State of the Farm System

Our farm system is pretty brutal right now, and there's no denying it. Most of the projectable talent is in A ball and below, which means a lot of Powerball tickets. Sox farm is especially thin in outfielders, up the middle players and first basemen. Surplus at 3rd but no one knows yet if Dalbec or Chavis could be MLB starters. And, as always, pitchers who project to be anything beyond a #5 starter right now always hard to find. There are a couple guys who may prove out and become more than that, and Jay Groome may have a ceiling as a #2 but he'll have to get to at least AA ball before he can start proving the potential.

That's one way of looking at it, but I prefer to judge a farm system's ability to dip into for trades and to replace expensive players with league minimum players in the future.  I mean you can trade those young MLB players to upgrade, but that's also leaving a hole that has to be filled so it's counter productive and not the same thing as prospects in the minors.  The other way it's counter productive is that you're almost assuredly adding salary when trading those players.

Imagine being the Orioles and having a farm system that is nearly as terrible as ours but being, you know, the Orioles.

And I'm going to play some devil's advocate here and say that the farm system is bad, but it can certainly improve without having to add anyone since there are so many lottery tickets with legit upside that at least one is probably bound to be a hit.

I agree that our system is probably not as bad as it seems (that is, a Bottom 2 system) for this reason. Casas, Decker, Howlett, Northcutt, Duran, Flores, Diaz, Jimenez, Dearden, and Esplin (Brannen?) is a good collection of offensive talent with upside, none of which are 50 FV prospects at this point in their career (of course), but several could be there in 1-2 years. The pitching in the lower levels certainly lacks name recognition but guys like Alexander Montero, Chase Shugart, Brayan Bello, and Aldo Ramirez have some upside. I'm pretty excited about the state of the system in the lower levels but I also understand that potential isn't sufficient to rank our farm system higher than it is. I'm fine with that.

The 2011 draft not only helped, but it was arguably one of the beat draft years in the history of the Red Sox. The Sox were compensated immensely with a lot of first round picks due to free agents leaving with the QO.

The Sox can't get compensation like this anymore. The system can only go up from here because it can't get much worse from here.

I understand that.  But they had other talent in the system back then like Xander Bogaerts, Anthony Ranaudo, Garin Cecchini, Christian Vazquez, Jose Iglesias, and Will Middlebrooks who increased their stock to varying degrees during that time frame.  Also, I'd like to add that despite more picks, I think the Sox still just had a better hit rate in that draft.  You could combined the 2012/2013 drafts and have just as many #1 picks but the value today is drastically less.  So, yes the Sox would need to hit on a few of the guys drafted the last couple years.   Which we won't know for some time.  Guys like Brandon Howlett and Nick Northcut really excite, but more often than not guys who fit that profile materialize to little MLB value.  

I'd agree the system is very weak,  but I think there's at least a potential path for it to recover over the next few years where a few years ago the system looked barren. 

I think the extra 300K or so that comes with the pick (not sure exactly what it will be) is probably more valuable than the actual pick itself 

We've been spoiled over the past 15 years, with a smart management team that was able to take advantage of the CBA to gather draft picks and sign international talent.  In my opinion, the new CBA gives unfair advantages to bad baseball teams & will make it virtually impossible for the Sox to collect young talent like they did in years past without tanking.  The rules have now been set-up to reward teams for tanking and is not good for the game.  

The Competitive Balance Round of the MLB draft is a real pet peeve, as it rewards teams for not spending money.  Comp picks for large market teams now fall after the Competitive Balance Round.  Look at that great 2011 draft.  The Sox had 4 picks in the top 40.  Three of those picks were on the post-season roster.   Under the new CBA the Sox will never have more than 1 pick in the top 40 again, unless they tank, or trade for a CBR pick.  

I have no issue with imposing limits on International players, but the current limits are laughably low for a billion dollar business.  The international signing pool is also skewed to reward teams for tanking.   

Some savvy large market team is going to realize their best bet is to say F it & blow away all the spending limits, spending big money on players that are "unsignable" under the MLB budget rules & forfeiting future draft picks.  It makes no sense to refrain from signing the top 3 high school prospects every year to gain a draft pick that allows to draft the 30th best player each year.  I hope the Sox figure this out, before everyone else does.

MLB's obsession with helping small market teams is killing their product.  Ultimately it will hurt all teams, big & small.  

If we look at the assets that were traded, excluding Shaw who was already up to the bigs, not many positives yet. Some of that is due to injuries - Kopech and Espinoza with TJ - but a quick inventory shows a lot of mundane numbers, so far at least.

Kimbrel trade:
Javy Guerra looks as if they sold high. He's done little since leaving the Sox system. Margot got off to a very slow start in 2018 and it didn't get much better in the second half. Asuaje is a useful piece, but really a utility guy. The prize here is probably Logan Allen. He made it to AAA at 21, the K rate is still over 9 per, and his WHIP is hovering around 1.0 - with only 110 hits in 148 innings! I have a feeling we'll be ruefully adding up his WAR as the years go on to total up the real cost.

Sale Trade:
Moncada led the league with 237 Ks which is just mind-boggling. He has some value, but it's not what we thought he'd be, certainly not what I thought he'd get to. There's still time, but he's got to find a way to reduce the K rate which sits at 1 out of every 3 at bats! Luis Alexander Basabe is coming along at 21. He struggled a little in AA after the promotion last year but overall he's making his way through the minor leagues. He's shown a bit of power, and he likes to try for steals, though he's not all that good at it right now. And he takes walks also. There's some promise here. Victor Diaz looks like a lottery ticket, at best. Can't make heads or tails out of last season's numbers. Even for a small sample size, they were horrific. Details from MiLB show a string of visits to the disabled list, so that's probably a strong hint that something's wrong.

Pomeranz Trade:

Yup the talent is there, just need a couple to really pop next year to change perception. Flores, Casas, Decker, hell even Groome could really jump out next year provided good health. The talent is there, but they need to show it.

A lot of people knocked me on that Kimbrel trade, when I thought it a good trade, but man I was pretty spot on with the prospects we gave up, at least so far. Would have loved to keep Allen, but it is what it is.

I did see Kopech in AAA this year and he was lights out. If he is one of those guys who gains velocity after TJ, God help the rest of the league in 2 years.