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2015-16 Offseason Prospect Rankings
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Post by beantown on Dec 6, 2015 19:40:30 GMT -5
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Post by brianthetaoist on Dec 6, 2015 20:00:34 GMT -5
Seeing this list made me a little sad. The system just doesn't have much depth. A breakout from someone like X Basabe or Chavis putting it together would be pretty welcome. As would a good draft, or Christopher Acosta making a splash in the US. I mean, don't get me wrong, Moncada/Espinoza/Devers/Benintendi/Kopech is a sweet top of the system (and that arguably may be more important than depth), but it'll be rough at multiple levels next year without some breakouts.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 6, 2015 21:26:46 GMT -5
For Sickels, a grade C at the lower levels isn't the condemnation that it sounds like but would be for upper level players. On the other hand, the top ranked all just finished their years at low A. The good news there is that we'll have a few years to dream on these guys.
ADD:
If you view it from an organizational under 25 point of view (including Boston), being top heavy might just be a better situation than being well balanced with depth. In our minors, we have 5 guys with realistic star potential. To me, that bodes well to merge into our young core.
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Post by xanderdu on Dec 6, 2015 21:59:47 GMT -5
For Sickels, a grade C at the lower levels isn't the condemnation that it sounds like but would be for upper level players. On the other hand, the top ranked all just finished their years at low A. The good news there is that we'll have a few years to dream on these guys. ADD: If you view it from an organizational under 25 point of view (including Boston), being top heavy might just be a better situation than being well balanced with depth. In our minors, we have 5 guys with realistic star potential. To me, that bodes well to merge into our young core. Agreed, the Boston environment, under normal conditions, requires a prospect to push out the veteran, or replace him when he gains FA. There aren't many FA departures on the horizon, so these kids need to arrive with their big boy pants on. Premier talent makes big boy pants fit better. Give me 5 very solid bets over a deep system filled with guys who will start one day for 2nd division teams.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Dec 6, 2015 22:07:51 GMT -5
For Sickels, a grade C at the lower levels isn't the condemnation that it sounds like but would be for upper level players. On the other hand, the top ranked all just finished their years at low A. The good news there is that we'll have a few years to dream on these guys. ADD: If you view it from an organizational under 25 point of view (including Boston), being top heavy might just be a better situation than being well balanced with depth. In our minors, we have 5 guys with realistic star potential. To me, that bodes well to merge into our young core. Yeah, sure ... I don't pay that much attention to Sickels's grades. Nothing against the guy - I like reading his stuff - but I think I know as much or more about the Sox system as he does. It's just the first time I read a list without Margot, Guerra, etc on it. It's just not as deep as it used to be. I mean overall, sure, whatever, as I said in my original and as you point out, being top-heavy may be better in terms of developing talent. But the Kimbrel trade really emptied out the usable pieces for trade. Too bad Marrero didn't take a step forward last year and Cecchini's only step was off a cliff. Hopefully some mid-level guys stop up so there's something to work with at the deadline.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 6, 2015 22:14:19 GMT -5
Baring injuries, I can't see how we won't have something to work with at the trade deadline. We still have at least two future major league pitchers in Owens and Johnson, have a wealth of utility types, Marrero, Hernandez, a few more than decent reliever prospects, Barnes, Light, etc and most importantly are likely to have three catchers.
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Post by beantown on Dec 6, 2015 23:29:12 GMT -5
For me, since there's already a young core at the big league level, especially up the middle... organizational depth of the farm system (in utility type prospects and mediocre pitching) doesn't concern me so much as the chance for star power in all of those top four or five guys. Any of the top five, I would say, could be a number one in a weaker system... we should count our blessings.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 7, 2015 10:30:12 GMT -5
The Red Sox have an incredible amount of pieces to trade. Basically, what you said were Margot and Guerra weren't that good of a prospect that you weren't hurt by trading them, but you just wish you had them to add a different piece later on. However, they may not be worth crap later on. Happens quick. See M Bowden, O Tejada and D Gibson as recent examples.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 7, 2015 11:52:39 GMT -5
Sickels, in the comments, regarding where Margot, Guerra & Allen would have slotted:
I'm going to say 5, 6, and 12. i like Allen a lot.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 13, 2015 13:21:03 GMT -5
I'm surprised so many people seem so indifferent on Devers. He's a year and a half younger than Moncada. He just played his age 18 season. Now I don't think he's as good a prospect as Moncada; I just used that to highlight how young he actually is.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 13, 2015 13:31:57 GMT -5
I'm surprised so many people seem so indifferent on Devers. He's a year and a half younger than Moncada. He just played his age 18 season. Now I don't think he's as good a prospect as Moncada; I just used that to highlight how young he actually is. There's a difference between indifference to an A- grading and indifference to a player.
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ianrs
Veteran
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Post by ianrs on Dec 13, 2015 13:41:04 GMT -5
I'm surprised so many people seem so indifferent on Devers. He's a year and a half younger than Moncada. He just played his age 18 season. Now I don't think he's as good a prospect as Moncada; I just used that to highlight how young he actually is. I wouldn't say that people are indifferent on Devers. BA gave him #5 in the SAL, he is number 2 on this site, #2 on Sickels ranking, and #13 in baseball on mlb.com. I think it's easy to forget him given how stacked our system is, but he's one of my personal favorites. Especially encouraging is that he demonstrated the ability to play an average to above average third base this year, erasing some questions about future position/potential DHing. That gives him a little more wiggle room with the bat. I really think his doubles power and pure swing will translate beautifully as he adds mass with age.
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Post by mredsox89 on Dec 13, 2015 13:42:14 GMT -5
I'm surprised so many people seem so indifferent on Devers. He's a year and a half younger than Moncada. He just played his age 18 season. Now I don't think he's as good a prospect as Moncada; I just used that to highlight how young he actually is. There's a difference between indifference to an A- grading and indifference to a player. Exactly. There are only a handful of MLB players I'd even consider moving Devers for. He, along with Moncada, probably Espinoza and Benintendi too, would likely be consensus #1 prospects in most systems
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Post by pokeyreesespieces on Dec 13, 2015 16:15:05 GMT -5
Am I reading this wrong or is this sentence re: Devers absolutely idiotic?
"You can make a Grade A case but I want to hold back on that until I see where he needs to slot on the Top 100 list."
So he's arbitrarily jumping between an A and A- simply by his placement around unrelated other players on a top 100 list? Seems to me the evaluation should be solely on the player himself.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 13, 2015 16:34:15 GMT -5
Am I reading this wrong or is this sentence re: Devers absolutely idiotic? "You can make a Grade A case but I want to hold back on that until I see where he needs to slot on the Top 100 list." So he's arbitrarily jumping between an A and A- simply by his placement around unrelated other players on a top 100 list? Seems to me the evaluation should be solely on the player himself. If that was Sickels, it makes sense. He's pretty much the consensus guy, not a scout.
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Post by pokeyreesespieces on Dec 13, 2015 16:41:11 GMT -5
Am I reading this wrong or is this sentence re: Devers absolutely idiotic? "You can make a Grade A case but I want to hold back on that until I see where he needs to slot on the Top 100 list." So he's arbitrarily jumping between an A and A- simply by his placement around unrelated other players on a top 100 list? Seems to me the evaluation should be solely on the player himself. If that was Sickels, it makes sense. He's pretty much the consensus guy, not a scout. Then the thinking doesn't track lol. If he's grading players relative to each other, and assigning values that gives their likelihoods of playing in the big leagues, then he's essentially saying he's basing this off having to have a set number of guys in the A category, a set number of guys in the B category, etc. Which is a poor assumption, because strength of talent varies so greatly year to year.
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Post by jbberlo22 on Dec 13, 2015 17:05:36 GMT -5
I think Sickle's logic is more along the lines of comparing a player he isn't exactly sure how to grade up against a player he is confident of his grade in. Just for example, Sickels graded Moncada as an A. When making the final list if Sickels hypothetically thought that Devers was about equal value to Moncada then he'd give Devers an A. If he thought Moncada was quite a step ahead of Devers, Devers would only get an A-. Of course, this way of thinking works a lot better when your comparing Devers with all the As and A-s and not just Moncada.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 13, 2015 18:24:04 GMT -5
If that was Sickels, it makes sense. He's pretty much the consensus guy, not a scout. Then the thinking doesn't track lol. If he's grading players relative to each other, and assigning values that gives their likelihoods of playing in the big leagues, then he's essentially saying he's basing this off having to have a set number of guys in the A category, a set number of guys in the B category, etc. Which is a poor assumption, because strength of talent varies so greatly year to year. The way I read it is that he know it's easy to give out a bunch of A grades because we tend to get excited about the best prospects. So he's very careful about giving out A's. At the end, he'll check to see if he overdid it, and maybe promote one or two A-'s. And speaking from experience with ranking movies, it's generally easier to put a bunch of things in order than to decide where the dividing lines go. For instance, in 2012 (last book I bought, I have to catch up!) he gave 5 A's and 4 A-'s. The first 4 A guys were Harper, Trout, Profar, and Machado, with total rave write-ups. The last A guy was Jesus Montero, and there are some negatives. If he'd given an A- grade to him at the end of the blurb, it wouldn't have been a surprise. He was on the cusp. Obviously, it would have made more sense to have 4 A's and 5 A-'s that year than the other way around, and if in fact he had a set number of guys per ranking algorithm, he would have done that. But if he ranks these guys the way I rank movies, the last question he asked himself was, does Montero belong in the group with those four guys, or in a group with Mesoraco, Myers, Arenado, and Rendon? He answered the former, which was actually quite defensible (look up the year Montero had in 2011). That's why he's waiting on Devers. If he turns out to be the top A- guy, he wants to see if he actually seems to fit better with the A's, despite his distance from MLB and consequent gap between his raw and game power(only negative you can really name), than with the A-'s.
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Post by pokeyreesespieces on Dec 13, 2015 18:33:40 GMT -5
Then the thinking doesn't track lol. If he's grading players relative to each other, and assigning values that gives their likelihoods of playing in the big leagues, then he's essentially saying he's basing this off having to have a set number of guys in the A category, a set number of guys in the B category, etc. Which is a poor assumption, because strength of talent varies so greatly year to year. The way I read it is that he know it's easy to give out a bunch of A grades because we tend to get excited about the best prospects. So he's very careful about giving out A's. At the end, he'll check to see if he overdid it, and maybe promote one or two A-'s. I agree that seems to be what he's thinking. It's essentially him grading on a mini-curve, but I guess I just don't get the point in that, since the inherit value of grading on a curve is to yield a determined distribution of grades within a set. And I don't entirely see why that's needed in this case. I could sort of understand if the talent he was grading was all AAA, and knocking on the door to the majors, and you're trying to align it with some sort of born out number that represents the average number of players graduating to the majors yearly, but the talent on the list is so varied in their distance from the major leagues that that doesn't really track either.
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Post by chavopepe2 on Dec 13, 2015 18:43:38 GMT -5
Then the thinking doesn't track lol. If he's grading players relative to each other, and assigning values that gives their likelihoods of playing in the big leagues, then he's essentially saying he's basing this off having to have a set number of guys in the A category, a set number of guys in the B category, etc. Which is a poor assumption, because strength of talent varies so greatly year to year. The way I read it is that he know it's easy to give out a bunch of A grades because we tend to get excited about the best prospects. So he's very careful about giving out A's. At the end, he'll check to see if he overdid it, and maybe promote one or two A-'s. And speaking from experience with ranking movies, it's generally easier to put a bunch of things in order than to decide where the dividing lines go. For instance, in 2012 (last book I bought, I have to catch up!) he gave 5 A's and 4 A-'s. The first 4 A guys were Harper, Trout, Profar, and Machado, with total rave write-ups. The last A guy was Jesus Montero, and there are some negatives. If he'd given an A- grade to him at the end of the blurb, it wouldn't have been a surprise. He was on the cusp. Obviously, it would have made more sense to have 4 A's and 5 A-'s that year than the other way around, and if in fact he had a set number of guys per ranking algorithm, he would have done that. But if he ranks these guys the way I rank movies, the last question he asked himself was, does Montero belong in the group with those four guys, or in a group with Mesoraco, Myers, Arenado, and Rendon? He answered the former, which was actually quite defensible (look up the year Montero had in 2011). That's why he's waiting on Devers. If he turns out to be the top A- guy, he wants to see if he actually seems to fit better with the A's, despite his distance from MLB and consequent gap between his raw and game power(only negative you can really name), than with the A-'s. This is disappointing if true because it means you can't compare across years.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 13, 2015 20:47:35 GMT -5
The way I read it is that he know it's easy to give out a bunch of A grades because we tend to get excited about the best prospects. So he's very careful about giving out A's. At the end, he'll check to see if he overdid it, and maybe promote one or two A-'s. And speaking from experience with ranking movies, it's generally easier to put a bunch of things in order than to decide where the dividing lines go. For instance, in 2012 (last book I bought, I have to catch up!) he gave 5 A's and 4 A-'s. The first 4 A guys were Harper, Trout, Profar, and Machado, with total rave write-ups. The last A guy was Jesus Montero, and there are some negatives. If he'd given an A- grade to him at the end of the blurb, it wouldn't have been a surprise. He was on the cusp. Obviously, it would have made more sense to have 4 A's and 5 A-'s that year than the other way around, and if in fact he had a set number of guys per ranking algorithm, he would have done that. But if he ranks these guys the way I rank movies, the last question he asked himself was, does Montero belong in the group with those four guys, or in a group with Mesoraco, Myers, Arenado, and Rendon? He answered the former, which was actually quite defensible (look up the year Montero had in 2011). That's why he's waiting on Devers. If he turns out to be the top A- guy, he wants to see if he actually seems to fit better with the A's, despite his distance from MLB and consequent gap between his raw and game power(only negative you can really name), than with the A-'s. This is disappointing if true because it means you can't compare across years. I don't think that's true (the can't compare part). If the grading was on a bell curve then you couldn't compare. If there were more A's than A-'s in 2012 then it's obviously not a bell curve. eric could have just as easily used names from other years. Another factor, I remember Callis once saying that they like to get an equal amount of opinions of prospects from within an organization and from without. I'd assume some degree of that from every analyst. Sickels is going team by team, he probably doesn't have all of the data on any particular player until it's done. Therefore, saying a player is on the cusp makes sense.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 14, 2015 2:57:06 GMT -5
MILB organizational All-Stars (Note, it's not top prospect). www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20151012&content_id=153601610&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milbCatcher -- Jordan Procyshen First baseman -- Sam Travis Second baseman -- Yoan Moncada Third baseman -- Rafael Devers Shortstop -- Javier Guerra Outfielder -- Manuel Margot Outfielder -- Andrew Benintendi Outfielder -- Kevin Heller Utility player -- Mauricio Dubon Right-handed pitcher -- Aaron Wilkerson Left-handed pitcher -- Brian Johnson Reliever: Williams Jerez
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 14, 2015 4:09:12 GMT -5
This is disappointing if true because it means you can't compare across years. I don't think that's true (the can't compare part). If the grading was on a bell curve then you couldn't compare. If there were more A's than A-'s in 2012 then it's obviously not a bell curve. eric could have just as easily used names from other years. Another factor, I remember Callis once saying that they like to get an equal amount of opinions of prospects from within an organization and from without. I'd assume some degree of that from every analyst. Sickels is going team by team, he probably doesn't have all of the data on any particular player until it's done. Therefore, saying a player is on the cusp makes sense. There should be a lot of consistency from year to year. And in fact, you could compare each cusp guy separately to the A and A- guys from some other year or years. But that's extra work. Once you identify all the cusp guys and rank them, you end up making just one "where do I draw the line?" decision, instead of one for each cusp player. It's like A A A cusp cusp cusp A- A- A- You're going to eyeball that and pretty quickly see where the biggest gap is, where you want to divide the whole list into two. Since you have to put all the names in order for your published list, there's no need to separately decide on each guy before hand. You could do that, but it would be essentially eyeballing a similar list for each cusp guy (A A A cusp A- A- A-). (Again, I'm just basing this on my ranking of movies ... but I think it's likely that the process is the same for Sickels.)
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 14, 2015 9:31:18 GMT -5
I'm surprised so many people seem so indifferent on Devers. He's a year and a half younger than Moncada. He just played his age 18 season. Now I don't think he's as good a prospect as Moncada; I just used that to highlight how young he actually is. I wouldn't say that people are indifferent on Devers. BA gave him #5 in the SAL, he is number 2 on this site, #2 on Sickels ranking, and #13 in baseball on mlb.com. I think it's easy to forget him given how stacked our system is, but he's one of my personal favorites. Especially encouraging is that he demonstrated the ability to play an average to above average third base this year, erasing some questions about future position/potential DHing. That gives him a little more wiggle room with the bat. I really think his doubles power and pure swing will translate beautifully as he adds mass with age. Yea, I more meant around here. He seems to be the "high level guy" everyone is most willing to trade. Moncada, Espinoza and AB seem to be on a different level in people's mind, despite Devers being ranked higher than the last 2.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 14, 2015 9:31:23 GMT -5
MILB organizational All-Stars (Note, it's not top prospect). www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20151012&content_id=153601610&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milbCatcher -- Jordan Procyshen First baseman -- Sam Travis Second baseman -- Yoan Moncada Third baseman -- Rafael Devers Shortstop -- Javier Guerra Outfielder -- Manuel Margot Outfielder -- Andrew Benintendi Outfielder -- Kevin Heller Utility player -- Mauricio Dubon Right-handed pitcher -- Aaron Wilkerson Left-handed pitcher -- Brian Johnson Reliever: Williams Jerez Squares well with ours: news.soxprospects.com/2015/09/2015-soxprospectscom-all-stars.htmlDifferences are JBJ vs. Heller, Wilkerson over Espinoza. Frankly, I like our choices better, even ignoring prospect status. I get why you'd not pick JBJ though, but don't get excluding Espinoza if you're going to include Benintendi. No qualms with either though.
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