Cubs 20th ... Astros up to 25th!!

He puts the Padres #2, saying their trades push the system up. Was there anything other than Latos?

Was there anything other than Latos?

Gonzalez and Adams, i'm assuming.

New meme: #4org!

FTFA:

4) Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero plus three elite pitching prospects and others who can improve. ...

6) Kansas City Royals

Was there anything other than Latos?

Gonzalez and Adams, i'm assuming.

And Rizzo!

Rizzo was traded for Cashener.

That's what I meant.

I'm surprised the White Sox system was rated as high as it was. Surely the Quintana Roo Tigers have a stronger player development system.

4) Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero plus three elite pitching prospects and others who can improve. ...

It's interesting how the definition of "prospect" affects this kind of list.

The Yankees and the Mariners swap elite young talents, both of which will be in the majors all year, but b/c Montero is still a rookie, it boosts Seattle's "farm system" rating, and lowers the Yankees.

Likewise, graduating young players to the majors (the goal of every farm system) lowers that system's ranking.

Maybe a better concept would be "talent not expected to be on the 25-man roster" (so it's additive to the MLB roster) or "talent under-25".

Should a few dozen extra innings pitched by Matt Moore really alter our view of Tampa's farm that much?

Agree with #8 -- pre-arb players is the better measure.

Agree with #8 -- pre-arb players is the better measure.

Thirded.

If it were "talent under 25," then you'd wonder why all these 26 year olds don't count, when, after all, they're hardly much older than their 25 year old peers who are on the list. If it were "talent not expected to be on the 25 man roster," then whose expectations are you talking about? What about guys expected to get called up midseason, or for a cup of coffee in September? They need to have a line in the sand somewhere, and "rookie" is about as good as any other.

Should a few dozen extra innings pitched by Matt Moore really alter our view of Tampa's farm that much?

Why not? You've got to set a definition and work from there, and no matter how you establish your critera, those interpreting the lists are going to have to make mental adjustments to acccount for the inherent arbitrariness. If your ranking was based on "talent under 25," and the question becomes "who has the most talent below the major league level,' you'd have to make a mental adjustment to weed out those non-qualifiers the same way you do here.

Should a few dozen extra innings pitched by Matt Moore really alter our view of Tampa's farm that much?

Yes. It's just a function of what you are trying to measure. Sickels and others are measuring the farm system, not young talent. The fact that Pineda is one year closer to free agency than Moore has meaning.

Like anything else if you are evaluating a team's long term prospects solely based on this listing then you are making a mistake. As you say talent under-25 (Goldstein used to do that at BP, don't know if he still does) or talent signed for multiple years is something to be considered. For example the Red Sox don't have a great first base candidate in the minors but with Adrian Gonzalez signed for the next six years, I'm not bothered by that and I suspect Ben Cherington isn't either.

Cokes to flournoy and SoSH

"who has the most talent below the major league level,'

That actually might be the best definition, in order to be additive. i.e. "I project Cleveland to win 83 games, and they have the 25th ranked farm (players not projected to get significant MLB PT)" gives me a complete picture of their talent.

I see it as we know who is on the ML roster and a general idea of what to expect. The farms are far harder to know (many levels, age and different skill sets can make a drastic difference on who will or will not succeed in the majors) thus a ranking of them mixed with knowledge of the guys in the majors already works nicely.

The perfect team would be #1 in the majors and #1 in the minors. The Jays getting up to #1 in a minor league ranking is sweet (as a Jays fan) and it is nice to see the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees moving down a bit at last. Still a crazy/tough division but at least a strong minor league system gives us Jay fans hope.

I like the pre-arbitration qualifier(with an addenum of including only post rookie eligible players produced by the system---one year minimum within that teams minor leagues)

I do not think age should factor into this, a 26 year old can still go out and post 5 quality seasons while under control, from a Cardinal point of view, John Jay, Skip Schumaker, David Freese, and Allen Craig all were 25 or older when they reached the bigs and have been or will be major contributers for years. Heck Tyler Greene still hasn't made the leap and he's 27, but there is about a 20% chance he could become a major league starter somewhere.

I'm not that knowledgeable on other farm systems, but it seems that he has ranked the Cardinals highest of any other list like this I've seen. It's nice that the Cardinals farm system consistently has produced major league starters nearly every year, just surprised that they did so much better under his system than others(10th I think was the highest I've seen them any place else)

Edit: I also don't have a problem with the rookie qualifier as it's pretty much a good measure of the farm system. I guess what I'm saying is I agree, you have to make a rule and stick with it, regardless of it's arbitrariness.

Yes. It's just a function of what you are trying to measure. Sickels and others are measuring the farm system, not young talent. The fact that Pineda is one year closer to free agency than Moore has meaning.

Both are valid viewpoints. And both, by them selves, give incomplete pictures. Take this comment about the nationals system:

The big trade with Oakland tore the top off this farm system. You still have Bryce Harper and some interesting players in the B- range. Would have ranked much higher without the trade.

The top of their system just produced a young All Star starting pitcher. OK, the system now may be sparse, but it did its job. Bill James once wrote about the White Sox system in the early 90's (paraphrasing here)

"Not much there, but their last 4 #1 picks are highly productive major leaguers. If Frank Thomas were tearing up AAA the system would rank very highly. I can't fault it because he is already an MVP candidate."

Maybe a better concept would be "talent not expected to be on the 25-man roster" (so it's additive to the MLB roster) or "talent under-25".

Note that Sickels does not include Darvish in the Rangers system. In my opinion, that would be no different than not including Montero in Seattle's system under essentially the same justification. It is a bit different than not including Moore since he is a product of Tampa's system but not necessarily by much.

That said, Sickels gives you that sort of context in his comments (as #17 points out) which is a good way to do it. Another way to do it would be to look at it from a "last half-season and the coming year" perspective or something like that -- i.e. include the guys just graduated or at least give extra "points" to systems that graduated guys last year.

A third approach would be a pre-arb or pre-FA ranking weighted by years away from arb/FA.

In all of those you have the question of when/whether to include guys obtained in trade. Montero on his own tells us nothing about the quality of the M's farm system because they have had nothing to do with his development so I only see two ways his inclusion can be justified. First, the main purpose of this list is to rank teams in terms of "likely contribution of cheap, young talent in the coming years". Second, in this particular case, Montero would count because he was obtained using a young product of the M's system (so Montero would count, guys obtained in a veteran trade would not).

So, no, I'm not sure what lists like this are supposed to be telling me ... and I'm not sure those who put together the lists could tell me that either. They have understandably imposed an arbitrary cutoff not because arbitrary cutoffs are unavoidable (they are) but because it simplifies their job. I don't mean that they're being "lazy", I mean that there's a lot of information to track to answer a more precise question and how to combine that information is far from clear.

EDIT: And on my #1, his quote is "after the winter trades" so the Gonzalez trade doesn't count and presumably neither does Adams (although he might have meant to include that). And the Rizzo to Cubs trade didn't improve their farm system depth. They traded away more minor-leaguers than received in deals for major-leaguers (Street, Quentin, Cashner). Not a big deal, I was just wondering if I'd missed a big Padres trade other than Latos (and couldn't think who that might have been!)

Glad to see the Jays in #1, but it doesn't mean much if they can't convert it to ML wins in the next few years.