Tampa Bay Rays Farm System Value

Building a comparative tool on a value system constructed – I assume, not having seen Wang’s underlying construct – on some average value over time and multiple cases – then appending that to opinion based data (the rankings themselves) on individuals is a statistical construct built on sand.

As long as we remember that, then have at it. You may have too much time on your hands, or too large a need to turn everything into numbers. Aren’t the raw rankings enough?

And to rglass’ point on projecting to the future, the higher percentage of lower level prospects in a team’s highly ranked prospect portfolio, the more likely they are to rise in the future. A high percent of upper level prospects more likely points to future decline, perhaps not in the next season, but going forward from there, as some will hit their ceiling while others will graduate to the majors. So from that perspective, to my mind the Rays system may be in relative decline.

Let’s use Sickels as a depth guide, looking at C+ prospects and up – because C prospects are the “fill” in each systems profile. Are there guys ranked below C in his book? And since he ranks 36-40 prospects for each system, doesn’t this turn the last Astros prospect in Sickels book into the equal of the top C+ prospect for any team? I’m not buying that.

In the AL East, Tampa has 19 (20 if Morlan returns) with 9 B- or better, Baltimore 16 & 9, Boston 23 & 13, NY 21 & 7 , and Toronto 13 & 6.

Splitting each org into prospects who’ve reached AA (with some significant time) or + and those still below AA:

Tampa AA + -10, below 9; Balt. 7 and 9; Bos 6 and 17; NY 11 and 10; Tor 7 and 6.

Going forward it looks that Boston is best positioned, Toronto worst. Boston has the most B or better prospects and the most lower level ones. There is just so much subjectivity in any of these rankings that’s it’s hard to stake much on them. Draft position and the word of scouts is very important for lower level guys – but eventually performance has to show up. Even org reputations for development come into play – right now Tampa and Boston are thought highly of. NY may suffer from its history of using prospects as trade chips, though Boston has done plenty of that.

It’s probably not even appropriate to compare these orgs given their different market positions. NY and Boston can fill needs through FA more readily than the others, thus internal development is less critical to them. And they are currently well ahead of Tampa in the international side of the development market. Plus draft position, as pointed out above, has a massive impact – the top 1-3 rounders are likely to get a rank bump out of the gate – which I’ll readily admit should be deserved, but the proof is in the pudding.

It’s always risky to project statistics on to individual cases. The law of averages should work, but at the individual level things get sketchy. This is a case of projecting statisical averages onto individuals, then summing the results. Just looking at BA’s ranking history is a sobering reminder of unpredictability, though there is some correlation between rank and success. But how strong?