2012 Farm System Rankings based on John's individual grades
by dougdirt on Jan 20, 2012 9:55 AM EST
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PrintI created this last year and it was really fun. I posted this last night on my website (http://www.redsminorleagues.com) and thought I would re-post it here again this season.
These rankings are not indicative of John’s actual farm system rankings, which he is currently working on and will soon be found on his website. These are based on a system, as described below.
I went through each system that John graded and took down the grade for both hitters and pitchers. Why did I do that? Well, hitters and pitchers have different values. The value’s that I used were the ones first identified by Victor Wang in an article at The Hardball Times. The guys at Beyond The Box Score took that and made it into a monetary value. Here is what the average prospect was worth who fell in these ranges:
| Top 10 hitting prospects | $32.5M |
| Top 11-25 hitters | $22.3 |
| Top 26-50 hitters | $20.8 |
| Top 51-75 hitters | $12.6 |
| Top 76-100 hitters | $11.1 |
| Top 10 pitching prospects | $13.5 |
| Top 11-25 pitchers | $14.2 |
| Top 26-50 pitchers | $14.2 |
| Top 51-75 pitchers | $10.8 |
| Top 76-100 pitchers | $8.7 |
| Grade B pitchers (as graded by Sickels) | $6.5 |
| Grade B hitters | $4.9 |
| Grade C pitchers 22 or younger | $1.9 |
| Grade C pitchers 23 or older | $1.3 |
| Grade C hitters 22 or younger | $0.62 |
| Grade C hitters 23 or older | $0.45 |
Now I did have to make some adjustments. As we can see, Pitching prospects in the 11-50 range tend to be more valuable than those in the Top 10. Since that doesn’t actually make much sense, I made every pitcher graded as a B+ or better worth the same "average" value of 14.2M.
| Team | A | A- | B+ | B | B- | C+ | |
| H | Value | 32.5 | 22.3 | 20.8 | 12.6 | 4.9 | 0.88 |
| P | Value | 14.2 | 14.2 | 14.2 | 9.8 | 6.5 | 2.6 |
For the C+ guys I had to change a little. I didn’t go through the 292 players who were graded C+ to find the age. So what I did was take the average C grade (split the difference between the two grades). That made 1.6 for pitchers and 0.54 for hitters.I used the weighting for the B grade prospects to wind up with the C+ being worth the same for a C as the B+ was for the B grades. Now that we had the value for each type of prospect, I just ran the numbers for the different teams. One thing to note, I didn’t include the grade C prospects because not all of the C prospects made each list, so the data was left out because it was incomplete. Here are the results:
(If you are going to repost this somewhere else, please give credit)
Here is a graphical breakdown of the values for each team with hitters/pitchers values:
(If you are going to repost this somewhere, please give credit)
I think that the numbers are correct, but if you see any inaccuracies, please let me know and I will correct them later this evening (I am about to head to bed for the day).
With all systems, there are some flaws in it. But, it is a fun exercise to go through and it is at least based somewhat in reality and avoids bias and opinions (aside from John's of course, which is where the entire system is based around).
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Very impressive
Cardinals at 4!!!
"The Mollusk" makes me want to rail LSD crystals off my friends' sternum. Rage."
by ICEYhawtSTUNNAZ on Jan 20, 2012 9:57 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Great work, and very interesting
A few quick thoughts I have:
1. I appreciate you changing Wang’s data slightly for pitching, however as has been discussed here, that data was gathered during a period in time where pitching in the minors was well below average as a whole, and the top pitching prospects were not the same caliber as today. I definitely believe the top pitching needs to be weighted lower than top hitting, but not to such an extreme. I would love to see new data for recent years on these trends.
2. I find it difficult to believe any equation will ever be able to properly rank farm systems. As you mention, the inability to determine whether a C+ player is a high upside low floor guy or a organizational filler type of player is impossible, and both are weighted the same when I am not sure that is deserved. This may give a good idea out of what to expect out of each farm system for 2012, but not necessarily where the farm systems can expect to progress or regress to.
Overall though, the work is impressive, and you clearly put a lot of time into it. Ironically, after both my complaints above, the Cubs actually slot exactly where I would put them just using my own judgement (around 16-20), and outside of a handful of teams here and there I think are too high or low, it’s pretty darn good. I love seeing the split between pitching and hitting depth per team, and will certainly repost this with credit to you – it’s too interesting not to dissect further.
Wang's data
The problem with using newer data, is that the most recent year we would be able to use, is probably 2000 or 2001. The data is based off of the first 6 years a guy plays in the Majors. Well in 2001, lets say a pitcher was 17 at the time and got a grade. Well lets say he didn’t reach the majors for 5 years, that is 2006. Then the next 6 years that we need to look at for him brings us right up to today. Updating the data really would be tough at this point because of how long it takes for us to actually get the useful data with certain players.
I am with you that I think the value of pitching prospects in particular, is vastly stronger than it was when this data was done because of how careful teams are now with arms compared to the 90’s, but I also don’t think that enough time has passed for us to actually test that theory either. At least in the manner in which Wang did.
Fair enough, and I do understand that point.
Believe me, I realize I’m sitting here pointing out an issue with no solution, which I hate to do – but that kind of work is well above my pay grade.
+1
I agree with your 1st statement—-“I definitely believe the top pitching needs to be weighted lower than top hitting, but not to such an extreme.”
At least the way I read it, then Matt Moore, Shelby Miller, & Julio Teheran would have a value relative to a hitter at the end of a Top 50 list. Would we really value the top 10 pitchers in the minors on the same scale as these guys (from the community list):
- - JEDD GYORKO – 22.8% (62.5% In Runoff)
- - KOLTEN WONG – 36.4%
- - ANDRELTON SIMMONS – 32.3%
- - WILL MIDDLEBROOKS – 16.1% (57.1% In Runoff)
- - JAVIER BAEZ – 22.0% (55.3% In Runoff)
- - OSWALDO ARCIA – 23.5%
- - TIM WHEELER – 25.5%
- - EDDIE ROSARIO – 32.7%
- - BILLY HAMILTON – 17.9% (52.2% In Runoff)
- - DEREK NORRIS – 15.7% (51.2% In Runoff)
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again.
rebuttal
How many of those pitchers are likely to pitch 6 full seasons without injury/missed time? How many of those hitters are you likely to see miss a full season with an injury?
That is why you see the discrepancy with the values. Well that and that top pitching prospects in general miss more often than top pitching prospects.
History backs that up pretty well.
Agreed - but you're talking about a 240% difference in value between top 10 pitchers and top 10 hitters.
That’s massive. It may turn out to be accurate, but wow.
Pitcher readiness
The discrepancy to me lies in how close the pitcher is to the majors. The injury risk exists in all pitchers at all levels so the difference between harper and moore is much smaller than the difference between say josh bell and zach lee. I also think this is why we see the quirk with top ten pitchers worth less than 10-20 pitchers. Iirc, wangs research used ba lists where those guys loooooove them some upside and could have bumped “safer” starters down.
by peachesnnuts on Jan 21, 2012 12:00 PM EST via Android app up reply actions
I think
It is a bit misleading though. The top pitching prospects are gambles, but have a chance to be way more productive (I’m guessing here). So would you rather take a 50/50 chance to get a strong #2 SP, or a 90% chance to get a low end competent LF?
by auclairkeithbc on Jan 20, 2012 10:53 AM EST up reply actions
Nope
Pitchers don’t have a chance to be way more productive. There were 29 position players worth 5 or more WAR in 2011. There were only 15 pitchers worth 5 or more WAR in 2011. Only 6 pitchers had more than 6 WAR, where as 17 position players have 6 or more WAR.
You misunderstood
I am guessing that the successful top 10 pitching prospects are better than the successful 40-50 range positional prospects.
by auclairkeithbc on Jan 20, 2012 11:27 AM EST up reply actions
Also
When it comes to top end pitchers, their playoff value has to increase, and that while it only affects 8 teams, it factors into what GMs SHOULD be thinking.
by auclairkeithbc on Jan 20, 2012 11:29 AM EST up reply actions
This is precisely why higher end pitching prospects are more valuable
When you get one that makes a difference, you have something no one else does…
by diehardtwinsfan on Jan 20, 2012 4:10 PM EST up reply actions
But teams pay more per WAR for pitchers
Pitching costs more per “win” whether it’s in the draft or in free agency. If instead of using overall free agent $/WAR to estimate your values, you calculated it seperately for free agent pitchers and hitters, and used those in your value estimates, the difference in the hitting and pitching prospect values would mostly dissappear.
So the question is, are “wins” really an entirely fungible commodity? Can you win with replacement level starting pitching by simply having a good lineup?
Or is there some reason that it’s important to have at least some good starting pitching, even if it ens up costimg you more per win? Teams seem to behave as though there is.
wait
where have you found that it costs more on the free market for pitching WAR as opposed to position player WAR?
by blue bulldog on Jan 23, 2012 9:41 AM EST up reply actions
Draft research
seems to confirm this. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/valuing-the-draft-part-2/
i'm not sure what this is supposed to show
isn’t the article referring to only draft pitchers?
i’m talking about free agency pitchers (free market)
i’ve never heard of any study that showed free agent pitchers cost more $/marginal WAR. and in fact, i think intuitively you would expect that with general risk aversion, pitchers would cost less per win in free agency. you would also expect that since people have less demand for pitchers in free agency, they would cost more per win in draft, which is one of the other main outlays towards acquiring pitching.
by blue bulldog on Jan 24, 2012 12:55 PM EST up reply actions
Apples and oranges?
The article clearly demonstrates that the expected WAR return for drafted pitchers is much lower than for drafted position players. Thus MLB teams are clearly willing to use their picks for pitchers even though the WAR return is less.
Whether this practice carries over to free agent signings is certainly up to interpretation.
"Pitching costs more per "win" whether it’s in the draft or in free agency."
This was the statement I was questioning above.
Specifically, fre agency: “where have you found that it costs more on the free market for pitching WAR as opposed to position player WAR?”
i’m also trying to explain why intuitively, the fact that teams are willing to overpay on pitchers in the draft even though the WAR return is less, means that they are likely underpaying for pitchers in free agency.
by blue bulldog on Jan 24, 2012 2:13 PM EST up reply actions
I did some research into this
I’ve only looked at “premium” pitching and hitting (and my position player list isn’t comprehensive, Im working on that), but it’s pretty clear teams pay more for pitching WAR than hitting WAR.
Initially, this evolved out of discussion were having at BBB about signing Prince Fielder. Someone put together a list of 8 100M+ hitting free agent contracts, I expanded that in the first hitting article, was going to do the same for the pitchers when i decided the artitrary nominal cutoff didn’t work. So the original point was to look at massive contracts, and I grew from there.
For the pitchers, as I briefly eluded fro in the article, I started with a list of almost 345 hitters from 1995-2010 who posted at least one season with 2 fWAR. Then I had to check the contract particulars for each of them, which you can imagine is very, very time consuming. I have a seperate list of pitchers who signed smaller deals, and will get to them in time. Right now, I’m working on putting together a new comprehensive list of hitters, same methodology. This is a list of just over 500 players, so it’s time consuming. My goal is to update the hitters, and then do a comparison or smaller contracts.
Of course, it won’t include all players, but that’s not the point. Teams often look for significant upgrades, that is, players with the ability to be average or better. I want to look at how much it costs to get these type of players in the FA market.
aside from the looking at the whole sample issue that doug brings up
this is pretty fascinating stuff
as you would expect, generally, contracts for pitchers are smaller than contracts for hitters. also, as you would expect, in general you need to pay a premium for top tier talent.
it’s surprising though that even knowing this, GM’s still aren’t discounting for risk enough when they sign pitchers to huge contracts.
another thing that’s interesting, is just how much better small deals are better than large deals. if all these large deals underperform so much, then the small deals must overperform tremendously in order to bring the WAR to its average
by blue bulldog on Jan 24, 2012 9:44 PM EST up reply actions
Yeah, as I say above, working on that
What I find really interesting, is that it’s almost entirely due to free market bidding. When we look contracts of players who sign simiarly sized extensions with teams covering free agent years, the premium almost entirely disappears.
well
i think you should somewhat expect that
even though there’s no bidding, the premium for elite players in extension is counteracted by the fact that there’s still some risk for the player that he gets injured before free agency and his market value tanks. due to natural risk aversion, that risk is probably over-priced into the contract, so the premium for paying for elite players is almost completely wiped out. i think. i could be wrong about this.
still, i have to admit that if this is accurate, the premium you have to pay for elite hitters is a lot lower than i thought it would be. a 25% premium doesn’t seem like that much, considering what you are probably getting back (in terms of benefit of consolidating WAR in a single position, added playoff revenue probability, marketability).
by blue bulldog on Jan 24, 2012 10:09 PM EST up reply actions
I think, when I'm finished with the revised list
That numbers will go up. Because that list was put together uncomprehensively, I’ve already found some big contracts left off who did very poorly – Mo Vaughan (almost a complete loss), Albert Belle with the Orioles (also basically a complete loss). So my guess is, it ends up somewhat higher, maybe around 30-35%
Thanks
I guess you didn’t adjust to 2010 dollars when you did the hitters, so I can’t compare directly. But the percentages suggest teams paid 32% more for pitching.
If we raised the value of pitchers above by 32%, then 11-50 ranked pitchers would be worth near as much as 11-50 hitters ($18.7M vs. $20-$22M).
Your numbers also suggest the paid $9.1M per win (2010 dollars), or $8.75M using your projections for the incompete contracts. So I guess both hitters and pitchers are being overpaid on these big contracts.
Correct
I didn’t adjust to 2010 dollars for the hitters, that research came before the pitchers. But I redoing the hitters comprehensively, and in compiling the new list I am adjusting to constant 2010 dollars. It’s a long slog checking contract details for 500 guys, but I hope to finish sometime on the weekend
I must have misunderstood you
i’m also trying to explain why intuitively, the fact that teams are willing to overpay on pitchers in the draft even though the WAR return is less, means that they are likely underpaying for pitchers in free agency.
I don’t see anyone saying that teams are underpaying FA pitchers. It is pretty clear that acerimusdux and I suspect the opposite.
yeah i know
i’m trying to show you the opposite argument
by blue bulldog on Jan 26, 2012 12:21 AM EST up reply actions
Not sure now
I’m looking for a more comprehensive study, but I think there’s at least some evidence this is true recently.
http://www.patrickfloodblog.com/2012/01/01/from-the-archives-signing-free-agent-pitchers/
For all the pitchers listed here, it has cost teams $12.4 dollars per win above a replacement-level pitcher. Outfielders signed to multi-year deals, over the same time period, ran at about $6.5 dollars per win above replacement.
That’s only looking at the 2004-2005 offseason though. Small sample.
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2010/11/whats_a_free_ag.php
From Sky in the comment section there, looking at 2007-2010:
Total $$/WAR: $4.2M ($3.0M)
Non-pitcher $$/WAR: $3.4M
Starting pitcher $$/WAR: $5.5MM
Again limited amount of data, and too recent to look at full contract.
I could be wrong, but I’ve had a sense for awhile that pitching is riskier in free agent contracts as well as in the draft, and that this made hitting a better investment per dollar. But I can’t seem to find a comprehensive study on it right now though, which makes me doubt it (as it seems too obvious to think this is something that would be missed or not mentioned if it were routinely a large difference).
it seems counterintuitive though
if pitching is riskier (which i think it is) that means most teams would be willing to pay a premium for more certainty, and thus per win, hitting should cost more
by blue bulldog on Jan 24, 2012 4:56 PM EST up reply actions
for past or future WAR?
I think we’re looking at the actual return here, not what WAR was before the contract. So if you have 2 guys who were 2.0 WAR players, yeah you might pay more for the one who was the hitter, but you might still end up paying less per win for the contract.
But this is also assuming wins are fungible; a hitting win is as good as a pitching win. I think though that at a certain point, teams think you do need at least some good pitching. So they are actually willing to pay more for it for that reason; since all pitchers are risky, the risk doesn’t lower the price of a pitcher relative to other pitchers.
I think this is especially true of top of rotation pitching. The pitcher is his own team in a sense; good pitching at it’s best can dominate a game. Especially if you get into the playoffs, the value of those top couple of SP is greater than the number of wins they add in a season. So teams will pay a premium per win for one or two guys to fill that role.
And thus, I think this is going to be true as well for how teams value top pitching prospects, who will generally project as potentially better than a #3 SP.
TINSTAAPP
"I actually used about nine pitches--two different fastballs, two sliders, a curve, a changeup, knockdown, brushback, and hit-batsman" - Bob Gibson
Sign Mark Prior!
by ISawGodInGibby'sRightArm on Jan 21, 2012 11:13 AM EST up reply actions
Oh my
Are we re-hashing OPS vs BA next?
by auclairkeithbc on Jan 21, 2012 1:08 PM EST up reply actions
I believe this was brought up in previous discussions
But isn’t such a representation of the systems understating the strength of the deeper systems? While you have made efforts to avoid this (by discounting C graded players) we know for a fact that John has more players listed at C+ in at least one system (Toronto) and quite likely in a few others. Aren’t these systems thus being underrepresented (the Jays have five extra C+ according to John), and doesn’t this skew the graphs? I’d expect the Jays/Padres/Rangers/Royals? to be as ahead of the curve at the high end as the White Sox are behind the curve at the low end.
Sure
But in the end, we are talking about incredibly small amounts of value that may have been added on by 1-5 guys that were left off as C+ types for some teams.
To be honest, the top 15 of a system is drastically more important to the value of the system than the guys at 16-30. That top group is most likely where your stars, every day guys (or starting pitchers) or even good bullpen/utility guys are going to be found.
It's also safe to assume that the 1-5 C+ guys that were left off of Toronto's and Cubs' systems
Are more along the lines of the organizational filler prospect instead of a high ceiling guy. Chances are this is pretty inconsequential for the few teams it effects.
To list from the suggestion John Y/N'd
C+’s from the Of note group for the Jays
Filler[/b]Cooper
McDade (Undecided)
[b]High Upside Youth[/b]
Stilson
Hawkins
Thon Jnr
Comer
Robson
Taylor
That’s 6 of the maybe 8 John confirmed would also be C+ that are high ceiling guys rather than org. filler
That’s just under $14million of talent ignored off the Jays system using your figures Doug, or 7% of the teams total farm value. I’d make the point that that is not ‘incredibly small amounts of value’.
We'll have to disagree on that
but to me that’s a huge variance.
I think huge is a little much
But I wouldn’t call it very small either. It’s probably fairly immaterial to an ordinal ranking, since all teams would gain some value, I’d guess a team might jump or drop a notch but rarely more
As a follower of the Rangers system,
I think you’re significantly underrating the value of a deep system. Here are guys in the Rangers system that fall outside of Sickels’ top 25:
- David Perez, Jordan Akins, Leury Garcia, Yohander Mendez, Engel Beltre, Wilmer Font, Victor Payano, Luis Marte, Jake Brigham, Kevin Matthews, Drew Robinson, Kellin Deglan, Nick Tepesch
While many of those prospects have their flaws, the group is not insignificant to the strength of the Rangers’ farm system. Many of the players I listed above have ridiculously high upside. I’d say that the 16-50 guys of a system are incredibly important if filled with high upside talent. To dismiss that in your farm system rankings is a significant flaw. Depth of a system definitely matters.
"...Ron Washington is the Les Miles of MLB." - AJM
yeah...but
The Padres and Blue Jays have insane depth, too.
I think the Rangers at 3rd is correct.
by John Sickels on Jan 20, 2012 1:03 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I'm not arguing against the Rangers' ranking.
I don’t think the Rangers have the top system right now. I just disagree that the depth of a system only provides “incredibly small amounts of value.” In the best systems, you can find “stars, every day guys (or starting pitchers) or even good bullpen/utility guys” even below the top 15-25 prospects. Any ranking system that doesn’t account for that depth is flawed.
"...Ron Washington is the Les Miles of MLB." - AJM
It did account for that depth, sans a few guys
And lets be fair, in the history of the rankings, how many guys ranked 25th or lower turned into stars?I don’t have the numbers, but I bet it is an incredibly small amount, less than 1% and when something is that low, it simply isn’t worth worrying about.
I think we have to do a deeper analysis of individual prospects to rank systems properly.
Perhaps the best way for pitchers would be to create a tier of pitchers out of the A grade pitchers. I think Matt Moore should be worth significantly more than any other pitching prospect, maybe $40 mil or so (along with Harper and Trout, I think these three should be valued as a separate Tier, with their respective farm systems getting a huge boost for having them). Then I would have guys like Miller, Teheran, and Bauer (yes, I’m very high on Bauer as a ready-to-go ace) worth around 30 mil. While Archie Bradley and Dylan Bundy are both A prospects (I believe), I wouldn’t give unproven high school guys a similar valuation.
So I would basically have a tier of true #1s with high floors worth a significant amount, and then penalize the rest accordinly for the risk of being pitchers.
Excellent work
I will do an average ranking of yours, mine, and backtocali’s rankings and post it as a FanPost soon.
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
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I guess I should wait for John's ranking
4 is better than 3, and it is his site after all.
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
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go ahead
Go ahead and do all the rankings you want, guys.
This is excellent work, Doug.
Looking at this, the main issue I see is the Indians at 29. They rank that low in this kind of system because they have so many C+ types, however a lot of their C+ guys are high-upside rookie ball low-level players who could be much higher next year, so the 29 ranking is a little misleading for the Indians even if that is how the number work out.
However, most of the other teams are about where they should be.
Same thing is true of the Astros, no?
by auclairkeithbc on Jan 20, 2012 12:59 PM EST up reply actions
Indians ranking
While the Indians might be low this year in this ranking, perhaps it is an appropriate one. With a lot of high-upside C+ players, you will have some that will progress, but you’ll likely have a lot that make little or no progress at all or even fail completely. We’re talking about guys who obviously have several factors that project very well but also a lot of concerns as well.
It’s essentially a ranking that says that whatever talent is in the system will take a fair amount of time to show up at the MLB level.
Does this include Montero as a Yankee or a Mariner?
And if it has him as a Yankee, how does it change things to swap him (and Campos)?
Yesterday
I went through and opened up all of the rankings John did from the sidebar on the front page here and counted up each guy. So the players should all be on the correct teams. Each team also has the correct number of players listed that John listed. Whether I accounted a grade correctly for each guy…. that one I can’t say for sure on.
Not sure I agree on hitters vs. pitchers
Excellent post by the way. I don’t want to take from your work. I understand that top 10 pitching prospects are more likely to flame out than top hitting prospects, but hitting gold with pitching prospects is far more valuable than hitting. I’d think if you had to choose a sure fire ace vs. a sure fire slugger, you’d probably take the ace every day (or at least I would) because they are rare, whereas a slugger is easier to find and develop.
I would think because of that, that higher ranked pitchers, in particular, are worth significantly more. For the lower ranked ones, who haven’t distinguished themselves, I’d tend to agree, but once you have a pitcher putting up great numbers at higher levels, I think that pitcher becomes very valuable…
by diehardtwinsfan on Jan 20, 2012 4:06 PM EST reply actions
My take
Aces are more rare than MVP hitters, but MVP hitters are more valuable to your win total on the season. Aces are more important in the playoffs (in most cases at least).
This system is based off of what actually happened on the field for players ranked in this “way” for the period of 1990-1999. That does make the data “off” a little bit, because developing is a little bit different now than it was 12-20 years ago, particularly with pitchers (IMO at least). What this system isn’t doing is trying to figure out who would have the most value in a trade or would be the best “target”, simply what players ranked similarly have done on the field in the Major Leagues.
Does Montero make big enough
of a difference to the M’s that the value of their hitters far outweighs that of their pitchers on this list? I’d still think of their pitching as a strength. Unless I’m reading it wrong which could be a possibility
What
is actually is is the Mariners only have 6 pitchers and 14 hitters. They are certainly top heavy with pitchers, but their ‘depth’ makes their hitters more valuable. Presumably, if you went to 30, and it was 7 pitchers and 3 hitters in the next 10 for example, it would balance out and make the pitchers more valuable.
If you looked at average value per type in the top 20, the pitchers would be much more valuable.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Jan 20, 2012 9:25 PM EST up reply actions
weak year for hitters
same number of A’s between the pitchers and hitters, but way fewer A-’s
looks like overall the minor league is more talented this year than last year. a lot more B’s seemed to have made John’s Top 50 hitting and pitching lists than they will this year.
Request for more details
Could you give more details on how you derived your dollar values? The most recent set of Beyond the Box Score articles I could find on this topic, from 2009, have somewhat different raw dollar values from your first table. Colin at Beyond the Box Score had some partial extensions of that work in 2010, with even wider discrepancies in value.
In addition, the original research from Victor Wang refers to the Baseball America top 100 list, and so, for example, the “top 51-75 hitters” row refers to hitting prospects ranked from 51-75 on the overall list. Even if we assume that BA’s list is reasonably close to John’s, John hasn’t published a merged prospect ranking, and so it’s difficult to map letter grades to rankings. My best guess at an updated version of the BtBS work mapped to John’s grades might be something closer to (in millions of 2010 dollars)
Pitching: A = 21, A- = 20, B+ = 17, B = 12, B- = 10, C+ = 3
Hitting: A = 47, A- = 34, B+ = 25, B = 12, B- = 8, C+ = 1
(I can’t possibly claim more than two significant figures here, and so am leaving off anything after the decimal point. Also, I don’t know what you mean when you describe how you got the C+ numbers. I think you mean something like that the ratio of values of B+ to B is the same as the ratio of values of C+ to C, but that assumption doesn’t work so well when the ratios of players at those levels are so different.)
This change to the weightings does not modify the ordering of the systems much; the biggest moves are three slots each, the Nationals and Diamondbacks up and the Yankees down. The change does emphasize just how barren the White Sox system is.
As an aside, computing values in wins instead of dollars would avoid worrying about market rates and make year-to-year comparisons easier.
Thanks for the hard work, in any event. The compilations alone are valuable.
With the changing value of a win
The numbers have changed a little over time. I can’t track down my initial process at this point, I think I first did this three years ago and have just stuck with those numbers since.
Great Work and solid Effort Doug
But I’d take The D’Backs farm over about 5-7 teams slotted above them including the Twins…
Pitchers are just too undervalued on here for my taste.
Still great work and a fun read, and i will look to this for future endevours.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/photo-logan-morrison-bryan-petersen-share-tub-drink-043548597.html
by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Jan 22, 2012 3:28 AM EST reply actions
i was trying to explain this elsewhere
but from a risk management perspective, for teams with low-to-mid range budgets, a farm system strong in pitching is more valuable to an equivalent system strong in position players
it allows you to allocate your free agency money to hitters instead of pitchers. who are naturally more volatile
by blue bulldog on Jan 22, 2012 2:57 PM EST up reply actions
Nice to see Oakland go from bottom 5 to 12th.
With Suzuki, Balfour, Fuentes, Andeson, McCarthy, Braden, Crisp, Smith, Gomes, Reddick & Allen all potential trade bait who should be gone before opening day 2014, Beane might have a top 5 or 3 farm as early as opening day 2013 if he moves the above guys at the right time. He’s finally rebuilding the right way. No more Holliday deals ever again please Billy.
Funny System
All I understand about your theory is what I’ve gathered in the comments here, but in my opinion there are some questionable criterion used to break it all down.
1. The difference between A and A- hitters is huge, but the difference between A- and B+ is very small; then the difference between B+ and B is huge again. Therefore, players deemed not top notch (B+) are worth just about as much as players who are considered on the cusp of the very best (A-). The problem i see is B+ players are largely arbitrary, and a lot of tools guys with potential slip in. Teams with a glut of these guys are rewarded.
2. Top pitching is undervalued. Matt Moore is worth the same as Matt Barnes? And according to John, Matt Barnes and Daniel Norris are worth the same as James Paxton. Also, B pitchers are worth almost as much as A pitchers. So, some guy with the upside of a #3 starter (or better yet, a solid bullpen guy) who is a few years away or was just drafted out of HS is worth only slightly less than the best pitching prospects in the game? Seriously?
3. Teams with bulk B, B-, C+ prospects are given incredible weight in the standings. A year from now those B- and C+ guys could falter and be conceivably replaced with a new horde of C+ guys. C+, to me, means squat. And it doesn’t make the Boston Red Sox a top 6 farm system. The twins have one B+ hitter, two B hitters, and a B pitcher, and they rank as the 11th system. Their B pitcher is a back end guy. Their hitters are far away. How are they buttressed as a top system with such weak top level talent?
4. Alonso + Grandal + Liriano = 62.4
Montero + Walker + Hultzen = 60.9
??????????
Who on earth makes that trade? Show me a single scout that says the Padres end has more value? Or even similar value? This is a joke, right?
I commend the effort, but from my limited perspective this just doesn’t equate to a reliable system for ranking systems.
If you think you hate me now, wait until you get to know me.
You are taking it too seriously
1. All doug is doing is taking John’s grades and systematically applying Wang’s research to it. What it does is create a baseline, from which you can adjust yourself, based on your preferences for prospects. In other words, he’s saving you time so you don’t have to aggregate the data yourself. Obviously Matt Moore is worth more than Matt Barnes. I’m sure you are at least capable of adjusting for that value yourself, no?
2. Teams with depth aren’t being given more weight than they are do. A year from now, some of those B-/C+ guys will falter. Others will rise and become A-/B+ guys. The whole point of using Wang is to look at long-term expected values of prospects.
3. You need to understand that the ranking system using Wang’s points is meant to measure expected value. I’m not at all convinced that Montero + Walker + Hultzen will generate more expected value than Alonso + Grandal + Liriano. You also have to understand, that when GM’s trade with each other, expected value is not the only issue they consider. Risk profiles matter a lot. Some GM’s are very risk averse. They are willing to pay a premium in order to get safer assets. Other GM’s are very risk loving. They are willing to pay a premium in order to higher potential upside. And of course, again, you need to make your own individual adjustments for prospects. Just because the “expected value” of an A- pitcher is $14 million in surplus value, doesn’t mean you have to assume that Hultzen ends up like the average A- pitcher. Maybe you think he has less of a chance than average of getting injured.
At the end of the day, the above is just a framework. It’s meant to save you time, so that you can use it as a baseline and make your own adjustments as necessary. Maybe instead of being rude about it, you should show some appreciation that someone else at least went and did the work for you.
by blue bulldog on Jan 22, 2012 3:22 PM EST up reply actions
Historical values
That is all that I have done. This isn’t what I think, or even necessarily what John thinks. All it does is show, roughly, what research done by Victor Wang showed what similarly rated prospects wound up actually being worth in the Major Leagues over their first six seasons worth of time in the Major Leagues.
Not enough data for the research
You would probably be better fitting the data to a curve, and using that as the estimate.
This seems too much affected by outliers; creates a false sense of precision.
But easier said than done, I know.
why stop at 6 years?
i suppose organization rankings ought to do that because those are the controlled years for an organization…but I wonder if values would change if you looked at career values, which is what prospect grades are based on.
by auclairkeithbc on Jan 23, 2012 4:28 PM EST up reply actions
I assume
It was stopped at 6 years because that is all that the original team has control over. I am sure career’s would change it, but if we went down that road, we wouldn’t have enough data to work with to tell us anything. Prospect rankings realistically only go back to 1990. There are guys who debuted before then still playing (not many, but a few left).
Comparison
Now that John has put out his rankings, here is the difference between these rankings and John’s rankings:
Team Difference
Angels -1
Astros -1
Athletics -2
Blue Jays -1
Braves 1
Brewers 0
Cardinals 1
Cubs 3
Dbacks -6
Dodgers 1
Giants -1
Indians -2
Mariners -5
Marlins 5
Mets -5
Nationals 0
Orioles 1
Padres 1
Phillies -1
Pirates 1
Rangers 0
Rays -1
Red Sox 5
Reds -2
Rockies 0
Royals 1
Tigers 1
Twins 7
White Sox 0
Yankees 0
23 of the 30 teams were within 2 spots of where John ranked them. The biggest disparity was 7 spots with the Twins.
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