pre-D'Backs Top-Ten? Thanks. mdthomp (65017) Just to clarify, when you say someone has a 7 hit tool that doesnt take position into account does is? SlackerGeorge (62066) Jason, you talk about making adjustments and the value of failure in helping "cure" a prospect into a major leaguer. I know its hard to unknow what has happened, but does Shelby Miller's 2012 downs then ups make him a better prospect in your view than if he had a uniformly great season (performance more like the 2nd half)? Does it increase his floor, his ceiling or both? I absolutely believe that failure is a vital component in the developmental process. Re: Miller, yes, I think his maturity was elevated because of such failures and setbacks. Every player is going to fail, but how they respond to that failure is what separates them from the rest. Some need to fail early and some need to fail late, but it's win-win if the player learns and grows from the experience. As is so often the case, the inability to fail and respond is what dooms players. Feb 02, 2013 07:47 AM leites (17240) Jason - I'm confused by the Michael Wacha entry. Everything else I have seen written about him -including in Spring Training" - says that he has a plus or even plus-plus change-up, but not much of a breaking pitch. See for instance http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130227&content_id=42040994¬ebook_id=42061510&vkey=notebook_stl&c_id=stl But your write-up implies the reverse?
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That is quite a review. The biggest takeaway for me is that the Cards won't have homes for all of these players and that some kind of package deal for Stanton would still leave them with a deep system. Cards can replace pujols and Marlins get a treasure trove of major league regulars.
Except that a power based corner OF is really not what the Cards need. I get that Stanton is good enough that you'd create a space for him, but you could improve the team more by upgrading the middle infield without burning half your farm system.