February 13, 201214 yr http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16020 1. Matt Moore, LHP, Rays 2. Bryce Harper, OF, Nationals 3. Mike Trout, OF, Angels 4. Jurickson Profar, SS, Rangers 5. Julio Teheran, RHP, Braves 6.Dylan Bundy, RHP, Orioles 7. Jesus Montero, C, Mariners 8. Manny Machado, SS, Orioles 9. Gerrit Cole, RHP, Pirates 10. Shelby Miller, RHP, Cardinals 11. Trevor Bauer, RHP, Diamondbacks 12. Miguel Sano, 3B, Twins 13. Jameson Taillon, RHP, Pirates 14. Taijuan Walker, RHP, Mariners 15. Jacob Turner, RHP, Tigers 16. Travis D'Arnaud, C, Blue Jays 17. Francisco Lindor, SS, Indians 18. Gary Brown, OF, Giants 19. Wil Myers, OF, Royals 20. Nolan Arenado, 3B, Rockies 21. Tyler Skaggs, LHP, Diamondbacks 22. Billy Hamilton, SS, Reds 23. Oscar Taveras, OF, Cardinals 24. Devin Mesoraco, C, Reds 25. Matt Harvey, RHP, Mets 26. Anthony Rendon, 3B, Nationals 27. Bubba Starling, OF, Royals 28. Jake Marisnick, OF, Blue Jays 29. Manny Banuelos, LHP, Yankees 30. Zack Wheeler, RHP, Mets 31. Carlos Martinez, RHP, Cardinals 32. Xander Bogaerts, SS, Red Sox 33. Christian Yelich, OF, Marlins 34. Drew Pomeranz, LHP, Rockies 35. Danny Hultzen, LHP, Mariners 36. Martin Perez, LHP, Rangers 37. Archie Bradley, RHP, Diamondbacks 38. Yasmani Grandal, C, Padres 39. Michael Choice, OF, Athletics 40. Gary Sanchez, C, Yankees 41. Randall Delgado, RHP, Braves 42. Luis Heredia, RHP, Pirates 43. Josh Bell, OF, Pirates 44. Brett Jackson, OF, Cubs 45. Mike Olt, 3B, Rangers 46. Brandon Jacobs, OF, Red Sox 47. Jake Odorizzi, RHP, Royals 48. Jarred Cosart, RHP, Astros 49. George Springer, OF, Astros 50. Jarrod Parker, RHP, Athletics 51. Trevor May, RHP, Phillies 52. Rymer Liriano, OF, Padres 53. Robbie Erlin, LHP, Padres 54. Daniel Norris, LHP, Blue Jays 55. Will Middlebrooks, 3B, Red Sox 56. Starling Marte, OF, Pirates 57. Jedd Gyorko, 3B, Padres 58. Cory Spangenberg, 2B, Padres 59. James Paxton, LHP, Mariners 60. A.J. Cole, RHP, Athletics 61. Wilin Rosario, C, Rockies 62. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP, Braves 63. Dellin Betances, RHP, Yankees 64. Brad Peacock, RHP, Athletics 65. Hak-Ju Lee, SS, Rays 66. Javier Baez, SS, Cubs 67. Jean Segura, SS, Angels 68. Anthony Gose, OF, Blue Jays 69. Matt Adams, 1B, Cardinals 70. Zach Lee, RHP, Dodgers 71. Nick Castellanos, 3B, Tigers 72. Sonny Gray, RHP, Athletics 73. Jonathan Singleton, 1B, Astros 74. Joe Wieland, RHP, Padres 75. Anthony Rizzo, 1B, Cubs 76. Robbie Grossman, OF, Pirates 77. Neil Ramirez, RHP, Rangers 78. Casey Kelly, RHP, Padres 79. Chad Bettis, RHP, Rockies 80. Jose Fernandez, RHP, Marlins 81. Addison Reed, RHP, White Sox 82. John Lamb, LHP, Royals 83. Cheslor Cuthbert, 3B, Royals 84. Jessie Biddle, LHP, Phillies 85. Jonathan Schoop, INF, Orioles 86. Yonder Alonso, 1B, Padres 87. Eddie Rosario, OF/2B, Twins 88. Kolten Wong, 2B, Cardinals 89. Jeurys Familia, RHP, Mets 90. Joe Benson, OF, Twins 91. Matt Purke, LHP, Nationals 92. Wily Peralta, RHP, Brewers 93. Noah Syndergaard, RHP, Blue Jays 94. Austin Hedges, C, Padres 95. Joe Ross, RHP, Padres 96. Derek Norris, C, Athletics 97. Tim Wheeler, OF, Rockies 98. Ryan Lavarnway, C, Red Sox 99. Mason Williams, OF, Yankees 100. Grant Green, OF, Athletics 101. Jorge Alfaro, C, Rangers
February 14, 201214 yr 5 catchers in the top 40. Maybe they'll finally be some good catchers in the league eventually.
February 15, 201214 yr 5 catchers in the top 40. Maybe they'll finally be some good catchers in the league eventually. I feel like that's probably not out of the ordinary much. The bar for top-catching prospects isn't nearly as high precisely because good catchers at the MLB level are rare.
February 21, 201214 yr Here's the Baseball America list of top 100..... http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/2012/2612998.html The Marlins have either 1 or 2 depending on which list you look at.....meanwhile........ The Rays have.......4 in BA and 2 in BP and they have been drafting behind us for a few years now. Beinfest & Hill better hit on expensive FA's because they haven't done a great job building the farm the last few years and its costing Loria a ton of money this off-season and probably the next couple of years if he wants to compete.
February 21, 201214 yr Author kinda depressing how sh*tty our farm system is. we're on track to be the Pirates if everything at the Major League level doesn't click immediately.
February 21, 201214 yr kinda depressing how sh*tty our farm system is. we're on track to be the Pirates if everything at the Major League level doesn't click immediately. Actually, the Pirates have 4 players on that list
February 21, 201214 yr Author obviously I meant the Pirates of the past 15 years. or the Orioles. a sh*t team, is what I'm saying. a lot of money tied up in FAs and no prospects.
February 21, 201214 yr obviously I meant the Pirates of the past 15 years. or the Orioles. a sh*t team, is what I'm saying. a lot of money tied up in FAs and no prospects. LDO. I was just trolling.
February 21, 201214 yr #33 sounds a little high for Yelich, but I haven't really researched much about the guys behind him.
February 21, 201214 yr kinda depressing how sh*tty our farm system is. we're on track to be the Pirates if everything at the Major League level doesn't click immediately. I agree Loria needs to make some serious FO changes. If Loria gets tired of spending money on ultra-expensive FA's, we are looking at multiple 90+ loss seasons.
February 21, 201214 yr You guys do realize that the reason why our farm system sucks so much is because we recently graduated everyone, right? I mean, it sure can use improvement, but I'd rather have Mike Stanton already proven at the age of 22 from the system than Mr. Prospect who might or might not be a bust. We're not the Pirates (who, for what it's worth, look like they might be a good team sooner rather than later finally). We currently have a core that's basically already proven and still young. As long as you have a core, you're fine. Just need to build around it. Of course, we need to start hitting on some of our draft picks now (mainly pitching prospects because those are the ones you don't want to be paying long-term in free agency) but the situation isn't that bad.
February 22, 201214 yr I don't think that's entirely true. It's definitely true for the offense in the obvious cases of Stanton and Morrison (to a much lesser extent Gaby Sanchez because of his age), but the Marlins have sucked terribly in drafting and cultivating pitching talent (or sucked at both). The Marlins haven't graduated any pitching talent worth a damn in recent years and most of the bullpen is constructed of either free agents or arms swapped via trade for other failed projects.
February 22, 201214 yr I agree with Penguin. We've been very bad at the draft recently. Also, Erick, I don't buy that excuse personally. Graduating top prospects hasn't stopped the Rays from having a great farm system. Our drafting needs to improve.
February 22, 201214 yr We're also always at or near the bottom at money spent in the draft and have had ZERO impact on international signees. That takes it's toll. You want prospects, you gotta pay.
February 22, 201214 yr I don't think that's entirely true. It's definitely true for the offense in the obvious cases of Stanton and Morrison (to a much lesser extent Gaby Sanchez because of his age), but the Marlins have sucked terribly in drafting and cultivating pitching talent (or sucked at both). The Marlins haven't graduated any pitching talent worth a damn in recent years and most of the bullpen is constructed of either free agents or arms swapped via trade for other failed projects. As I said, they need to do better in the pitching department. I can't think of too many teams with a better core of young hitters, though. Also, I think there's too much of an emphasis placed on the draft. Obviously it's important but there are other ways to acquire talent to make your organization consistently good, and it seems like that's often ignored around here. Our drafts might not be stellar but for a crapshoot event, we've drafted a stud RF'er, a LF'er who projects to be a pretty awesome bat in the future/now, a solid 1B, an ace, bullpen arms, and about half of our projected bench. It's not terrible and it's rather unfair to continue comparing the situation to the Rays situation.
February 22, 201214 yr If you agree that the pitching has been a problem (and it's been a big one in my opinion), then it's misleading to say the farm system "sucks because we graduated guys" when that only applies to the hitters. There has been some other breakdown in the organization. I don't see a valid excuse for the Marlins failing to produce a decent starting pitcher since Josh Johnson. Now, I certainly agree that the draft is a crapshoot to some extent, but I think you are wrong to assume that the Marlins' failures to produce pitchers out of their system in recent years is simply bad luck. I don't see why we can't be considering that the Marlins might be poor at scouting pitchers or that the Marlins might not be the best at developing the arms as they work their way up in the system. For starting pitchers the only real success story is Josh Johnson. Now, it's a resounding success and we shouldn't expect every pitcher to be in his class, but among the Scott Olsens, Chris Volstads, and Sean Wests, there really isn't much else positive to report. On top of that, the Marlins really haven't produced that many decent relievers from scratch, either.
February 22, 201214 yr To put it simply, the minor league pitching depth is virtually non-existent, but that has absolutely nothing to do with graduating players.
February 22, 201214 yr This is why I do feel that Loria needs to make some changes in the FO, and quickly or he will be paying for FA's for a long tome. Right now if we wish to make a trade at the deadline, we have virtually no ammunition to deal away. If these guys don't pan out or we need something to make that push, we are basically screwed unless Oviedo is that trade bait. Who is it that has overseen the drafting ? Beinfest or Hill ? Or both ? They should have Loria's attention for sure. He wouldn't have had to spend nearly as much in FA's this off-season had they had at least one pitcher to bring up. Buehrle would have been unnecessary and would have left Loria with maybe the cash to get another bat or some other position.
February 22, 201214 yr If you agree that the pitching has been a problem (and it's been a big one in my opinion), then it's misleading to say the farm system "sucks because we graduated guys" when that only applies to the hitters. There has been some other breakdown in the organization. I don't see a valid excuse for the Marlins failing to produce a decent starting pitcher since Josh Johnson. Now, I certainly agree that the draft is a crapshoot to some extent, but I think you are wrong to assume that the Marlins' failures to produce pitchers out of their system in recent years is simply bad luck. I don't see why we can't be considering that the Marlins might be poor at scouting pitchers or that the Marlins might not be the best at developing the arms as they work their way up in the system. For starting pitchers the only real success story is Josh Johnson. Now, it's a resounding success and we shouldn't expect every pitcher to be in his class, but among the Scott Olsens, Chris Volstads, and Sean Wests, there really isn't much else positive to report. On top of that, the Marlins really haven't produced that many decent relievers from scratch, either. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what you said. For what it's worth though, I think we have plenty of reliever prospects that have been drafted by the organization.
February 22, 201214 yr This is why I do feel that Loria needs to make some changes in the FO, and quickly or he will be paying for FA's for a long tome. Right now if we wish to make a trade at the deadline, we have virtually no ammunition to deal away. If these guys don't pan out or we need something to make that push, we are basically screwed unless Oviedo is that trade bait. Who is it that has overseen the drafting ? Beinfest or Hill ? Or both ? They should have Loria's attention for sure. He wouldn't have had to spend nearly as much in FA's this off-season had they had at least one pitcher to bring up. Buehrle would have been unnecessary and would have left Loria with maybe the cash to get another bat or some other position. The Marlins have a couple of prospects that plenty of teams would be interested in if we need to make a deal at the deadline. The free agent signings made this offseason had very little to do with the fact that our farm system is poor. We spent money to create further excitement for the new stadium. There were other ways to improve the team than to spend 191 million dollars in free agency. Reyes, Buehrle, and Bell weren't exactly specific necessities.
February 22, 201214 yr This is why I do feel that Loria needs to make some changes in the FO, and quickly or he will be paying for FA's for a long tome. If Loria was willing to put money into the draft/international free agency, I think things would be very different. It's a two-way street. The FO has done pretty damn well for always being at the bottom of money spent on prospects. In the scheme of "populous opinion on player" aka top 100 lists, they have been around average. And a lot of those guys have flamed out [Hermida, West, Volstad], but I don't see how you can fault the FO for that when everyone thought they'd be good. You certainly can't give much positive credit to the FO, but I think to simply discredit them while ignoring the situation is short sited. The true question is: How do they do now that the draft is capped and Loria has money to spend? They did pretty good based on their situation before (Which translated to average at best across all situations), now let's see how they do on an equal playing ground. If it's still average at best, yeah, then you can burn them. For now though they were on unfair footing.
February 22, 201214 yr For what it's worth though, I think we have plenty of reliever prospects that have been drafted by the organization. I can think of a few that have been decent over the past 6 years or so, but it's a pretty small number. That's why the Marlins have relied heavily on spring training invites in recent years to stock their bullpens. Now there isn't really anything wrong with using that strategy to some degree (because there have been some success stories), but there has also been some failures (see 2010). I hypothesize that the Marlins track record of home growing pitchers (starters and relievers) is well below the MLB average.
February 22, 201214 yr And a lot of those guys have flamed out [Hermida, West, Volstad], but I don't see how you can fault the FO for that when everyone thought they'd be good. Maybe the minor league instructors just aren't that good? The obvious success stories (Johnson, Stanton, etc.) don't necessarily negate the possibility that the Marlins might not be making the most out of their talent. Or maybe that the conventional wisdom for scouting is still antiquated and the Marlins have been poor at breaking free from it. I think you are definitely right in exposing the funding issues. That's definitely a problem, but probably not the only problem.
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