Jim Callis: Brewers have the worst minor league system in baseball

[BrewersAA]

Rather Than base our opinions of them solely on a scouting report we read. Look at Axford, Kintzler, and Loe. I know this is anecdotal, but these guys had terrible scouting reports, and look at them! All i know about the prospects being discussed is that i saw the entire OKC NASH series (I moved from milwaukee to OKC) and Logan Schafer was BY FAR the most impressive player on the field for either team. They keep saying he has no power and doesnt play great D. OKC is a very deep park and he CRUSHED the ball nearly every time up, it sounds so sweet off his bat. His defense had redhawks fans sitting around me saying "o my god who is this guy!" His best play was on a bloop single to shallow right that never landed because he covered about 50 yards and made an incredible diving catch. Gindl wasnt impressive in the field, but didnt really have anything hit in his direction, but he still looked better than brandon boggs, who was playing left. Taylor green look great except in game 4, his D looks good, hes very atheletic. Gamel was also surprisingly very good defensively at first. he had some bad ABs though, couldn't lay of the low and in pitch and couldn't hit it either.

 

I think If Green and Gamel take over the corner IFs the brewers will be okay. they both have enough power to survive and play enough D to give the Brewers about a wash over this year. I dont think Schafer will start in CF, but he deserves it, and Gindl should be the starting RF after the hart contract is over. None of them are super stars, thats obvious, but thats why the brewers locked up Braun and Weeks. Schafer will really impress over what the old scouting reports you have read about him say, i promise.

[TooLiveBrew]

Welcome to the site, & thanks for the thoughtful & insightful post http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[BrewersAA]

No problem! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I just love talking Brewers. Going to minor league games is great, you get to talk to anyone you want, they are very fan friendly. I got to talk to Taylor Green before the game and he told me that this is the first time he has felt healthy since his first injury. He is exactly the character guy I like the Brewers to have. He also seemed disappointed he hasn't been called up yet. Its really cool how candid these guys can be. Matt Gamel on the other hand did not impress me character wise, and i couldn't get him to talk to me just an autograph. Schafer Looks like the youngest of the group and he seems like a really funny guy, kind of goofy. http://oklahomacity.pruhomequest.com/files/2011/08/redhawks-7-28-11-025.jpg

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Here's a nice write up on Caleb Gindl for those who are interested. Enjoy.

 

http://www.minorleaguebal...ndl-of-milwaukee-brewers

[gregmag]

I was away for a few days, so these points are a little late in the day, but:

 

In my original post that bumped this thread, I didn't refer to the Brewers' record this season as direct evidence that their farm system had improved. That would be a stupid argument, as a couple of people were kind enough to point out. I made that reference to put the quality of the Brewers' AAA player pool in context. When your MLB team is already good, and you have players at AAA who can help your MLB team, then presumably those AAA players have some value.

 

I also didn't mean to say -- and in fact didn't say -- that anything about this season makes Callis wrong in retrospect. That, again, would be stupid. I was asking whether this season's events give us reason to feel better about our system than we did at the start of the season.

 

That gets us into the discussion that people were having about what a prospect is and what a good system is. I don't think there's one meaningful definition; it's sort of like peak value vs. career value. But I do think the Brewers have a lot more reason to feel happy about their system than they did in April, or than they could have reasonably expected to at this point. We all know the Brewers are in win now mode. The MLB team is in great shape, but we're going to lose Prince and some relievers, and then next year we may lose Greinke and/or Marcum. For this team, at this stage in its contention cycle, having players at AAA who look ready to come up and contribute is a great thing. I don't think that fact negates the importance of our lack of blue-chippers at the lower levels, but I think it's an important fact for making any meaningful, thorough evaluation of the system as it stands now.

 

As for Caleb Gindl . . . all the guy has done his whole career is hit and get better. He has improved as this season has gone on. He is young-ish for AAA. I see no good reason to bet against his future. Will he be an All-Star? Not based on current evidence. But could he become a platoon starter or a 350-PA fourth outfielder on a championship caliber team? I think the evidence suggests he could. When a guy shows his steady progress and consistent performance, I think the importance of scouting reports and "projection" diminishes.

 

Also, the one thing I think a lot of knowledgeable people acknowledge less than they should about prospects is that young, good players generally continue to develop. Caleb Gindl today is probably not everything he will be. Look at -- drumroll, please -- Michael Brantley. For years, folks on this forum said he couldn't start at the MLB level for the primary reason that he lacked power. And he sure did; he was a punch-and-judy hitter at age 20. But now he's 24, he has a .119 ISO in the majors, and this year he has been an average MLB hitter as a starter. My point isn't that Mike Brantley is a great MLB player; he isn't. But he has developed an important skill that he lacked, and he's still young. I just think we sometimes tend to forget how common that is.

[And That]

Brantley's ISO is 25 points lower than MLB average, and 30 points lower than MLB average for a left fielder (37 lower than an average MLB OF). He's gone from virtually no power to having below average power. That contributes to him being a below average hitter. And he is below average by virtually any metric you want to use.

 

And what power gains he's made seem to have come at the expense of his phenomenal plate discipline. He has more than twice as many K as BB this year, which is bizarre for him.

 

My point is, many people (including myself), thought that he lacked the power (coupled with lacking defense in CF) to be a starting-caliber OF. I don't think anyone ever said he couldn't develop more power, just that he would lack it at the MLB level. Which he does. He's a below average-hitting LF in a big down year for LF.

 

I think everyone knows that Gindl is not a finished product. He also has a lot more power potential than Brantley (who doesn't?). How much of his raw strength translates into game power in MLB is to be determined. That's what we don't know about his development. How much MLB power he develops will determine if he can start in the corner OF or not. It's a toss-up to me. He's not a CF.

 

And I don't think developing new skills is that common amongst minor league players. Players are usually just refining and honing the skills that they have, trying to reach their potential. You get the occasional John Axford finding a dominant curveball, but that's pretty rare.

[paul253]

The Brewers have an entire wave of prospects in Nashville right now and would be wise not to let them waste away. Gindl, Schafer, Gamel and Green can all be solid every day players in my opinion. Gindl and Schafer can probably spend another year at Nashville I think (Gindl b/c of his age and Schafer b/c he has nowhere to play) but Gamel and Green have to see significant time next season. It's been brought up before but Milwaukee cannot survive by trading prospects and signing free agents. With the likely departure of Fielder and McGehee having an terrible season, there is little excuse not to play those two next season, even if third base is a Green/McGehee platoon. Gamel's trade value is already significantly lower than it was 2 years ago because he's been rotting away in AAA for three seasons now. The Brewers seem utterly unable to decide what to do with him and while they scratch their heads he is getting older and his value is decreasing. If he isn't the opening day starter at first base it will be an absolute failure in my opinion and a waste of talent.

 

That being said, the thread was originally about the state of the Brewers system. Even though they have some potential MLB regulars at the top of the system, the rest of the system is barren of position players. I am excited about all of one player below AAA right now....Khris Davis. And since his promotion to Huntsville he hasn't exactly been convincing people he's a top prospect. I understand the last draft where they took Jungmann, Bradley, and Lopez and I think those were solid picks, but I think Nick Ramirez was a terrible pick. And I think the past few drafts have been too focused on low to mid ceiling college pitchers with big bodies. Not enough hitters and not enough high risk high ceiling picks. I think the farm system has a long way to go yet before it gets back to respectability.

[TheCrust]

Nick Ramirez just looks so completely overmatched here in Appleton. Throw him anything other than a fastball and he's waaaaaay in front of it. For a fourth rounder after a promotion, it just looks embarrassing.

[gregmag]

Brantley's ISO is 25 points lower than MLB average, and 30 points lower than MLB average for a left fielder (37 lower than an average MLB OF). He's gone from virtually no power to having below average power. That contributes to him being a below average hitter. And he is below average by virtually any metric you want to use.

 

And what power gains he's made seem to have come at the expense of his phenomenal plate discipline. He has more than twice as many K as BB this year, which is bizarre for him.

 

My point is, many people (including myself), thought that he lacked the power (coupled with lacking defense in CF) to be a starting-caliber OF. I don't think anyone ever said he couldn't develop more power, just that he would lack it at the MLB level. Which he does. He's a below average-hitting LF in a big down year for LF.

 

I think everyone knows that Gindl is not a finished product. He also has a lot more power potential than Brantley (who doesn't?). How much of his raw strength translates into game power in MLB is to be determined. That's what we don't know about his development. How much MLB power he develops will determine if he can start in the corner OF or not. It's a toss-up to me. He's not a CF.

 

And I don't think developing new skills is that common amongst minor league players. Players are usually just refining and honing the skills that they have, trying to reach their potential. You get the occasional John Axford finding a dominant curveball, but that's pretty rare.

I don't disagree with your assessment of Brantley. I do think it's revisionist history to suggest that people predicted accurately how Brantley would develop (you're saying you did, and I'm sure that's true). Quite a few people here, IIRC, expressed the view, repeatedly, that he wouldn't develop enough power to play regularly. In fact, he has done that. Whether he can develop further into a good regular remains to be seen. You may be right that his power is simply a tradeoff for diminished plate discipline, but I don't know whether those developments are causally related or not. My larger point is that I think a lot of prospect discussions traffic in unrealistic levels of certainty, ignoring or underplaying the ways in which players tend to improve in their early to mid-20s. Certainly several people in this discussion have made statements that seem to me way too confident in their assessments of how players will end up.

 

You really don't think players develop additional skills during the early parts of their careers? You know a lot more about player development than I do, but that just doesn't seem right to me. It seems like a lot of players develop power as they fill out and/or refine their approaches at the plate, develop plate discipline as they gain experience and learn to recognize pitches, learn how to turn raw speed into good baserunning, etc. Maybe you mean that all of those abilities are latent all along, and I guess that could be true, but that's sort of a nature / nurture debate. Michael Brantley certainly looks to me like he has power now that he didn't have at age 20 or 21, and that development seems very ordinary. Caleb Gindl at 23 is an excellent AAA hitter, and I think that represents meaningful -- and promising -- development from where he was two years ago.

 

[And That]

Quite a few people here, IIRC, expressed the view, repeatedly, that he wouldn't develop enough power to play regularly. In fact, he has done that. Whether he can develop further into a good regular remains to be seen.

Honestly, I don't think he should be playing regularly. Not many teams can afford Brantley's level of production - offensive or defensive, and certainly not both - out of a LF. Brantley is part of the reason that Cleveland has a below average offense.

You really don't think players develop additional skills during the

early parts of their careers? You know a lot more about player

development than I do, but that just doesn't seem right to me. It seems

like a lot of players develop power as they fill out and/or refine

their approaches at the plate, develop plate discipline as they gain

experience and learn to recognize pitches, learn how to turn raw speed

into good baserunning, etc.

Developing power is just a natural thing - as you get older, you get stronger. Developing a better eye at the plate comes with repetition - the more pitches you see, the better you should (theoretically) be able to recognize them.

 

I don't think latent is the right word, but certainly different guys have different potential at different things. IMO, Gindl has the potential to perhaps be a 25-30 HR guy in his prime if everything (and I mean everything - that's probably unrealistic) works out right. Right now he has an ISO of about 170, which is more or less commiserate with the rest of his career. If he posts an ISO of 230 in MLB in his age 27 season, will he have developed a new skill then? I guess it boils down to semantics. I say no - the potential, or a portion of it, is merely being fulfilled. He also may never surpass a 110 ISO. Who knows?

 

Brantley's ISO rising from 80 to 110 isn't a new skill, it's just his power closing in on its absolute potential. He's getting older, stronger, and he seems to be more willing to swing at pitches out of the zone to try to up his power. He's also missing on a lot of those pitches. The ideal place for him to be is where both his power game, such that it is, and his plate discipline can coexist.

 

Maybe we're talking past each other a little. I get your point, that it's easy to get caught up in "now" production. But, I think most people realize that Gindl will probably get stronger and develop into something different than he is now.

 

Or maybe they don't.