Catcher - Agree - Whether you you Teagarden or Ramirez, the Texas catcher will be better
First Base - Agree - I dislike Carter (who was not used) and doolittle is good, but not smoak good
Second Base - Agree - Cardenas is the better player, but really thats not saying much
Shortstop - Agree - is this even in question?
Third Base - N/A - Guzman is with the giants now and whittleman is just bad. I just say its a null tie because they both are terrible
OF (1) - Disagree - Borbon is a good player, but not a great player and is closer to a 4th OF than an everyday starter. Cunningham appears to have the talent to play everyday, so I’d side with him
OF (2) - Agree - I dislike Beltre, but he’s still better
OF (3) - Agree - Its an uneven matchup because its a known commodity versus something still developing. Its close though, but I’m relatively high on Golson
OF (4) - Disagree - Is lemon even an OF? I have him listed in the infield, but I can’t come up with a good replacement. If so, I still think sulentic. I think he has a better chance of becoming an everyday player and think his output this year was relatively real.
DH - Unsure - I like Ramirez better as a catcher, and while he is a true hitter, I’m not sure he will ever provide the thump expected as a DH. Carter on the other hand, I dislike as a prospect overall, but for a DH only role where his defense (or lack thereof) is removed from the equation, its a much closer matchup.
SP (1) and (2) - I don’t understand why you matched up Holland/Cahill and Anderson/Feliz. I think the more correct matchups are Cahill/Feliz and Anderson/Holland, which I think would both fall in favor of the Athletics. As the matchup stands, the result is accurate
SP (3) - Disagree - I have large issues with Inoa, just on the whole, and really like Main. So I’d favor Main until I actually saw Inoa throw a pitch
SP (4) - Disagree - I still like Gonzalez and think he could be 3/4 type player while Perez, while a good pitcher, is really too far away to get a good judge. Gonzalez still has upside and is close to the majors while Perez is light years away. Goes to Gonzalez
SP (5) - Agree - I agree, but that doesn’t obscure the fact I think both of these players are consistently overrated.
SP (6) - Agree, kind of - Based on the matchup, I’d choose Simmons. But, I don’t think Kiker is necessary the next best guy. Depending on who one may like (Hurley/Poveda/Beavan in mind), they could jump ahead of Simmons, who I think is sorely overrated as well
CL - Tie - In my mind, no one can be considered a closer prospect when they are still a starter, therefore, as long as those two are still starting, they are both ineligible.

So I think my scoring is 8-7-3? I may not be able to count though

and it’s cute to act like this post has merit…but everyone does realize that this is the dumbest fucking way to compare the systems, right?…other than nationalB.

Note: I am not saying this isn’t a way to do it…Just the stupidest way a competent person could.

2nd Note: The Rangers system is better.

3rd Note: Dewey still owes me ten bucks on what would be the bigger movie - E.T. or Krush Groove.

Funny how it is mostly A’s fans that dont like this thread.

Anyways, Cardenas should be listed as a SS, and lose to Andrus.
I would also put Cunningham slightly ahead of Borbon.

if you do future roster than Texas has an obvious edge.

C Suzuki vs Teagarden Winner: Texas
1B Smoak vs Doolittle Winner: Texas
2B Kinsler vs Weeks Winner: Texas
SS Andrus vs Christian Winner: Texas
3B Young vs Cardenas Winner: Texas
OF Beltre vs Cunningham Winner: Texas
OF Hamilton vs Buck Winner: Texas
OF Borbon vs Dixon Winner: Texas
DH Davis vs Carter Winner: Texas
SP Feliz vs Cahill Winner: Texas
SP Holland vs Anderson Winner: Oakland
SP Inoa vs Main Winner: Texas
SP Duchscherer vs Kiker Winner: Oakland
SP Simmons vs Ramirez Winner: Texas
CL Rodriguez vs Beaven Winner: Oakland

12-3. I think it is pretty clear who has the better future.

I’ll be a hypocrit and join in

C Taylor Teagarden vs Josh Donaldson - Winner: Texas

1B Justin Smoak vs Sean Doolittle - Winner: Texas

2B Jose Vallejo vs Jemile Weeks - Winner: Oakland

3B Johnny Whittleman vs Adrian Cardenas - Winner: Oakland

SS Elvis Andrus vs Jason Christian - Winner: Texas

OF Julio Borbon vs Aaron Cunningham - Winner: Oakland

OF Engel Beltre vs Corey Brown - Winner: Texas

OF Greg Golson vs Rashun Dixon - Winner: Texas (its close)

OF Chad Tracy vs Matt Sulentic - Winner: Texas

DH Max Ramirez vs Chris Carter - Winner: Texas (also close)

SP Neftali Feliz vs Trevor Cahill ((better matchup)) - Winner: Oakland

SP Derek Holland vs Brett Anderson - Winner: Oakland

SP Michael Main vs Michael Inoa - Winner: Texas

SP Martin Perez vs Gio Gonzalez - Winner: Oakland

SP Neil Ramirez vs Vin Mazzaro - Winner: Oakland

SP Kasey Kiker vs James Simmons - Winner: Oakland

CL Blake Beavan vs Henry Rodriguez - Winner: Texas

FINAL SCORE: 9-8 (Rangers Win)

but I’m low on Andrus and a few others and I think that the As edge the Rangers out just barely in the large scheme of things

Just curious,

What makes Weeks better than Vallejo? I don’t know much of Weeks.

I think I can safely say that this is the worst Dewey post yet. Worse than the random Howie Kendrick one, even. The ranking system is incredibly, incredibly flawed (as anyone who takes more than 5 seconds to think about it can see), and once again, the actual post contains nothing of substance, or worthy of discussion.

And, hell, most of the edges that Dewey gives here are complete B.S. Seriously, you give “Borbon vs. Cunningham” to Borbon, which would be fine if you gave any explanation. But, you didn’t- you just gave it to Borbon without any explanation, even though only one of these two will likely get onto top 100 prospect lists come spring (hint: it’s not Borbon). Just some explanation here would be nice. Although, I assume that any explanation you did have would contain some ridiculous hunch that Cunningham will have the world’s first male pregnancy and have to retire from the game because of complications from said pregnancy, thereby making him a worse prospect than Cunningham. Or some such similar nonsense, as most of your other “analysis” has contained.

If this comes off as pissy, it’s because I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated that Dewey continually posts nonsense, I’m frustrated that people are reccing it, even as a joke, and I’m frustrated that his moronic posts are actually generating discussion (albeit mostly discussion related to how moronic his posts are).

On topic, in my completely unbiased opinion, I think the A’s do have the better farm system. They have a larger base of high-talent players, and a ton of depth that our pro-analyst here didn’t even get to in his awesome comparisons.

If you really wanted to compare systems in this way, I think it would be better to judge based on all the prospects at a given position, not just top one. Just judge on C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, SP, RP and look at all the prospects at a given position.

As far as the systems go in total I would give the edge to the Rangers but I wouldn’t say it was domination. I don’t really think the argument over depth is really productive, once you get to C+/C prospects it’s hard to really say which ones are objectively better, especially on a fan site like this.

this thread is entirely pointless. Clearly Rangers fans are going to agree with these comps and A’s fans are going to disagree. What’s the point? In the end, everyone gets pissed at each other, flame wars start, and the rest of the fans on this site look even more badly upon A’s and Rangers fans.

If people really want to start a positive discussion about these two teams, have an objective source (preferably Sickels himself) do a head to head comparison. But even then, I doubt any productive discussion can come out of comparing A’s and Rangers prospects.