Aug 2012 BF Prospect ranking

[CheezWizHed]

As I was doing my ranking, I came across the BF ranking sheet when I was running it 4 years ago. I thought it would be nice to see how far we have come:

 

1 Jean Segura

2 Tyler Thornburg

3 Wily Peralta

4 Jimmie Nelson

5 Johnny Hellweg

6 Hunter Morris

7 Taylor Jungmann

8 Clint Coulter

9 Jose Pena

10 Victor Roache

11 Scooter Gennett

12 Tyrone Taylor

13 Khris Davis

14 Hiram Burgos

15 Orlando Arcia

16 Mitch Haniger

17 Logan Schafer

18 Mark Rogers

19 Chris McFarland

20 Jed Bradley

21 Cameron Garfield

22 Drew Gagnon

23 Caleb Gindl

24 Damien Magnifico

25 Nick Bucci

26 Taylor Green

27 Jose Pena

28 Yadiel Rivera

29 Jorge Lopez

30 Michael Reed

31 Ruben Ozuna

32 Gian Rizzo

33 Santo Manzanillo

34 Cody Scarpetta

35 Kentrail Davis

36 Zach Quintana

37 Edgardo Rivera

38 Josh Prince

39 Fautino De Los Santos

40 TJ Mittelstaedt

41 Alan Williams

42 Jorge Ortega

43 Kyle Heckathorn

44 Nick Ramirez

45 Adam Giacalone

46 Eric Arnett

47 Jim Henderson

48 Jesus Sanchez

49 Jason Rogers

50 Tommy Toledo

51 Max Walla

52 Brooks Hall

53 Tyler Wagner

54 Eduard Reyes

55 Andy Moye

56 David Goforth

57 Mike Walker

58 Chadwin Stang

59 Carlos Belonis

60 Jacob Barnes

61 Juan Santiago

62 Stosh Wawrzasek

63 Ben McMahan

64 Jeff Bianchi

65 Seth Harvey

66 Milton Gomez

67 Angel Ortega

68 Leonard Lorenzo

69 Elvis Rubio

70 Mike Strong

71 Eric Marzec

72 Jose Sermo

73 Casey Medlen

74 Carlos Sosa

75 Osmel Perez

76 Josh Stinson

77 Daniel Meadows

78 Shawn Zarraga

79 Michael Schaub

80 Sean Halton

81 Brock Kjeldgaard

82 Taylor Wall

83 Austin Blaski

84 Brandon Kintzler

85 Brandon Macias

86 Rob Wooten

87 Donovan Hand

88 Malcolm Dowell

89 Alfredo Rodriguez

90 Brian Garman

91 Matt Miller

92 Carlos Pena

[FVBrewerFan]

That Top 25 is actually not bad at all, especially at the time.

[Tbadder]

I like how Jacob Barnes has come on. 60th place to a big league roster spot. Kudos to you young man.

[CheezWizHed]

That Top 25 is actually not bad at all, especially at the time.

 

I don't know about that. You have one possible impact player (Arcia), a few ok players (Segura, Nelson), a couple still possible, and some BP guys. The cupboard wasn't bare, but it had a lot of ramen noodles...

[MoreTrife]

WHat happened to Cody Scarpetta? I remember he had a lot of promise.

 

Eric Arnett hurts.

[JohnBriggs12]

That Top 25 is actually not bad at all, especially at the time.

 

I don't know about that. You have one possible impact player (Arcia), a few ok players (Segura, Nelson), a couple still possible, and some BP guys. The cupboard wasn't bare, but it had a lot of ramen noodles...

 

Hello???? Khris Davis???? He might not meet the definition of impact player, but he's hit one HR every 16.3 AB which is a better career rate than either Fielder or Braun and he was 13 on that list and he's developed into one of the premier power bats in all of baseball.

 

Scooter Gennett's been essentially an everyday major league player since arriving in the big leagues and is cumulative 5.3 WAR player and he was 12th on the list.

 

Thornburg's turned into not just any BP guy but a back end stud. Had they kept him starting, I'm pretty certain he'd be a decent starter too.

 

If you look back at the Brewers prospect list 4 years from now, I guaranty you that many that are highly rated now will never pan out. For a team that at the time didn't have much respect as an organization, it was not a bad list at all.

[JohnBriggs12]

I like how Jacob Barnes has come on. 60th place to a big league roster spot. Kudos to you young man.

 

Barnes was a 22 year old 2011 14th rounder in low A ball in 2012. One wouldn't expect to be much higher than 60th in that situation and you would hope that there are always going to be guys that rise from the obscure into bona fide major leaguers. Barnes was that guy for the Brewers.

 

Even though he's no longer a Brewer, the same could be said for Brandon Kintzler, who's now a successful major league closer.

[igor67]

I'll back Briggs on his point, in guruspace and brewerfanspace the farm system was bleak, the sky was falling... during those years and yet there was some definite value there. Certainly it seems like more value then we had when I got into this prospect thing back in the late 90's. We're not saying it was enough to build a winner from scratch or anything, but that there was more value then you'd expect for ranking in the bottom 5 farm systems. Without getting bogged down in familiar arguments about the relative merits of various particular names. Went back and checked the top 10s. From 1999-2001 the major leaguers produced by the Brewers farm system top 10 were Ben Sheet, Ronnie Belliard, Valerio De Lo Santos, and some glorified September call-ups after that. Were it not for Sheets that would be crazy awful. Fun Fact in 9 major league season VLDS accumulated only 1.0 WAR, Belliard has 20.7, Sheets with 26.1. Those last 2 totals are pretty valuable players. But it really represents the flipside of the idea that currently we have a ton of depth, but missing some superstars. The farm system in those years could barely produce replacement level players to provide depth let alone real starters.

[FVBrewerFan]

That Top 25 is actually not bad at all, especially at the time.

 

I don't know about that. You have one possible impact player (Arcia), a few ok players (Segura, Nelson), a couple still possible, and some BP guys. The cupboard wasn't bare, but it had a lot of ramen noodles...

 

But you can't compare RESULTS from that list to the current prospect list. They are two very different things. In hindsight, we can see how that list has developed so far. We haven't had the opportunity to do that with our current list. At that time, several SP prospects were having big years. Several position players were recently drafted that everyone was excited about. Heck, most of those guys in the Top 15 are in MLB, or are still prospects.

 

Evan in hindsight that list is not bad at all. There are still others on their way to MLB. Haniger for example. It is always interesting to go back and compare these lists, but there are certainly other lists in the recent past that were worse than this one.

[TheCrew07]

The problem with that list was and always will be the relative talent level.

 

We weren't comparing to the horrible job the Brewers did drafting most of the franchise's existence, we were comparing against the talent Jack Z had assembled, and the talent at that time didn't measure up against the MLB talent that was assembled. The organization couldn't hold it's ground swapping out players with production greater than 2 WAR for lesser talented versions of the same guys. Khris Davis hits HRs, but he's not Ryan Braun or Corey Hart, and so on down the list.

 

We were also comparing to the relative talent level of the prospects coming through our divisional opponents, which outside of the Reds we didn't measure up against either.

 

To me the "it was better than " argument is fundamental difference between the 2 sides in most discussions on the forum. To me what came prior to Jack Z is irrelevant, that was never the organization any of us wanted, we always wanted to the Brewers to competitive. In that respect the issue to me has never been about being better than we were, it was about how turn things around and be one of the best organizations in the game.

[StearnsFTW]

That list is putrid.

 

2012 Texas Rangers top 10 prospects:

 

TOP TEN

 

PROSPECTS

1. Yu Darvish, rhp

2. Jurickson Profar, ss

3. Martin Perez, lhp

4. Mike Olt, 3b

5. Leonys Martin, of

6. Neil Ramirez, rhp

7. Cody Buckel, rhp

8. Jorge Alfaro, c

9. Christian Villanueva, 3b

10. Rougned Odor, 2b

 

Just for comparison's sake.

[CheezWizHed]

That Top 25 is actually not bad at all, especially at the time.

 

I don't know about that. You have one possible impact player (Arcia), a few ok players (Segura, Nelson), a couple still possible, and some BP guys. The cupboard wasn't bare, but it had a lot of ramen noodles...

 

Hello???? Khris Davis???? He might not meet the definition of impact player, but he's hit one HR every 16.3 AB which is a better career rate than either Fielder or Braun and he was 13 on that list and he's developed into one of the premier power bats in all of baseball.

 

Scooter Gennett's been essentially an everyday major league player since arriving in the big leagues and is cumulative 5.3 WAR player and he was 12th on the list.

 

Thornburg's turned into not just any BP guy but a back end stud. Had they kept him starting, I'm pretty certain he'd be a decent starter too.

 

If you look back at the Brewers prospect list 4 years from now, I guaranty you that many that are highly rated now will never pan out. For a team that at the time didn't have much respect as an organization, it was not a bad list at all.

 

Yes, I could've listed out many more people in the "OK" bin. Khrush and Scooter were certainly meant to be included there. And to that point, I was one of Khrush's biggest supporters back in the day. But he still isn't anything more than MLB average. Not impact players.

 

I disagree with Thornburg. He might have made a 5th SP, but makes a much better RP. Still, a bunch of SPs on the list turned into RPs, which is the wrong direction to build a team. Peralta might end up there too...

 

Every organization, no matter how pathetic, generates MLB players. But if you create a bunch of 1.0 WAR/season players, you aren't going to get far. You need a healthy dose of 2.0-3.0 with a sprinkling of 5.0+ WAR/season players to get to the WS.

 

Khrush and Scooter are both ~1.0-1.5 (peak at 2.0) WAR players. Nice, but not impact players. And as someone else stated, replacing better players, thus decreasing the team WAR overall.

[FVBrewerFan]

You're still comparing results from the 2012 list, rather than comparing prospect status at the time. Which is the only fair way to compare that list to the current list. We won't be able to compare the results for another 5 years or so, once we see what happens with the 2016 list.

 

But even looking at results, at least 21 players on that list played at the MLB level. Still at least 7 are prospects. Yea, I know some of those were only up for a cup of coffee. Other, like Lopez, could return. And that doesn't even include a guy like Morris who had monster power.

 

Hey, I agree 100% the current Top 25 is better, but no way is this list pathetic. And it actually serves as a reminder that no matter how good the list looks, getting to MLB and playing even at neutral WAR is not easy.

[StearnsFTW]

I don't have access to teams' 2012 top 92 lists, but I'd be willing to bet that the Brewers would be in about the 20th percentile with regard to total WAR amassed from like lists.

 

Not the be-all end-all, but certainly a barometer. The story is also incomplete, so there's that. I don't see a whole lot of productivity yet to come from our group though. There's like 6 or 8 real major league players there and none of them are particularly good.

[homer]

Is it bad that I have no recollection of Jose Pena?

[MrTPlush]

Dang I loved Cody Buckel in the day. To think he has never gotten to AAA is amazing.

[Outlander]

Is it bad that I have no recollection of Jose Pena?

Also were there really two Jose Pena's ranked in the system at the same time?

[Noche]

I remember Keith Law said something nice about Jose Pena in a chat. I don't remember which one! No, I do, it was OF Jose Pena.

[StearnsFTW]

Is it bad that I have no recollection of Jose Pena?

 

I was going to say the same thing.

[Mass Haas]

Is it bad that I have no recollection of Jose Pena?

 

I was going to say the same thing.

 

Jose Pena was a $400,000 signing prior to 2010, which seemed Gilbert Lara-ish to Brewer fans at the time (even though it wasn't).

 

Somehow after two weak DSL seasons, we must have convinced ourselves after this Maryvale game log in Pena's first stateside season of 2012 that he was the bee's knees.

 

Polling must have begun on July 8th after his 5-for-7 game (who remembers this 17-run first inning?).

[igor67]

Actually I believe the point of my post was to demonstrate that the idea that every team generates major league players is not strictly true. Certainly over that 3 year period I looked at the Brewers produced a few, but an average of 1 per year regardless of how good they were is really bad. In fact I will make an argument that the lack of prospect depth was the root cause of not getting more oomph out of the Fielder-Braun years. While we definitely had a nice little run where we drafted a bunch of impact players back-to back, the roster has 25-men and the lack of solid contributors to have in place, before and during those years held the team back. Imagine the potential snowball effect of just 1 Jimmy Nelson caliber starting pitcher in the early 2000's, with another developing every 4 years. Not aces by any stretch of the imagination, but a cheap guy you can plug in and avoid the Suppan-Wolf-Garza contracts...

 

Or take this a different path and more back on track. The comment about not being able to compare results to lists is off the mark of the original point, which was quite simply that the prior noise would have a person believe that those years were going to be barren wastelands. When much the opposite we can see that even before Melvin started trading guys he left way more in the cupboard at the minor league level then Bando left Taylor. Of course Taylor didn't do himself any favors by doing a terrible job of flipping some pretty good major league talent for random bits and pieces.