My team’s greatest divisional rival has an overrated farm system. Their blue chippers are busts and injuries waiting to happen. Their depth is largely made up of college kids who’ve only faced younger competition, Latin teenagers who are all hype and no performance, and future Triple-A relief pitchers.

Even a total hater has them in the top 8 of systems so even if some people rate them 2 or 3 or even 1 that is not that big of difference.

Yeah, I know he hasn’t played yet, but Inoa is likely worth the $4.5M bonus. So Anderson, Cahill, Inoa is a very impressive top 3 for Oakland. And Cunningham and Cardenas at least are top 100 worthy.

I agree that some of the guys after that are getting pretty over rated by some here, but on the whole there’s still some very nice depth there. I like Gio, and Simmons, and Carter all in the top 150, anyway.

Over all, that’s good enough that it’s still at least a top 5 system, and maybe in the running for top 3. I don’t know that the system is getting over rated generally, but I think we do have a lot of Oakland fans voting in the polls here which may be distorting results some there. So they are likely the most over rated on our community list.

But, it’s a system that also has some very good depth. There are a couple of guys I think get way over rated; I don’t think Doolittle will hit enough to make it, for example. But there are guys that I think get over looked some as well. Tyson Ross is a very intriguing arm who doesn’t get mentioned much, though I think there’s also injury risk there if they don’t clean up his delivery some. Carignan and Outman look like good bullpen arms. You could lop the top 5 off the A’s system and it would still look like at least an average system with decent depth.

I tend to think the Cardinals are a tad overrated. I don’t see the top end starting pitching. I don’t love Chris Perez. I guess I wouldn’t call them horribly overrated, but just slightly overrated.

I’m sorry, but if one person who can hit but isn’t a fielder at all is #2 in your prospects, and you haven’t really got any pitchers, then you’re not a top ten team. Also, Rasmus has to have that good year next year to show me he’s elite. Bryan Anderson isn’t as good as advertised, and seriously: Who else is there? Pete Kozma?

I’m not sure there is a better top 2 than Rasmus/Wallace. That right there gives them a strong advantage over a lot of systems.

Perez is supposed to be a closer. We don’t need him to be anything more. There is tons of value in closers and a lot of them sign for 9-13 million over 3-4 years. If he is the next Francisco Cordero, that is huge. Monster savings for the next 6 years.

Jones could be a Kenny Lofton with more around 30-40 SBs than 70 SBs. Again, huge value in good speedy leadoff hitters and again, monster savings.

And like I said, #4-5 starters like Carlos Silva are somehow finding 10+ million in free agency. The Cards can’t afford that.
Jaime Garcia, Jess Todd, Mitch Boggs, Clayton Mortensen, Lance Lynn, Tyler Herron, Deryk Hooker, Adam Ottavino and David Kopp(I’m predicting a healthy rebound season) give the Cards a lot of chances to find just 2 guys.
With Wainwright, Lohse and hopefully Carpenter slotted into the 1-3 spots in the rotation for the next 4 years, all they need to find is a #4-5 starter. And they may retain Wellemeyer after this year. So they could be just looking for one guy out of those 9 decent to good possibilities.

And I’ve said it before, having strong relief depth is becoming more important. Take a look at what it took to acquire Mark DeRosa, Khalil Greene and Kevin Gregg. Relievers. The Cardinals have maybe the best group of relief prospects in baseball with Perez, Jason Motte, Fernando Salas, Francisco Samuel, Adam Reifer and maybe Luis Perdomo if he is returned.

Like I said before, not having a Brett Anderson, James McDonald, Carlos Carrasco or Jeff Niemann hurts the system and keeps it from being one of the top 5-6 in baseball. But I think it has a lot of underrated strong points that make it a top 10 system.

I just don’t see anything great once you go past Anderson.

1. Better top 2’s? Wieters/Tillman (and the Orioles are ranked consensus #10). Beckham/Price. Heyward/Hanson. Bumgarner/Alderson. Cahill/Anderson. Moustakas/Hosmer. Feliz/Smoak. There’s better ones for you. If we just went by top 2, then yes, they’d be ranked 8th. But we don’t.

2. If your top pitching prospect is a CLOSER, then you have problems with your prospect pitching. This is along the lines with what the Orioles experienced a few years back with Jim Hoey, and what the Yanks are experiencing with Mark Melancon. Yes. Having a good closer prospect is great. But closer prospects just don’t have the same value as future #3 starters for me. They don’t.

3. I did forget about Jones, and he is good, but hardly a system changer. More like an underrated prospect.

4. The only reason these guys find that 10 million is because there are teams dumb enough to give them it. A top prospect system cannot be judged by it’s quantity of #4-5 guys. If so, the Yanks would be top 10. The O’s would be top 5. Seattle would be up there.

5. Relief prospects? So dime a dozen. Being an O’s fan, I can only name the O’s relief prospects, but they look something like this: Jim Hoey, Bob McCrory, David Hernandez, Brad Bergesen, Jason Berken, Nick Haughian, Rick Zagone, Oliver Drake, Kam Mickolio, Craig Anderson. A ton of them. Doesn’t make them a great team. I agree with the O’s ranking.

6. If your system has a lot of players that’ll “save you money”, that doesn’t make it good. The Cards system is good, but it’s not top 10 for me. Underrated strong points are great if you have some actual strong points, like, I don’t know, a top prospect that hit last year, or a top prospect that can play defense, or a top starting pitching prospect. One thing all of the other top 10 systems have in common: A top starting pitching prospect.

I can’t help you if you are going to underrate two of the better prospects in the game.

And strong depth is extremely important. Sometimes a team’s #8 prospect becomes their #2 starter or #4 hitter.
Compare John’s top 20 lists and compare the Cardinals 10-20 prospects to all teams. They are probably top 3 in depth. In fact, John listed 24 Cards prospects because he couldn’t leave anyone off.

And sorry, I meant to say top 2 hitting prospects, not top 2 prospects. We discussed it before in a different thread and most agreed Rasmus/Wallace was the top hitting duo.

BTW, the Orioles have a better system than the Cardinals, IMO. Wieters is unbelievable and they offer 3 really good pitching prospects in Matusz, Tillman and Arrieta.

Back to relief prospects, I don’t know a ton about the O’s system but being a Mizzou fan I know Rick Zagone and if he is anything like the rest of those relief prospects you listed, the Os have terrible relief depth. Zagone would be about the 12th best reliever in our system.
Adam Reifer was, I believe, the top rated prospect in the NYPL by BA. Fernando Salas pitched in the futures game. Francisco Samuel is consistently praised for having a 98 MPH fastball and wicked slider. Luis Perdomo was picked up early in the Rule V draft by the Giants. Jason Motte was great in St. Louis and so was Chris Perez.
Like I said before, having good relief depth is underrated by so many people. Look at what it took to get Mark DeRosa, Khalil Greene or Kevin Gregg.

To me, it’s not underrating the top 2 prospects, it’s a show-me attitude. Before I can see Rasmus as a top 5 even hitting prospect, I need him to do well in AAA this year. What you described as strong depth isn’t exactly strong depth. Having a strong amount of very good prospects is what you described. Having a bunch of C+ prospects doesn’t a good system make.

Rick Zagone is actually among the lesser reliever prospects, but he did have a great year starting, albeit with mediocre stuff and against younger competition. But that’s just the O’s. Other teams, like the Yanks, have also strong reliever depth.

Building a bullpen doesn’t require top prospects. It can be done easily just looking at the scrap wire (evidence: the Rays) Building a viable rotation, OTOH, is a lot harder and cannot be done by sifting through the cast-offs.

Personally, even if Wallace can’t play at 3B and won’t have a future with STL, I don’t think you can consider that a knock against STL. HIs bat was superb last year, and even if he doesn’t have a position w/ STL because of that Pujols fella, hat certainly makes him prime trade bait and shouldn’t be a knock on the system itself.

I vote Blue Jays.

It doesn’t mean he’s a bad prospect, but he’s not at an elite level without some defense.

pretty much invariably fail to consider defensive context. Sean Doolittle looks like he could easily be an .850 OPS player with MLB-average defense— which is pretty damn good, 4 wins above replacement or so. But of course that’s less flashy than a player like Prince Fielder, who hits better but gives every bit of it back with his stone-gloved fielding.

The other problem is that people have somehow become confused into thinking that improving from an .850 OPS in AAA to a .900 OPS in MLB is harder than improving from a 1.000 OPS in rookie ball to a .900 OPS in MLB. It isn’t.

As far as most overrated systems go, I’d have to say the Giants. They have a number of players that I like a lot (Bumgarner, Alderson, Posey) but also a lot of players I think are future busts (Villalona, Noonan, Fairley) and the system falls off a cliff after player #12 or so (check out the community prospect list at McCovey Chronicles). I shouldn’t have to say this, but for the record, I say this as someone who likes the Giants on a personal level.