Bucs' Farm ranked 11th

Dougdirt uses John Sickels' prospect rankings to rank teams' farm systems. Mayb interesting for those following EPOC's community prospect rankings, and various coulda, shoulda, woulda discussions re: organizational moves.

4 months ago Lino Donoso 31 comments 0 recs |

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worth noting

At least one poster argues that the research on which those rankings rely seriously underweights top pitching prospects — it uses data from a period when the pitching in the minors was subpar, and so assumes that the top pitching prospects will have a very high bust rate and not that great a ceiling I think. This puts a big hit on the Pirates, whose farm depends heavily on top pitching prospects.

If you gave A/A- pitching prospects a higher value than B+ pitching prospects, the Pirates would probably only move up one spot in the rankings, but they’d be seen to belong to a higher tier of systems; now the tiers look like 1-2, 3-4, 5-10, and the Pirates at the top of the 11-20 tier, but I’d say the Pirates and D-backs should probably be in the third tier.

Not actually affiliated with whygavs.

by WHYG Zane Smith on Jan 21, 2012 8:20 AM EST reply actions

Not that this

is an especially groundbreaking comment but this is just one writers opinion. There are a handful of guys that I think Sickels is too low on, starting with Starling Marte. Without getting too in depth, he has Marte as a B compared with Anthony Gose who is a B+ (I only bring it up because that comparison bugs the crap out of me…I am not a fan Gose). I still strongly believe this is a top-10 system based on the strength at the top (5-7 top-100 guys IMO). Then again, I’m kind of a homer so I’m sure most other systems have guys that they think are underrated too…

by KentuckyPirate on Jan 21, 2012 11:16 AM EST up reply actions

Why does that comparison bother you?

Gose seems to have a pretty high bust rate…but i find him a fascinating prospect.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 21, 2012 1:56 PM EST up reply actions

Because he can't hit the baseball

He strikes out an absurd amount (154 K’s last year-26.2%), he hits for a low average (.253 last year, .258 MiLB career), while he has a decent walk rate, it’s not enough to give him an acceptable OBP (last year was up a tick, to .349, but he’s still just .334 for his career) he has improving power but I’m still not sure it’s anything to write home about. Gose is a toolsy guy but to this point the only area of his offensive game where he has produced at all is on the basepaths. Since you have to get on base to give yourself a chance to steal, I can’t even give him too much credit for that. His ceiling probably squeeks him into the top-100 but to this point, he’s been a bad offensive player outside of his SB numbers. I just have a hard time getting behind a guy like that as a true top prospect.

by KentuckyPirate on Jan 21, 2012 4:03 PM EST up reply actions

Tools

Tools are why we here get all excited about people like Mel Rojas Jr. , because it allows people here to dream on prospects. I agree with you, I find it odd that with the improvements he’s made, Gose has people drooling, yet Marte has made significant strides in his game and people don’t really seem to notice as much. Actually, I don’t think the two are far off…they both have absurd arms, speed, and defensive ability. Where they differ, of course, is at the plate…I think Gose made big strides in his power, but so did Marte. All this being said…I think he’s a lot more raw than Marte, and I’d rather have Marte anyway.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 21, 2012 4:35 PM EST up reply actions

Rojas

is kinda my point. Yes people get “excited” about him but he’s somewhere in the 20-35 range in Pirates prospects because for all his tools, he can’t really play that well. Gose is kinda the same thing. As toolsy as he is, his numbers are just not that special at all and until they are, I can’t see how he is considered an elite prospect.

by KentuckyPirate on Jan 22, 2012 12:47 AM EST up reply actions

Gose is kind of the same?

How? Rojas has never done anything even CLOSE to Gose (yes it rhymes). Seriously if we’re looking at Gose…his speed, defense, and arm are elite. I don’t think Rojas isreally close to that in terms of tools. The other thing is Gose is showing signs of converting his tools into production (16 HR last year). Until Rojas does that (and chances are against it) I’ll think something of him as prospect. Until then, he’s Rojas is, as you said in the 25-30 range (mildly interesting). Really…if Gose were a Pittsburgh prospect and put those numbers up at Altoona, everyone here would be excited.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 22, 2012 2:31 AM EST up reply actions

I just meant

that both players are receiving love off of their tools instead of their performance. Obviously Gose is the more interesting prospect. That’s why I said that Gose is still a top-100 guy while Rojas might be top 30 in the Pirates system (which would make him top 900 if you assume all organizations are equally deep…which of course they aren’t). Gose’s numbers were better last year, but they still weren’t good outside of his SB numbers (which should be taken with a grain of salt in the minors IMO for a variety of reasons).

I only compared him to Rojas because you brought him up, but my point was that before I’m going to consider Gose a truly elite prospect many seem to put him as a top-50 guy, I want to see him play well offensively. So far, I don’t really think that has happened.

by KentuckyPirate on Jan 22, 2012 10:19 AM EST up reply actions

Seriously if we’re looking at Gose…his speed, defense, and arm are elite.

Elite speed, defense, and arm with no average or power is a fourth outfielder’s skill set. Maybe Gary Pettis’s career if you get lucky.

by Vlad on Jan 22, 2012 2:08 PM EST up reply actions

Thats what he was

until last year…when he hit 16 HR. He has power, that kind of makes him different than Gorkys.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 22, 2012 2:15 PM EST up reply actions

and Gorkys is a career .283 hitter, 25 points higher

by Mr. E on Jan 22, 2012 3:58 PM EST up reply actions

And Gose is 3 years younger

I’m not saying Gose is going to come up and have a solid 12 year career. I think those K’s are really alarming and I think Marte is better (although it seems that some of the industry doesn’t think that way). Either way, he’s an interesting prospect.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 22, 2012 6:19 PM EST up reply actions

Gose was only 1 year younger when they were at the same level (AA).

by Mr. E on Jan 23, 2012 2:31 AM EST up reply actions

Yeah, Gose has some power, and he certainly has a starter’s profile.

by epoc on Jan 22, 2012 4:00 PM EST up reply actions

Not with his Ks at their current rate, he doesn’t. If you’re going to hit .220 in the majors (which is what .260 hitters with a K every 3 AB generally develop into), you need a hell of a lot more than he’s shown so far.

He’s an interesting tools prospect, but a top guy? Not so much.

by Vlad on Jan 22, 2012 7:03 PM EST up reply actions

He was 20/21 years old in AA (Marte was 22). Saying he can’t hit the baseball or calling him a “bad offensive player” is selling him way short. There aren’t a lot of 20/21-year-olds playing in AA at all, let alone hitting better than league average there (107 wOBA+, 111 OPS+).

by epoc on Jan 21, 2012 5:11 PM EST up reply actions

Gose

was young for the league but this is where the “age” factor gets tricky. Being young for a level does mean something. Obviously a guy who plays well at a given level and is too young is a great prospect. A tougher case is a guy who is simply treading water but is too young (this is how I see Gose). Yes, he is talented-I admitted he’d be a top-100 guy for me-but he can’t hit over .260, he slugs around .400 and he strikes out like Adam Dunn. Maybe he becomes the stud his talent suggests he will be but so far, he is nothing more than potential.

by KentuckyPirate on Jan 22, 2012 1:01 AM EST up reply actions

All prospects are nothing but potential. If his talent suggests he will be a stud, he’s a great prospect. I suppose we agree on this, since you feel he’s a top 100 prospect, too.

by epoc on Jan 22, 2012 3:54 PM EST up reply actions

I think his tools

make him a top-100 guy, but the B+ and ranking him in the top half of the top-100 list is what I think is excessive. IMO, Gose is a fringe guy. The reason he cracks the top-100 instead of winding up in the top-150 is that his performance was slightly up this year, but it was still not good enough for me to rank him ahead of guys like Marte, Gary Brown and Brett Jackson like some people are.

by KentuckyPirate on Jan 22, 2012 6:40 PM EST up reply actions

Agreed on the fact that top 50 is too high for him.

I think his tools are above guys like Brown and Jackson (and maybe Marte) but as you said, the production hasn’t matched what they’ve put up. Frankly, I think the reason people are so high on him is it sounds like even though he’s still pretty raw, people say he’s made significant strides.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 22, 2012 6:54 PM EST up reply actions

If his talent suggests he will be a stud, he’s a great prospect.

Certain aspects of his talent do, and certain aspects of his talent don’t.

by Vlad on Jan 22, 2012 7:05 PM EST up reply actions

Anthony Gose who is a B+

Way too high on Gose, IMO.

by Vlad on Jan 22, 2012 2:06 PM EST up reply actions

Wang’s research was groundbreaking, but I agree that you can’t draw many conclusions from them these days. Apart from the problems of that generation of pitching prospects, prospecting in general has come a long, long way since the 90s. I recently looked at pitching prospects included in BA’s top 25 during the mid-aughts (I think 2003-2007 were what I looked at) to try to get a read on what we could expect from Cole and Taillon, and I was pretty surprised by how well the ranking predicted major league success. Many of those guys became TOR pitchers, and the busts were almost all injury casualties. What I found was that top 25 (overall) pitching prospects tend to be worth (on average) about 2.5 fWAR per season over their first 4-5 full years in the majors. To be overly simplistic, you can expect to get a strong #3 starter out of an A/A- pitcher these days, which is at least $40M or so in surplus value during team-controlled years. (No idea how much inflation has changed things, though, which is another problem I have with people still using Wang’s data, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Sickels’s own system rankings are (as well as BA’s).

by epoc on Jan 21, 2012 5:22 PM EST up reply actions

"... which is another problem I have with people still using Wang’s data ..."

Mrs. Wang feels the same way.

.
(Sorry, between this and all the talk about “tools,” it’s all I can do to not go all Beavis here.)

________________________________
Free your ass and your mind will follow.

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by cocktailsfor2 on Jan 22, 2012 7:42 PM EST up reply actions

Looks about right overall

We’re 11th in pitching and 19th in hitting value but I seem to remember us being near top 5 in pitching last year. Maybe we aren’t as one sided as we here at BD likes to think.

by Mr. E on Jan 21, 2012 11:00 AM EST reply actions

more context

Here’s a poster who says that the 1990’s, where the dollar value numbers come from, are the “lost generation” of pitching prospects. Here’s one who echoes the point, and says that the overall rankings are skewed by some high-profile busts. It takes players so long to wor through the system that it’s hard to get more recent data.

Last year’s rankings are in the main post of my first link. The Bucs were 18th — seventh in pitcher value but 29th in hitter value, ahead of only the Frewers. Only three of the top 15 prospects were hitters! (Sanchez, Marte, and Holt.)

Not actually affiliated with whygavs.

by WHYG Zane Smith on Jan 21, 2012 11:29 AM EST reply actions

I love

how EPOC always gets his name put in caps. I’ll take 11th. Good enough for me right now. It’ll be much higher next year I would imagine.

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Buried Treasure - #9 Prospect Jeff Locke
Buried Treasure - A Gross(man) Lesson

by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Jan 21, 2012 4:33 PM EST reply actions

how high?

Obvisouly I hope I’m wrong, but I think Marte and Grossman take a big step back as they rise in the system. Hopefully though Cole, Taillon, and Bell all become “A” prospects which is very possible.

by FusilliJerry88 on Jan 22, 2012 12:26 AM EST up reply actions

Plus

you add the draft. Basically we graduate no one and add a draft class and develop a bunch of guys. Odds are it improves.

Twitter
Buried Treasure - #9 Prospect Jeff Locke
Buried Treasure - A Gross(man) Lesson

by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Jan 22, 2012 4:37 AM EST up reply actions

Haha, hedging your bets with the “Odds are it improves,” statement? Bucs fans have to be prepared for the worst, I’d say. Seriously, though you’re right…no one of notice will come up for good (Marte may get a cup of coffee). I think, by looking at those lists, in terms of top guys in the system, the Bucs are right there with the higher ranked organizations…its the depth past the 5th or 6th spot where the other organizations are much better. It may not even be with the draft next year though, if some guys have some monster breakout years.

by NastyNate82 on Jan 22, 2012 11:07 AM EST up reply actions

I'm down with 11th

Everyone wants to be at the top, but I like 11th better than 364th, which Pittsburgh was in 2007. And I disagree with Cutch: I want to take a step back in the next few years because some of those prospects graduate to MLB success.

I wonder what impact prospect success has on Sickels’ or anyone else ratings; I know it’s not weighted and doubt that Sickels thinks “Well, x player bombed, so I’m going to hedge my rating on player y from that same organization,” but I don’t know that it’s not back there subconsciously somewhere.

by SuperBaes on Jan 22, 2012 12:33 PM EST reply actions