Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Keith Law Ranks The Farm System

A couple weeks ago Jim Calis of ESPN and Baseball America mentioned that the Yankees will be ranked 15th in the upcoming Baseball America 2009 Prospect Handbook. Today, Keith Law ranked the farm systems of all teams for ESPN, and that's exactly where he ranked the Yankees too.
15. New York Yankees: For the first time in several years, the Yankees' system is light on impact talent, with major question marks on each of the top four prospects. The 2008 draft class doesn't offer much hope -- the Yankees' first pick reversed course on them midsummer and decided to go to college; their third pick had a medical issue and didn't agree to terms; and the resulting crop of players doesn't offer much upside.
Can't really argue with anything he says there.

Here are Law's top five farm systems:

1) Texas
2) Tampa Bay
3) Oakland
4) Atlanta
5) Cleveland

Also, if you're wondering (and I know you are) the Red Sox ranked 7th - much higher than Callis, who ranked them 13th - and the Mets were ranked 17th.

For the complete rankings go here.

(hat tip to River Ave. Blues)

5 Comments:

YankeePride3 said...

The Yankees have a big draft coming up. They still have first and third round picks for failing to sign their picks last year. I believe they need to take the best talent out there with those picks, even if they have signability issues, and do whatever it takes to sign them.

Greg Cohen said...

I agree completely.

There is always a risk in picking the best guy regardless of their signability, but the upside if they do decide to sign makes it worth it.

Unknown said...

At least Callis was consistent in how he ranked the Yankees and Sox systems. Law isn't.

Anonymous said...

Considering the fact that the Yankees have been almost always in the top 2 or 3 in baseball in terms of record every year, it's impressive that their farm system is as good as it is. When you're consistantly picking in the bottom of the 1st round, it's extremely hard to build up talent in the minors.

If you look at the top 5 that Law has given, while the list is clearly debateable, and there are exceptions, those teams that rank at the top in farm system are the teams that rarely contend and are generally picking in the top 10 every year. Additionally, those teams rarely re-sign their big free agents, and either let them go to receive draft picks, or they trade them before their FA year and obtain quality minor leaguers in return.

Law kind of states the obvious in his assessment of the Yankees, but states it like he has some sort of great insight. For example:

"and the resulting crop of players doesn't offer much upside." - in reference to the Yankees 4th round pick and beyond.

First of all, that's obvious. It's rare that 4th round and beyond picks have "much upside" or else they would have gone in the 1st, supplemental, 2nd, or 3rd round. There are a lot of sandwich picks between the 1st and 2nd round, so by the time you get to the "4th" round, it might as well be the 5th round. So you have to figure that even at the start of the 4th round, there have been in the neighborhood of 120 players already chosen. How many players with "much upside" are left after 120 players are already chosen?

YankeePride3 said...

I can't help but wonder what could have been with Matt LaPorta. A few years back, a bunch of Mock Drafts had LaPorta falling to the Yankees because he wasn't a great defender and was projected more as a bottom of the first round guy. The Brewers then shocked baseball by taking his so early.

While there its no sure thing he would have fell that far, or the Yankees would have taken him, I do believe there was a good chance the Yankees were targeting him. Sabathia may have never traded to Milwaukee, the Yankees may have never signed Teixeira with LaPorta coming up and our system would have been a lot better.

I know there is really nothing to this post, but it's just a thought I had.