2014 Offseason

[WastinSomeTime]

Sorry......missed the Red Sox coming in at # 5.

Good to know the Angels and A's come in at 26th and 27th too.

But the Angels have some of their previous minor league players producing rather well at the MLB level.

 

[Windingmywatch]

2011 was game 6. I hate Mark Lowe. 2012 was the late season collapse with Hamilton dropping pop flies.

... the brain is a wonderful organ not remembering severe pain. My brain will have cleared cobwebs by end of ST. Hope to rejoin the board's '25 man' roster when we clear camp.

 

[saddles]

Jonathan Mayo on Renaudo.

Mayo on Rangers landing Ranaudo | texasrangers.com

 

[Bmurph]

Banister story on FSSW right now

 

[Bmurph]

DT you lurking out there? How is your bride doing in her recovery?

 

[Bmurph]

In case anyone wanted to see KLaws Insider rankings on the farm systems

1. Chicago Cubs
Take a moment to recover from your surprise ... The past 12 months have seemed more like a coronation for the Cubs than one for the teams that actually played in the World Series. The hype around their system is justified by the talent in it, with the strongest collection of top-shelf hitting prospects I can remember since I started working in baseball. They have someone coming at just about every position other than catcher and first base, and most of them fare well both in traditional evaluation and in analysis of their performance to date.

The Cubs' draft strategy under the Theo Epstein/Jed Hoyer regime has been to grab a polished hitter in the first round and load up on arms later. That, along with the trade of Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel that netted two more top hitting prospects, has produced a system that's full of hitting prospects but still a bit light on the pitching side. The first wave of bats reached the majors in the middle of 2014, with more coming this year, but there won't be enough at-bats for Javier Baez and Jorge Soler and Arismendy Alcantara and Addison Russell and Kyle Schwarber and Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo ... and that's not even everyone who might end up pushing for playing time. The Cubs are in prime position to flip a young hitter for a pitcher or even to swing a bigger deal, especially if they want to try to set themselves up to win the NL Central in 2016. There are young starting pitching prospects here to like, led by 20-year-old Duane Underwood, but they're all a few years away.

2. Minnesota Twins

The Twins return almost their entire top 10 intact but have added first-rounder Nick Gordon and a slew of college relievers who look like they'll move quickly to the high minors, and they continue to find value on the international front.

The flip side of this is the Twins got virtually no help from their farm system in 2014, but I expect that to change quickly this year, with Alex Meyer on the verge of the big leagues and Miguel Sano not far behind.

3. Houston Astros

It is still strong, but it's now a bit weaker after a slew of promotions last year, their inability to come to an agreement with the first overall pick in the draft, Brady Aiken, and the trade of three prospects, two of them in my 2015 top 100, for Evan Gattis. The Astros' strength is still in bats, followed by a collection of hard throwers who might start but, if not, project as impact relievers.

4. New York Mets

They're deep in arms and bats, especially guys who might play in the middle of the diamond or pitch in the top three spots of a major league rotation. They've kept all their prospects while patiently building, but this is probably the year to swap some of their starting pitching prospect depth for a bat.

5. Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox lost four top-10 prospects to promotions last year, yet they remain a top-5 system, thanks to big moves forward by Blake Swihart, Manuel Margot and Rafael Devers, the latter of whom will play all of 2015 at age 18, and the midseason trade that netted them lefty Eduardo Rodriguez, now their No. 2-ranked pitching prospect.

6. Atlanta Braves

They were a bottom-5 system when the offseason started, but six trades later, they've built up a stash of prospects that makes up for five years of execrable drafts and very little production from their Latin American efforts. Ten of their top 12 prospects have appeared on at least one of my past three top-100 rankings, including five this year.

7. Pittsburgh Pirates

It's hard to believe how many games the Pirates have won in the majors over the past two years without putting a significant dent in their top-level minor league talent. They promoted only Gerrit Cole and Gregory Polanco and dealt just one major prospect in Dilson Herrera.

They still have several players likely to help the major league club in 2015, and just about every affiliate should have at least one potential star on its Opening Day roster.

8. Colorado Rockies

I called the Rockies "sneaky good" last year and ranked them No. 8 at that time, and I actually like the system a little more this year, despite injury setbacks that affected four of their top six guys.

Strong pro debuts from their top few picks from 2014 also boosted their stock.

9. Washington Nationals

The Nats' system got a big boost last year, when they kept their first-round draft pick and landed a good college arm, Erick Fedde, who fell because he had blown out his elbow. Then they added two top-100 prospects in exchange for Steven Souza this offseason. They're also so set at the major league level that they haven't had to deal much from their minor league affiliates; just two of their top 10 from last year, Souza and Nate Karns, are no longer with the Nats, and both are now property of Tampa Bay, through separate deals.

10. Los Angeles Dodgers

Their front three prospects are the strongest in the game, and their top 10 is still strong, but it thins out very quickly beyond their 10th or 11th guy. In terms of just guys with the potential to be stars, they rival the Cubs and Twins.

 

[Bmurph]

11. Texas Rangers

A lost year at the major league level led to a productive trade with Detroit that netted the Rangers a top-100 prospect in Jake Thompson, and they had one of the steals of the 2014 draft when they got right-hander Luis Ortiz with a supplemental pick. There has been some attrition from the large group of high-upside position players they brought into the system in 2011-12, but not as much as you might expect, with that set likely to produce two or three stars in a couple seasons.

12. Chicago White Sox

They've added four players within the top-120 range of prospects in the past 24 months, via the draft and one trade, and they didn't give up any of those premium guys to add Jeff Samardzija this offseason. Although the system still isn't deep in average prospects, it is in the best shape it has been since I started ranking organizations seven years ago.

13. St. Louis Cardinals

You'd have to go down to rookie ball to find a potential star in the system -- they lost one, Oscar Taveras, to tragedy last autumn -- yet the Cardinals can run 15 or more names who project to have significant, major league roles as average regulars or quality extra guys.

14. Arizona Diamondbacks

I might take their top four starting pitching prospects over anyone else's in baseball. The system is rather light on bats, though, and trading two young hitting prospects for a back-end starter this winter didn't help that.

15. Kansas City Royals

Years of strong drafts paid off by bringing the Royals one win from a world championship, and there's actually quite a bit of talent still in the system, as the Royals didn't have to trade much of what they already had. This organization has lost some depth, but the top 10 is still solid, especially in starting pitching.

16. Cleveland Indians

The system got a huge boost from perhaps my favorite 2014 draft class, which featured a good mix of probability and upside and boosted a farm that had seen a number of top-10 prospects struggle the past season.

17. Cincinnati Reds

This could easily be a top-10 system in a year, given how many upside players are in the organization, from relievers working as starters to toolshed, Latin American position players. There is very little 2015 impact, however, and nearly all of their top 10 prospects have some significant risk associated with them.

18. San Diego Padres

New GM AJ Preller has traded away much of the depth in this system but has managed to retain the Padres' top two prospects, Hunter Renfroe and Austin Hedges, as well as the pitcher they consider their top arm, Matt Wisler. It's been a busy offseason in San Diego.

19. Toronto Blue Jays

The Jays have been very aggressive in using their prospects to upgrade the major league roster, and they promoted most of the remainder, so what's left in the system is largely high-ceiling, Latin American prospects who are several years away and the products of their 2014 draft, from which both first-rounders have had surgery.

20. New York Yankees

The Yankees' system still has more talent than production, as several key prospects continued to have trouble staying on the field, but a very strong 2013 draft class and a blowout year on the international front have the system trending up again.

 

[Bmurph]

21. Seattle Mariners

The Mariners' system was long light on bats and full of arms, but the promotions of Taijuan Walker and James Paxton, as well as a pair of hitter-heavy drafts, have flipped that around. (Paxton is obviously a lock to be in the 2015 rotation, and Walker should push to land there as well.)

22. Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles still have a pair of future aces atop the system, but they traded one of their top starting pitching prospects for Andrew Miller and didn't pick until the third round last year, which means they missed out on a chance to add more high-end talent to the system.

23. Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays' draft record has been among the most disappointing in baseball because their big league club cannot succeed without a steady pipeline of inexpensive players coming out from their minor leagues. They haven't had a pick in the first 10 rounds turn into anything above an up-and-down guy since the 2007 draft, which included David Price and Matt Moore. The various trades of veterans and Wil Myers helped add some talent back to the system, but the bottom line for the new regime in St. Petersburg is they have to get more big leaguers from their top draft picks.

24. Miami Marlins

Their system rarely ranks high because they promote players to big league roles so quickly, but there's a solid group of very young arms in the system that will be on the list for a while, as well as a teenage position player or two with some real upside. There's very little in near-term talent here, however.

25. Philadelphia Phillies

They might have been 28th or 29th had they not traded Jimmy Rollins to the Dodgers for a pair of solid pitching prospects, but the system still lacks depth up top, and aside from J.P. Crawford, their best teenage position players are still a long way off. More trades could obviously help push this system up.

26. Oakland Athletics

They've shipped out a lot of talent to try to advance in the playoffs the past two years, including sending two first-round picks to the Cubs in the first Jeff Samardzija trade. The system is especially light on pitchers who project as more than fifth starters, with Dillon Overton, who is just coming back from Tommy John surgery, their best bet to end up a mid-rotation guy.

27. Los Angeles Angels

They were a lock to be 30th before they acquired Andrew Heaney in the Howie Kendrick trade and signed Cuban amateur Roberto Baldoquin, but after those two and first-rounder Sean Newcomb, the system drops off very quickly.

28. Milwaukee Brewers

Years of bad drafts and struggles developing pitching have caught up with the Brewers, who've had just a few draft picks in the first five rounds -- Brett Lawrie, Yovani Gallardo, and Jonathan Lucroy -- pan out since they took Ryan Braun in 2005. Jimmy Nelson might join that group, but it's hard to sustain a low-payroll club without a productive farm system.

29. San Francisco Giants

The bottom two clubs on this list are here in large part because they use or trade what they get. The Giants traded two prospects for Jake Peavy, while five of their eight regular hitters and three of their five starters were homegrown. Drafting low in the first round hasn't helped, and recently they've taken a number of high school arms who have promise but have moved slowly through the system.

30. Detroit Tigers

They've traded five of their top 10 prospects from last year's list (Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10) and made their top guy from that list, Nick Castellanos, their everyday third baseman. The No. 9 prospect in the system, Endrys Briceno, blew out his elbow, and the No. 2 prospect, Daniel Fields, fought a wrist injury all year. I loved their first-rounder from last year, but I had to build their top 10 almost completely from scratch because of how actively Dave Dombrowski uses what he has in the system.

 

[donaldson79]

Three ex-Rangers on this short list of 5. Don't think anyone else can say that.

The five most overpaid MLB players heading into 2015

 

[WastinSomeTime]

Three ex-Rangers on this short list of 5. Don't think anyone else can say that.

The five most overpaid MLB players heading into 2015

Angels thought they were digging into us when they got CJ and Hamilton from us. LOL! And Hamilton's contract gets a lot worse for them as it is something like 32.5 mill for 2016 and 2017.

 

[donaldson79]

Sherrington: Rangers doing what they should have done last year | Dallas Morning News

 

[romeo212000]

Sherrington: Rangers doing what they should have done last year | Dallas Morning News

at the last question, and people who think Perez is going to return to be a significant contributor this year. Have people learned nothing from Feliz, Nathan, and Soria when they had their TJ surgery?

 

[DT LUNA]

DT you lurking out there? How is your bride doing in her recovery?

Thanks for the kind thought. Care giving has been a little heavy. We live quite a way from family so it's been up to me but things are getting better. Been blessed with a wonderful wife so that makes any effort on my part easy.

 

[UK Cowboy]

97 mph is still batting practice if it's straight as an arrow.

There's no question. High level HS kids can tee off on 97 if it's flat and over the plate

 

[DT LUNA]

at the last question, and people who think Perez is going to return to be a significant contributor this year. Have people learned nothing from Feliz, Nathan, and Soria when they had their TJ surgery?

For sure EA hasn't and I bet there will be more.

 

[saddles]

Three ex-Rangers on this short list of 5. Don't think anyone else can say that.

The five most overpaid MLB players heading into 2015

There probably should have been a fourth in Cliff Lee.

 

[saddles]

at the last question, and people who think Perez is going to return to be a significant contributor this year. Have people learned nothing from Feliz, Nathan, and Soria when they had their TJ surgery?

How long after the surgery do you think it becomes a mental hurdle more than a physical one? I think Feliz really struggled with the mental aspect.

 

[Xx srs bsns xX]

Kris Bryant No. 1 in 2015 ranking of top 100 prospects - MLB - ESPN

#11 Joey Gallo
Smashing car windows at the Futures Game was just another day at the office for Gallo, whose 80 raw power and proclivity to swing and miss make him the game's preeminent sonic-boom-or-bust candidate: If he hits a little, he'll be a star. Finishing second in minor league baseball this year with 42 homers (one behind Kris Bryant), Gallo has more pure raw power, but he isn't as advanced as a hitter, and still struggled with contact after a midseason promotion to Double-A. He did make a significant adjustment from 2013 to 2014, tightening up his command of the strike zone. He'll always swing and miss, but he was doing so at pitches (notably fastballs) within the zone less frequently in high-A to start the 2014 season.

Gallo is improving at third base but is just so big that he may end up having to move to first, which would be a shame given a grade-80 arm that had him sitting in the low to mid-90s as a pitcher in high school. No one in the minors swings as hard or generates as much force on contact as Gallo does, and if he can just hit .230-.240 in the majors he'll hit 40-45 homers, if not more, with enough patience thrown in to be a 5-WAR player on his bat alone.

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#31 Nomar Mazara
When the Rangers signed Mazara for $5 million in 2011, it set a record for an international amateur, which stood for three years and led to the change in the system for such "July 2" players that we now have in the current collective bargaining agreement. It also led to a lot of sniping that Mazara wasn't worth the price. But that appears to have been wrong, as he has shown an advanced feel to hit at a very young age, reaching Double-A last year after a two-level jump even though he won't turn 20 until April.

Mazara has plus bat speed and excellent hand-eye coordination -- the fact that his approach is a little noisy doesn't seem to hold him back -- while his ball-strike recognition has improved substantially over the past two years. He still has some weaknesses against breaking stuff, and I wouldn't be shocked if he struggles out of the gate in Double-A this year, but at the same time, he has the elements (bat speed, eye and wrist strength) to put up adequate production even as he's learning to make adjustments. He might be a full two years away from the majors, with the potential to be a middle-of-the-order bat, hitting 25 bombs with a .280/.360/.520 kind of line when he finishes filling out.

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#35 Jorge Alfaro
Alfaro is an enticing, yet maddening, mix of monumental tools and consistent inconsistency: He can look like an All-Star one at-bat or inning and like a 21-year-old kid (which he is) the next. Alfaro has 80 raw power, with an 80 arm behind the plate, and he has the hands and athleticism to be an above-average receiver as well, with the bat speed to hit for a high average. Alfaro's issue is that he plays hard all the time; he's fourth gear, full throttle on every play, which means he can be too aggressive at the plate (walking on around five percent of his career plate appearances) and behind the dish (he can drag pitches out of the zone because he's moving his hands too much).

He signed as a raw 16-year-old out of Colombia and has made big strides in learning the mental side of the game, even carrying a notebook to keep track of hitter tendencies so he can improve his game-calling. He has All-Star upside behind the plate, because he should hit 20-25 homers with a solid average but low OBP, and should end up controlling the running game as well as any backstop in the big leagues.

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#52 Jake Thompson
Thompson, who ranked fifth in Detroit's system last offseason, was a slider-heavy monster in 2013, posting strong results but worrying scouts with his over-reliance on that pitch in the Midwest League. The Tigers did an excellent job fashioning him into a more traditional starting pitching prospect last spring, getting him to pitch more with his fastball, a shift that increased his value and allowed them to trade him for Joakim Soria in July.

Thompson is a big, physical horse with above-average velocity and that slider, which is a swing-and-miss pitch against right-handed batters and good enough to get some left-handed batters as well. It has power and tilt at 83-84 mph, but having him use it less often so he can work on his still-developing changeup, not yet an average pitch, would better set him up to join the rotation in 2016 or 2017. One concern is that despite his size, there's still some effort to his delivery, with no pause at his leg kick and slight stiffness at release. He looks the part of a mid-rotation starter and has the necessary out pitch to get there.

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#86 Alex "Chi Chi" Gonzalez
The 23rd overall pick in the 2013 draft -- he was ranked 16th on my final draft board -- does a bit of everything well and (so far) nothing poorly, making him one of the highest-probability starter prospects in the minors. Gonzalez will sit 90-94 with good sink, but he has a major league out pitch in his cutter that makes him so effective, including a 55 percent ground ball rate across two levels last year.

His command has turned out to be even better than expected on draft day, and he rarely walks anyone; he walked two men or fewer in 14 of 15 Double-A starts. I'm a bit surprised he didn't miss more bats in high-A Myrtle Beach, but there isn't anything missing from the package here, as three of every five hitters he faced last year either struck out or put the ball on the ground, he doesn't walk guys, he has proven durable, and he gets left-handed hitters out as well as right-handed hitters. If the Rangers need a starter in the second half, he should be ready for the call.

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#96 Luis Ortiz
Ortiz was 10th on my 2014 MLB draft board but fell to 30th in large part because teams were concerned about the time he missed during the spring with a forearm strain. The strain wasn't serious but happened in the middle of a rash of Tommy John surgeries that took out three other top talents in the draft class. Ortiz has a physically mature body already, but the Rangers aren't waiting on future velocity, as he's already 92-95 with some downhill plane and an easy arm stroke he repeats very well. His slider, a sort of power slurve, flashes plus at 81-85, and while he doesn't have much feel for his changeup, he can turn it over pretty well out of his hand in the 83-86 mph range.

Ortiz throws his fastball for strikes and fields his position well for a big guy. He stays over the rubber well, with good momentum toward the plate and a clean arm action, just with a slightly abrupt finish that might require a little touchup to keep him healthy. He looks like a future No. 2 starter and could move way up this list with a full, healthy 2015 season.

 

[saddles]

Kris Bryant No. 1 in 2015 ranking of top 100 prospects - MLB - ESPN

The future looks bright.

 

[romeo212000]

How long after the surgery do you think it becomes a mental hurdle more than a physical one? I think Feliz really struggled with the mental aspect.

I think it takes till the second season after TJ to get back physically and mentally to %100.