- This topic has 58 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
There are some fairly good sized movement for some of the prospects. I’m not sure why the difference between now and December 19 ’17? Helsley from #22 to #8… Knizner from #26 to #9… Perez from #6 to #25. They probably took a gander at TCN’s list and figured out that some changes were in order.
IMO, Sherriff making this list is surprising.
Added to their top-30 Ynfante#19 (TCN#32)- DGonzalez#28 (#48)- Sherriff#29 (#41)-Valera#30 (#50) Breyvic making a return to their top-30. Greene#21 was added after MLB’s last list.
Left off are Plummer(#25 from their previous list)- Hurst#27- Denton#28- Robertson#29- and Woodman#30.
My perception (and it is perception only) is that they just slap bandages on the pre-season rankings based on trades, the draft, graduations and the like during the year and they only step back and take a fresh look now.
You may not agree with my views, but I take a shot at new rankings every month during the season. So what I lock in come October is not all that different from what I thought in August. What I do do in the fall is have a more through talk with talent evaluators I trust, so I may do a little tweaking if I agree with what I hear. Of course, there are also full year stats to consider. The tough balancing point is to not let short-term results skew the long-term view. I use Players of the Month and Year for that.
Regarding your last sentence and case in point is Jackson #27, and yet he didn’t get a whisper during TCN’s selection process. A young H.S player in his first pro season get should some leeway, even if it was a disappointment. I hope that MLB knows something more than us guys… they like to go with potential in some cases.
On Jackson, put aside what MLB knows. It is what the Cards knew to take him in the fifth round and be willing to go 64 percent over slot to get him. That really says something.
One reason the 2017 draft appears so weak is that the three guys who soaked up most of the overslot money did not do much of anything after signing. Wilberto Rivera, Donivan Williams and Jackson.
Not shocked at all with Plummer and Denton not making the Top 30 again. I was shocked that Robertson and Hurst were removed, especially Robertson. Jury is still out on Woodman who I’m not sold on. He didn’t do well playing for Lancaster for a full season after hitting the lights out for 9 games in his first year.
It appears that MLB Pipeline and MiLB.com operate separately. Someone from the latter, Josh Jackson, who I do not recall from the past, is ranking farm systems. It is being done by position players only first. Surprisingly to me, the Cards come in at just #22.
https://www.milb.com/milb/news/farm-system-rankings-position-players-30-21/c-266757990
Dodgers rank every time; Cardinals rank never…
The #Dodgers are the only team to be in the Top 10 in each of our past seven rankings of @MLB's best farm systems: https://t.co/SIchbDSNgm pic.twitter.com/UcGaNQF5ky
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) February 27, 2018
Really interesting lists of best vs. best. For #stlcards, Max Schrock #13, Luke Voit #27 in wOBA. Luke Weaver #30 in lowest wOBA against. https://t.co/5zJn9HZe8n
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) March 20, 2018
Mid-season MLB Pipeline top 100 has Reyes at 34 and O’Neill at 48, with the latter noted as a fast riser. No others in top 100.
https://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018/?list=prospectsAs Montero jumps to #8 on Cards top 30 list see this tweet from someone who saw him recently.
Interesting prospect I saw yesterday: 19 yo #STLCards 3B Elehuris Montero. He’s BIG and hits for power, but he also makes good contact and is relatively quick for his size. Clocked him at 3.68 seconds moving 1st to 2nd at full speed.
— Ryan Davis (@RyanQDavis) July 26, 2018
Just don’t look at his errors.
CC, I had concerns about that too but following it a bit more, he’s only had one error this month and was improving in June as well. Also, this from Brian last month in the affiliates thread:
The “solid defender” comment is a direct quote from an opposing manager in the GCL who saw Montero play regularly all last season. There were comparable quotes from others. That might be more telling than a quick look at the error count for a teenager in his first month in a new league after a direct jump from the GCL to Class-A.
Montero is probably 2 years at least from seeing Stlouis.Evan Mendoza could possibly get a late callup next season if he ups his offense at AA this year and can do that next season in AAA.I would think Wisdom will leave in FA after this season if he doesn`t get added to 40-man before this season is over.
Posted by Cardinals27 on another thread:
Cardinal prospects in updated MLBs top 100:
36-Reyes
73-Gorman
96-HudsonSilly to exclude Elehuris Montero from their top 50, much less the top 100.
Elehuris was the 12th teenage Midwest League hitter this decade to post a 150 wRC+ or better (min. 200 PA’s). The other 11 were Mike Trout, Wil Myers, Oscar Taveras, Javy Baez, Corey Seager, Byron Buxton, Bobby Bradley, Eloy Jimenez, Bo Bichette, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Vlad Guerrero Jr..
All 11 ranked in the Baseball America top 100 following their MWL season, with 9 of them in the top 40 and 8 of them in the top 16. Their average rank was 24th. Throw out the high and low, and the average was 19th.
You really have to go out of your way to snub Montero. But hey, he’s a Cardinal prospect so what should we expect? You know what they say about old habits. Shrug.
Well, Bob, you have to look at their top 30 Cardinals list as well. Then it makes sense. Montero is their seventh-ranked Cardinals prospect, so they are not going to jump him over three other Cardinals (their #4, #5, #6) on the national list. If they did that, people like me would blast them for inconsistency.
Even if Montero was fourth on their Cards list, the best he could be is 97th nationally, just after Hudson. (I am guessing your reply will be that all four Cards should be in the national top 50, but that is not realistic.)
As a reminder, on our community list, Montero is fourth (fifth including O’Neill who is off MLBs list). If our own Cardinals watchers thought Montero was national top 50 material, he would have been first or second on our voters’ list.
Thanks for the response, Brian.
My reply would be that the Cardinal top 7 should be Reyes (#35 or so overall prospect), Montero (40), Hudson (50), Gorman (55), Knizner (65), Dylan Carlson (100 or so), and Ramon Urias (110). With Malcom Nunez right behind Urias, Pugs. If they were eligible, I’d have Tyler O’Neill in the 20-25 range and Carson Kelly right alongside Knizner.
(I do this crazy radical nutty thing every year, where I actually rank Cardinal prospects according to the same exact standards as prospects from all other organizations. While doing so, I almost entirely ignore signing bonuses, because they usually don’t mean squat, and most position player scouting reports, because they are frequently tainted by various biases, and concentrate primarily on the performances, both offensive and defensive — relative to age and level of competition of course.)
MLB’s top 30 Redbird list is incompetent, as currently constructed. Maybe they updated their top 100 but not individual teams, I don’t know. But no Malcom Nunez or Ivan Herrera or Lane Thomas or Jhon Torres or Leandro Cedeno in their top 30? Not competent. Montero behind Helsley and Arozarena, and Dylan Carlson behind Conner Capel and Max Schrock? Ridonkulous.
It’s not as bad as last year’s Fangraphs St. Louis prospect list, which was the single least consistent, least coherent and least informed job I’ve ever seen of any ranking of anything, any topic, sports or otherwise. They ranked Jack Flaherty as a future #4 starter, had Bader outside their top 150, Hicks well outside their top 200, and Hudson outside the top 250 after winning the AA Texas League ERA title and league Pitcher of the Year in his first full pro season, and of course after being a first round draft pick.
Dylan Carlson was outside their top 400 following a solid Midwest League campaign at age 18…and Elehuris Montero, coming off a Gulf Coast League All-Star season at age 18, was somehow outside their top 740 prospects. There’s a lot more I could say, but to sum it up, Fangraphs distinctly overrated between 3 and 5 STL prospects one year ago and markedly underrated between 22 and 26.
Worst. List. Ever.
As for what’s realistic, I’m honestly not sure precisely what you’re saying. If 1 or 2 or 4 or 7 or more players from one organization belong on an overall top 50 list, that’s just how the chips fall. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying that I’m better at evaluating Cardinal prospects than the guys at MLB.com. No. Rather, I’m saying that I’m good at it, and they are terrible.
I already know from two decades of experience, chiefly with Baseball America, that Cardinal prospects will as a group almost certainly be underrated, each and every year. That’s not an opinion, it’s just the math, the historical record. Never top 100: Future Hall Of Famer Yadi Molina, as well as Dan Haren, Lance Lynn, Harrison Bader, Matt Carpenter, Paul DeJong, David Freese, Allen Craig, Jordan Hicks. And I’m sure I’m forgetting some guys.
The thing that’s most realistic, is that the past will keep right on repeating itself. And that means that the St. Louis farm system will very likely be substantially underrated yet again this year, compared to other organizations. I can’t control the incompetence of Longenhagen and McDaniel at Fangraphs, or Callis and Mayo at MLB.com, not to mention the Baseball America crowd — Ben Badler notwithstanding.
Outside observers place the Cardinals somewhere in the middle of the pack among MLB farm systems. A key reason for that is they do not have an unusual wealth of top-end talent, commonly reflected in top 100 lists. You are certainly welcome to continue to disagree with the national prospect raters, however.
I did a study of a Baseball America list when our system was ranked in the 20’s. Posted some of the data here but stopped when I saw that there was very little interest. Don’t even remember the year now but several years later it looked like we should have been ranked around 10th but appeared to be trending down to where it would end closer to 12th or 13th based on collective WAR. A number of teams were clearly maxed out with all or near all of the prospects from those teams out of the majors if they ever reached that level.
I recall that the overrated teams were largely big market teams such as the Cubs, Mets and Angels. I do think that there is a big market and high draft choice bias.
In looking for picks for this year I also looked at our past lists. I did not find that we ever rated our prospects who became solid major leaguers or stars real low. We may have been a little slow getting some on the list but possibly not even that. The reason I was looking was to realistically look at players like Nunez and Torres.
I have never seen an independent audit comparing the accuracy of various national top 100 prospect lists, but I bet it would be very interesting.
I did find, however, a 25-year study at Beyond the Box Score which reviewed how well BA’s top 100 prospects eventually fared in MLB. The years covered were 1988-2013. The primary comparison is how many of BA’s top 100 prospects were later among the top 100 MLB players in WAR.
The data shows BA’s accuracy improved substantially over time until they settled in between 70 percent and 80 percent. The author of the article also cut the data many other ways, which you can review via the link below.
Some of our outspoken posters here will not like the author’s conclusion.
“…the fine folks at BA are really good at finding the top players.”
If anyone else has seen other data-driven studies, please share.
“Outside observers place the Cardinals somewhere in the middle of the pack among MLB farm systems.”
Sure, I don’t doubt it one jot, Brian. But isn’t it true that all of those same observers rated the Cards somewhere in the middle last year as well? And thus far I would say those folks have empirically been shown dead wrong. In fact I’d say that, despite flagging in late September, Redbird rookies like Bader, Flaherty, Hudson, Hicks, O’Neill, Munoz, Gomber, Poncedeleon and others provided the big club with as much value as any freshman group in the majors this side of Tampa, and maybe the Braves.A year ago one well known outside observer disagreed about the Cards being middle-of-the-pack, though. John Sickels rated the Cards’ system 8th over the winter. For what it’s worth I had them 5th. If anything we may have underestimated them.
Quick recap time. I use a point system for prospects. A year ago, applying my point system to the prospect grades given by John Sickels, the Cards had 85 points. The top 10 were:
Toronto 97 points
Tampa 91
Philly 91
Braves 88
Friars 86
Cards 85
Yanks 83
Astros 77
Redlegs 75
Twins 73Again, that’s my point system applied to his grades. As mentioned, Sickels actually ranked the Cards a bit lower at 8th. (Sickels does not use a point system.) Translating my own grades, I had the Birds with 87 points rather than 85, obviously an inconsequential difference. And I was happy to be in the company of Sickels.
Sickels is the only major national voice who strikes an excellent balance between detached numerical analysis of on-field minor league performance, and traditional mystical scouting. Not an ideal balance, by my lights; still too scouty on the position player side. But the best balance by far of all the prominent prospect voices.
So what about the current farm? This year my Redbird rankings — which exclude O’Neill & Kelly, as MLB does not consider them rookies any longer — give the Cards 83 points. I expect that will trail teams like Tampa and Minnesota and Toronto and the Padres, and maybe a couple others. As you say, Brian, the Birds are bereft of truly super-elite prospects. No Vlad Juniors here. But just like last year there’s a ton of top 100-150 types down on the Cardinal farm.
Folks, the Cards are elite again. Just like last year. When all the outside observers except one said they were not.
Lastly, I remember your fine work, Sooner. You very thoroughly and systematically showed how much the Cardinal prospects had been underrated by BA over more than a decade, if memory serves. Man, I’d love to see a link to that thread somehow. A very large and very very belated thanks for that research you did.
In the last two years, Sickels rated the Cards far better compared to the other 29 systems than did the other major prospect raters I track (BA, BP, ESPN, BaseballHQ), but in each of the five years prior to that, his Cardinals ranking was in the middle of the pack of the five. I don’t think his methodology changed, so it had to be his view of some of the recent individuals are more optimistic, a number of whom are still unproven as major leaguers (Reyes, O’Neill, Hudson, etc,).
I think folks will see that after the current Memphis group comes through, the pitching is going to be dry for a while. In all aspects, Springfield was not a good team in 2018. Fortunately for the Cardinals, their young pitching already up may sustain them for a period – unless they trade some away.
P.S. I do not consider a #8 ranking as “elite”. It is good, but barely top quarter.
I also did a study comparing our ratings over the years compared to Baseball America’s Cardinal top 30. I used the Top 30 listed on this site back to 2007 which is the earliest Prospect Handbook I have.
Based on career WAR BA did better than we did rating our prospects early but as time went on we beat them pretty easily. I believe I also posted those results on this site.
I have always liked Sickels’ picks. Don’t like MLB. they always come up with something crazy that doesn’t work out. Baseball America has their biases but not too bad.
Sooner, if your findings are on this new site (July 2017 or newer) you can find them via a Forums search. Click on FORUMS at the right of the red bar on top. There will be a search box above the listing of our two forums. If they were on Scout, however, the “fine” folks at CBS nuked all of it.
As I recall, the Cards score well in some comparisons by having more good prospects while other organizations may have fewer in total, but more great ones (quantity vs. quality). This is one reason why the Cards system may not rank as well in those national rankings whose focus is top-prospect heavy.
I have often asserted that if MLB teams had 40-man active rosters instead of 25 and they had to play all 40 equally, the Cards would fare among the best in the standings. But as we have seen the last three years, the MLB club has good backfill for injuries and the like, but does not have enough difference-makers. I see the farm system similarly.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.