Personal Top 15 Prospect Lists: A's, Angels, Mariners, Rangers

by Satchel Price on Mar 2, 2011 4:30 PM EST in Prospect Perspective

We're getting a quartet instead of a trio today, as we get through the AL West's top-15 prospect lists. And if you thought that we missed your favorite team, well, you're probably right. We've left the best for last, so you'll be getting dual lists from Dave and I for the top five systems in the game. Tomorrow we'll be putting up Toronto, Atlanta and New York, and on Friday you'll get Tampa Bay and Kansas City. Also, don't forget that top-100 lists from Dave and I will be going up next Monday, so get ready to put Kevin Goldstein to task for disagreeing with us. Links to the other top-15 lists are included at the bottom of the page, as usual.

OAKLAND ATHLETICS

1) SS Grant Green

2) 1B Chris Carter

3) OF Michael Choice

4) OF Michael Taylor

5) C Max Stassi

6) LHP Ian Krol

7) 2B Jemile Weeks

8) RHP Tyson Ross

9) OF Aaron Shipman

10) SS/3B Yordy Cabrera

11) 3B Stephen Parker

12) RHP Fautino De Los Santos

13) 3B Renato Nunez

14) 2B/3B Adrian Cardenas

15) C/1B Josh Donaldson

I talked about Oakland's apparent strategy to building up their farm system a couple weeks ago. It's a sound strategy for low-revenue teams like the A's, although the system isn't in the best shape at the moment after a host of graduations. They have an impressive crop of hitters, led by consensus top-100 guys Green and Carter, as well as some interesting toolsy guys like Shipman and Nunez. I like Cardenas and Donaldson at the bottom of the list as well; I think they can be solid role players. The lack of pitching in the system is the obvious issue here. Ian Krol isn't a bad prospect but he's not really top-pitching-prospect-in-the-system material, and they don't even have impressive depth to make up for that lack of impact talent. They only have three pitchers in their top-15, and that's primarily due to the sorry state of the club's minor league pitching.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS

1) OF Mike Trout

2) 2B/SS Jean Segura

3) C Hank Conger

4) RHP Tyler Chatwood

5) RHP Jordan Walden

6) 3B Kaleb Cowart

7) RHP Garrett Richards

8) RHP Fabio Martinez-Mesa

9) RHP Cam Bedrosian

10) LHP Trevor Reckling

11) 1B Mark Trumbo

12) OF Randal Grichuk

13) 2B Alexi Amarista

14) OF Chevez Clarke

15) RHP Daniel Tillman

Trout is the obvious No. 1 guy here, and he leads a system that's quietly become one of the best in the game. They have potential impact guys at premium defensive positions in Segura and Conger, and Cowart has the tools to displace Trout as the system's top player once the 2009 first-round pick graduates. The pitching isn't as impressive, but they do have some nice arms and good depth. Walden should emerge as one of the best relievers in the game, and there are people that really, really like Tyler Chatwood. Toss in Richards, Martinez-Mesa, Reckling and 2010 pick Cam Bedrosian, and this system is doing a nice job of stocking up on quality arms. It wasn't a great offseason for Angels fans, but having a strong farm system should help to soften that blow.

SEATTLE MARINERS

1) 2B Dustin Ackley

2) RHP Michael Pineda

3) SS Nick Franklin

4) OF James Jones

5) RHP Taijuan Walker

6) OF Guillermo Pimentel

7) SS Marcus Littlewood

8) 3B Alex Liddi

9) LHP Mauricio Robles

10) OF Johermyn Chavez

11) RHP Stephen Pryor

12) 2B Kyle Seager

13) RHP Daniel Cortes

14) RHP Blake Beavan

15) C/1B Ji-Man Choi

This was a pretty tough system to rank. It's somewhat top-heavy, with Ackley, Pineda and Franklin carrying most of the weight, but they're just loaded with guys that could slip into the bottom five. I ended up going with Pryor, Seager, Cortes, Beavan and Choi, but I still had to omit guys like Ramon Morla, Greg Halman, Josh Lueke, Nate Tenbrink, Estelion Peguero, Jordan Shipers, Carlos Peguero, James Paxton, Rich Poythress, Dennis Raben or even Carlos Triunfel. They have some interesting outfielders, namely Pimentel and Jones, and I like some of their power relievers as well, like Pryor and Cortes. This is a pretty strong system, primarily thanks to the elite guys at the top, but the lower levels are littered with guys that could move up the ranks pretty quickly if things start to click.

TEXAS RANGERS

1) LHP Martin Perez

2) SS Jurickson Profar

3) RHP Tanner Scheppers

4) OF Engel Beltre

5) LHP Robbie Erlin

6) LHP Robbie Ross

7) SS Luis Sardinas

8) LHP Michael Kirkman

9) 3B Mike Olt

10) RHP David Perez

11) LHP Miguel De Los Santos

12) RHP Neil Ramirez

13) OF Jake Skole

14) RHP Roman Mendez

15) RHP Cody Buckel

This system isn't as stacked as it was a couple years ago, but they still have a deep system and a couple of impact prospects. Perez is still among the best pitching prospects in the game, and Profar isn't that far off from being the best shortstop in the minors. They don't have a ton of position player talent, but they're loaded with interesting pitchers- I didn't even have room to mention Wilmer Font or Luke Jackson. Sardinas is another toolsy shortstop that's raw but loaded with upside, and 2010 draft picks Olt and Skole both could emerge as solid regulars. It's impressive that this system is still so strong after losing Feliz, Moreland, Holland, Smoak, Lueke, Main and Beavan to graduations and trades over the past year.

OTHER 2011 TOP 15 LISTS

- Cubs, Reds and Astros

- Pirates, Cardinals and Brewers

- Mets, Phillies and Marlins

- Nationals, Diamondbacks and Rockies

- Dodgers, Padres and Giants

- White Sox, Indians and Tigers

- Twins, Orioles and Red Sox

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I looked at ten years' worth of prospects at the low-A level earlier this offseason

That is to say, all prospects who played significant (>270 PA) time in the Midwest and South Atlantic Leagues.

There is precisely one prospect in that ten-year span with a strikeout rate higher than Max Stassi who succeeded at the MLB level, and his name is Russell Branyan. Outside of him (and I doubt you really want to use him as a plausible comparison for a prospect, not least because most of the value he ultimately did end up providing was after he had been released by multiple teams), the best player was Wily Mo Pena, who had one decent season among a lot of dreck.

Subjectively, the closest comparable to Max Stassi among players who had reasonable MLB careers was longtime star Rob Bowen, who had similar overall hitting numbers but a much better strikeout rate.

For the most part, those guys were raw youngsters pushed well ahead of age-appropriate levels (and Stassi certainly has potential to fit that bill), and their ultimate performance was absolutely dismal.

Even with the understanding that outliers exist, that correlation is not causation, and that the past only predicts the future (rather than controlling it), it is very hard to find any grounds for optimism in Max Stassi’s performance so far. His contact percentile at the Baseball Cube is lower than Greg Halman’s. It’s not clear to me that he has any plus tools at all (maybe fielding?) and one tool (contact) is, to all intents and purposes, nonexistent, so I’m having some difficulty seeing how someone can rate him highly without denying reality.

He’s basically a nonfactor as far as I’m concerned— one of those C-grade fliers who theoretically might work out but nobody in their right mind should place any kind of expectation or hope in.

"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.

by PaulThomas on Mar 2, 2011 6:50 PM EST reply actions

I should mention, time period for this was 1995-2004

by PaulThomas on Mar 2, 2011 6:50 PM EST up reply actions

And one final thing-- in order to get significant numbers of guys who were any good,

you have to dip well below Stassi’s K rate, down to something like 26-27% of plate appearances. There are a handful of guys in the 27-30% range who might have had acceptable bats had they been catchers (and not suffered further deterioration of hitting as a result of the demands of the position), and that’s about all the optimism you’ll find.

by PaulThomas on Mar 2, 2011 6:55 PM EST up reply actions

I think you're selling him short a good deal though

I would argue that he’s going to be a solid defender at catcher, there’s some pretty solid power potential given his .151 ISO and a good swing. The contact issues are legitimate, obviously, but I think he can improve after striking out in 30% of his PA’s last season. He’ll only be 20 this year, and I think he still develop into a good catcher. Obviously he’d rank lower in a system that didn’t have so many prospects with clear question marks.

Baseball is my preferred sport. It should be yours, too.
I'm a columnist for Beyond the Box Score, an SB Nation blog.
Oh, I'm on Twitter, too.

by Satchel Price on Mar 2, 2011 7:29 PM EST up reply actions

The last observation adds little

Every prospect would rank lower in a system that had fewer other prospects with “question marks.”

He’s just flat-out worse, in some cases by huge margins, than many of the players you’ve ranked lower than him. (Sure, Cardenas, Taylor, Ross and Weeks didn’t have that great of seasons— but, well, they were in AAA or AA, not low-A. And God forbid we compare him to someone who actually did plausibly well like Parker or Eric Sogard.)

Depending on one’s opinion as to the health of Ryan Ortiz’s arm, there’s a pretty good argument to be made that he’s not even the second-best catching prospect in Oakland’s system, much less the best.

I’ve said this before to others, but for this ranking to be right, and players with such high (overwhelming, in Stassi’s case) likelihood of failure to be correctly ranked so high (I’d say the same of putting Choice at #2), Oakland’s farm system would have to not merely be the worst in the majors but generationally bad.

Fortunately, it isn’t— this is just an incorrect ranking which, as is usual for this area of analysis, prefers too-trendy-by-half “upside picks” to players who actually have good chances of being worth real value at the MLB level. So many of these lists are the baseball equivalent of those brackets in March Madness pools which have #10 seeds in the Elite Eight (side note: please don’t stop doing that— I’d prefer to keep cleaning up in office pools).

by PaulThomas on Mar 3, 2011 1:28 AM EST up reply actions

Well, the good reports keep coming on Choice and Stassi

And I buy into scouting reports a bit more than stats when I’m looking at prospects. I know that Stassi has legitimate questions about his contact ability, but I think he can improve that given his swing.

Yeah, I know that I weigh upside over floor with a lot of guys, and I’m doing that here with Stassi.

Baseball is my preferred sport. It should be yours, too.
I'm a columnist for Beyond the Box Score, an SB Nation blog.
Oh, I'm on Twitter, too.

by Satchel Price on Mar 3, 2011 1:46 PM EST up reply actions