BA also projects starting lineups for 2010 as part of these reviews. The projection for the Orioles includes Brandon Snyder at 1B, and Tejada still at SS. I feel relatively safe in predicting that neither of those will happen.

Mike: a little late to the party here, but how did you feel about Boston's 2010 lineup featuring Manny Ramirez still patrolling left field? Sounds eminently realistic to me.

Against my better instincts, I'm going to dredge up the Lancaster conversation. Based on personal experience, anecdote, and common sense, my opinion is that sentencing a promising pitcher to a term of one year in an extreme offensive park is a pretty lousy idea. If the pitcher in question is the next Pedro Martinez, then perhaps not, but I doubt any farm directors are sincerely expecting to develop a once-in-a-generation talent. Similarly, I doubt the Red Sox believe they have anything approaching that kind of ceiling in Buchholz or Bowden. So why assign your top pitching prospects to an environment where they are likely to struggle? Player development in baseball isn't about eliminating the chaff from your system, it's about trying to turn the chaff into something useful.

To the extent that I've been exposed to behavioral studies on learning, the consensus seems to be that human beings (as which pitchers are loosely classified) learn more effectively by positive reinforcement than negative. Getting knocked around and laboring through long innings day in and day out does little to help a young pitcher learn to pitch, particularly if he's actually executing well. As a hypothetical example, let's say Buchholz arrives in Lancaster next spring and his curveball starts getting crushed. Maybe he's got the evolutionary Koufax deuce and will dominate, park factors be damned, but let's presume he's mortal and is getting cuffed around a bit. Working from the assumption that Lancaster's park influence will get the better of him more than a few times, there are a few scenarios to work through:

1. There's nothing wrong with Buchholz's curve, and it's simply the nutty park at work. The coach staff reassures him that his curveball is great, don't worry about all the gopher balls. Buchholz continues to pitch the same way and logs a greater number of pitches per inning (or per out), putting additional stress on his young arm over the course of the season. On the plus side, he earns a few tough-sounding superlatives like "bulldog" and "battler" from the handful of people who are even paying attention. What has this done for his raw ability to get major league hitters out?

2. There is something wrong with Buchholz's curve, and the coaching staff helps him make some adjustments. Buchholz realizes improvement instantly, as the hits he's giving up are now merely frozen ropes into the power alleys or perhaps landing just a few rows behind the outfield wall instead of leaving the stadium entirely. What does this teach a young pitcher about making adjustments? What does this do to the level of trust he has in his coaches?

3. There is something wrong with Buchholz's curve, and the coaching staff helps him make some adjustments. Buchholz realizes non-sarcastic improvement instantly and turns in a very respectable season. After being promoted to AA, however, he finds that the adjustments he had to make at Lancaster in order to regain effective movement on his breaking pitch have left him (choose one or more of the following):
(a) prone to throwing his curve in the dirt
(b) unable to throw his curve for strikes as consistently
(c) a little bit sore in his elbow after games
(d) insert Chicken Little event of your choice
Buchholz now has to make further adjustments to modify or reverse what he "learned" at Lancaster. Assuming these are successful, has he accomplished anything?

It seems to me that if an organization's developmental philosophy includes challenging its best pitching prospects, its healthier to do that via aggressive promotion and exposing them to genuinely better competition rather than thrusting them into some circus of a park to face artificially inflated competition. That doesn't teach your stud prospects squat about getting good hitters out; at best, it only teaches them how to get unpolished hitters out in a freakish environment or how to cope with an inordinate frequency of failure. On the flip side of the coin, I don't see a tremendous amount of value for the organization either. If a pitcher is considered "ready" for Lancaster, why wouldn't he also be considered "ready" for AA? Opting to put the pitcher at Lancaster strikes me as shouldering more risk just to produce the same data point at the end of the day. A good farm director, in my view, should pursue a strategy of having the best prospects play against their peers in as neutral an environment as is feasible. Let the filler play in the bizarro parks.

Nice bit of writing, Mattbert. The Red Sox could do almost anything with Manny, so I don't feel comofrtable in predicting *anything* relating to him, other than that there will be a lot of offseason stories about what to do with him :)

If a pitcher is considered "ready" for Lancaster, why wouldn't he also be considered "ready" for AA? Opting to put the pitcher at Lancaster strikes me as shouldering more risk just to produce the same data point at the end of the day. A good farm director, in my view, should pursue a strategy of having the best prospects play against their peers in as neutral an environment as is feasible. Let the filler play in the bizarro parks.

I don't think it's any accident that High Desert can't get an affiliate to stay for more than two years. I don't think it's any accident that Lancaster and HD were the last high-A teams to get an affiliation this year.

This, to me, speaks volumes about why affiliated baseball isn't always the best thing for the minors. Boston's caught between a rock and a hard place. Their goal is player development; if a pitcher on whom they are relying to develop has that development process retarding by playing in Lancaster, they aren't going to want to send him there. On the other hand, the JetHawk owners, media, and fans want to see the Buchholzes and Bowdens and the other top prospects there; with no local marketing connection a la Boston/Pawtucket or LA/Inland Empire to trumpet, they don't WANT to be bypassed, and they aren't going to be too happy with Boston if they are bypassed.

It's a gamble for the Red Sox; how far do they go to keep the affiliate happy while protecting their own interests. There is no question that, if push comes to shove, the JetHawks will be thrown over the side.

-- MWE

Twins are up. Here is another take on Minnesota's top 10.

There's little disagreement that Garza's #1, there's a great deal of disagreement below that. Parmelee, Perkins, and Slowey are in a knot (I'm actually more sold on Parmelee than on either of the other two), then when you get down toward the bottom of the top 10, you have guys like the 7-10 on the BA ist, plus guys like Smit, Morlan, Manship, Robbins - all of whom I think are basically interchangeable at this stage of their career, in terms of their prospect status. The only real quibble, at this stage for me, is Benson. I think he's talented, but #8 seems to me to be way too high.

Minnesota has as many guys who *could* have good careers as almost anyone - BA's top 10 plus the four guys I just named.

-- MWE

Oh yeah:

I read an interview with Benson's HS coach, who compared him to Kirby Puckett and Aaron Rowand.

-- MWE

Oh yeah #2:

Scout.com has a list of the Twins' top 50 (don't know how much of this is accessible to non-subscribers). They put Casilla #3, Morlan #5, Parmelee #7, and Benson all the way down at #26.

There's also this about Trevor Plouffe:

Plouffe has another mediocre season in 2006, and some within the organization are beginning to question whether or not he is the shortstop of the future. I for one believe he has a very bright future, though I do believe a jump to Double-A in 2007 could be damaging to his development. The young SS batted only .245 for the Miracle in 2006.

Can we just be honest with ourselves? The Yankees farm system is better than the Angels system, as they both are currently situated.

Angels, by the way, are up.

The Yankees farm system is better than the Angels system, as they both are currently situated.

I think the Angels' farm system is overrated, largely because people (a) fail to fathom exactly how good the hitting environments have been and (b) don't look at the whole picture of the prospect as a result. It's good, not great.

-- MWE

Agreed. But I was still surprised to see an 18-year old Korean pitcher who even BA describes as "lacking significant projection" and who hasn't pitched in a game yet at the #4 slot.

I was still surprised to see an 18-year old Korean pitcher who even BA describes as "lacking significant projection" and who hasn't pitched in a game yet at the #4 slot.

Alan Matthews (from the chat) describes his choice this way:

It would have been "safer" to slide him in the back of the 10 and wait to see how he performed in his debut, but my objective is to list the top 10 players in the system, in order of impact potential with likelihood of reaching that potential, and I believe Jung is a workhorse No. 2 or 3 starter, and that profile justified his ranking.

Matthews had the advantage of seeing him pitch in instructional league, liked his fastball and his already well-developed secondary offerings, and, well, you see the rest.

After Wood and Adenhart, the quality falls off quickly, IMO. I'm not at all sold on Aybar. Conger has as good an argument to be #3 as anyone else on the list, and he's all projection at this point.

-- MWE

Were I an Angels fan I'd be scared about Wood ending up a huge bust. I know he has as much potential as anyone, but that contact rate scares me. Maybe I'm just looking for negatives on him, but that along with playing in extreme run environments really make me doubt he's going to be an impact player.

Oakland is up.

I'm surprised to see Mitchell so high, especially ahead of Hererra. Hererra missed all of 2006 with TJ surgery, but he's still younger and has had success at a higher level tham Mitchell--though they both seem like similar prospects.

The bottom half of the list is pretty depressing, as is their projection of Saarloos as the 4th starter in 2010.

I'm not too worries about Wood's strikeouts. He's learning to walk, and if he stays at shorstop, his secondary skills will mean he should still be a contributor even if he's hitting .240, which I think he should be able to do at the major league level.

The flip-side of the Angel system being "overrated" due to the hitting environments overrating the hitters is that the pitchers are underrated. Adenhart is the class of the joint, but Steven Marek and even Steve Shell (who struggled at AAA last year, but was only 23 and always struggles at his first exposure to a new level) have some potential, as do young guys like Gustavo Espinoza (who didn't pitch this year, but is playing in winter ball), Tommy Mendoza, and Jose Arredondo, who will be making the move to the pen. Then you have really young guys like Trevor Bell and Sean O'Sullivan, and even Rafael Rodriguez.

Obviously, attrition is the big thing with young pitchers, but they have a few guys lined up and will hopefully be able to get one top-notch starter and a solid reliever out of the group.

This whole list should be pretty depressing to Oakland fans, actually. There is no one on this list with significant upside.

-- MWE

One "problem" with the Angel farm system is that the first wave has pretty much all made the majors, but the jury's still out on all of them. Kotchman and McPherson have had health issues, Kendrick has only just come up, Weaver and Santana don't really have track records (though obviously Santana is much further along in terms of establishing himself in the majors). Kind of the same deal with Mathis and Napoli.

We're at least a couple of years away from really being able to judge that group. I think Mathis projects to a league-average catcher at his peak, Napoli is pretty much what we've seen, Kotchman is a real player if he can keep out the viruses, McPherson is at worst a decent platoon player with a bad back, Weaver and Santana are top-of-the-rotation material, and Kendrick is the next MVP to wear an Angel uniform.

Oh, and Kendry Morales, who I think is going to be Brad Fullmer without the platoon split.

I still love Wood's potential - if he sticks at SS. I have a particular bias towards unique players, and Wood does have a pretty unusual profile. He and Gordon are still the top 2 jewels, IMO.

This whole list should be pretty depressing to Oakland fans, actually. There is no one on this list with significant upside.

Oh, believe me, I have been depressed about the farm system for some time.

Oh, believe me, I have been depressed about the farm system for some time.

What do A's fans seem to think are the root causes of the A's "depressing" farm?

Butler is, IMO, far and away the prospect who has the biggest potential for being a Brad Komminsk-style bust.

What's wrong with Butler besides defense? He was only 20 last year and put up .331/.388/.499 in AA.

What's wrong with Butler besides defense? He was only 20 last year and put up .331/.388/.499 in AA.

Let me comment on the second part of that statement first.

Whether we know it or not, we always rely on an unstated assumption regarding player development - young players will get better. Hence, Billy Butler's performance line at age 20 at AAA sticks out, because he performed extremely well at a young age, when he is still going to get better. And for some people, that's where prospect evaluation stops. They don't go beyond the performance/age combination.

But what happens if the player - for whatever reason - does not have room for improvement, even at age 20? What happens if Billy Butler, at age 20, is as good as he is ever going to get? If Billy Butler gets to the majors and fails to produce to the level that we expect of a 20-YO with his performance record to date, what happens? What usually happens then:

1. someone, somewhere, will say: "They never gave him a fair chance".
2. someone, somewhere, will be clamoring for their team to pick him up and "give him a fair chance - remember what he did at age 20"?

and they'll ignore the possibility that maybe, just maybe, what he did at age 20 represented the best that he could ever have done.

Now I have no way of knowing what will happen with Billy Butler. But I have reservations about him for a couple of reasons:

-- He is not a good defensive player, which means that if he isn't hitting, he'll have no value and his teams will be more inclined to give up on him.
-- He is not a particularly good athlete, which suggests that it might be difficult for him to make timely adjustments.
-- His numbers against RHP a year ago were pretty ordinary; he mashed LHP but barely broke .800 OPS against RHP.

None of these are necessarily indicative of something being wrong. But they're things that make me step back a bit and take a longer look. So when I make the comment that I did, it's not necessarily a sign that Butler's on the fast track to oblivion, and shouldn't be taken that way. To me, what I see are indicators that Butler might not have as much growth in front of him as does the typical prospect.

-- MWE

As an A's fan, I would term the farm depressing simply because of the types of players the A's bring in. There just aren't a lot of guys in the system to dream about "what could be." Herrera was like that, and hopefully he can recover some of that luster. But getting busted for PEDs kind of threw water on him.

The team has started diving back in with some HS players, but Italiano and Lansford haven't done anything to make one hopeful.

I like Sulentic a lot.

Mike, didn't the Angels sign Trembo (the 3b/P) a year ago? By BA's logic, shouldn't he make this list?

Well, Trumbo has played, and hasn't played particularly well (discipline! discipline! he must develop plate discipline!). Interestingly, last year he hit pretty damn well with runners on base, and even limited his strikeouts in those situations, but was a total disaster with no on one. He's pretty raw, but he has plenty of time to get it together.

I estimate Trumbo had an OPS+ of around 124 with men on last year (his league had a 106 OPS+ in those situations), and he only struck out in 15.8% of his PA with men on where the league struck out 19.5% overall and 18.6% in those situations. I don't know if there's something about his approach that changes in situations, or if it's just random chance. The latter is probably more likely, but I certainly hope there's something to the former ...

Seattle and Texas have been posted, completing the AL.

I don't have a lot to say about the Mariners' prospects. Carlos Triunfel, the teenage SS from the DR signed as a UDFA by Seattle last year, was very impressive in instructional league and might open his professional career in Wisconsin in 2007; he could be better than anyone who actually got rated top-10, although Callis cautiously slotted him at #11.

As for the Rangers: lots of good young arms, all with question marks attached, and almost no hitters with upside. I don't have a really good feel for this group; I can't really put a finger on anything, but I would not be at all surprised if Texas winds up getting very little out of DVD and Hurley.

-- MWE

Braves are up.

I didn't know where else to ask this, so thought I'd just stick it here and see if anyone happens to notice.

Does anyone know of a study reviewing BA's top 100 rankings over the years, showing what percentage of top 10's, top 50's or top 100's made it to the majors, and how they produced?

If you happen to know of such a study, please send me an e mail or post the link here, I'll check back over the next couple of days.

Thanks.