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2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Welcome to the 2020 MSB Farm System Rankings.

These are not meant to be one-sided articles, but an all-inclusive discussion and debate.  I have compiled prospect rankings, team reports and an overall ranking that I will reveal as we go (with my personal Farm System Rankings at the end), but my hope is that this will stimulate discussion and debate.  Prospects are very volatile in and of themselves, so any ranking of any sort concerning them will inevitably have several differing opinions.

Over the next couple weeks, I will publish my team reports in small groups.  As each grouping is revealed there will be a poll for all to participate in and an open discussion concerning each group.  I will compile a consensus list of the leagues rankings as we go and continue to update that ranking after each grouping.  After we complete our consensus rankings of the leagues farm systems, I will post my personal rankings.

To start, here is how I have compiled my reports and lists, and a little background as to my philosophy on prospects.

Using eleven of the more well known prospect rankings lists (headlined by John Sickels, Fangraphs, Baseball Prospectus, and MLB), I have complied each organizations top prospect list.  From those player rankings, I have ranked each organizations farm system and compiled my own MSB Farm System Rankings.

(A note about the players Average Rank found on each teams lists:  The Average Rank does not include the Razzball rankings unless the player in question is not ranked in one of the other ten.  Reasoning?  When I send out the overall player rankings, take a look at the Razzball column and all the yellow highlights.  I highlight any ranking that is clearly an outlier and as you will see Razzball has almost THREE times more outlier rankings than the other ten combined.  A couple examples: Vidal Brujan is cumulatively ranked 41.4 by the ten outlets used in the Average Ranking, but Razzball ranks him the 10th best prospect in baseball.  Corbin Carroll is cumulatively ranked 70.9 by the ten outlets, but Razzball has him #18.  Nick Solak and Luis Matos are not ranked by even ONE of the other ten outlets (two of them Top 200 lists), yet they are #38 and #39 on Razzball.  On the other end of the spectrum, Mitch Keller ranks one spot ahead of Brujan in the cumulative rankings, but is ranked #105 by Razzball.  Keibert Ruiz is clearly a top 100 (average: 83.9) prospect, yet he is not even ranked in Razzball’s top 200.  In short, I put very little stock in the rankings and the writer.  He is a new writer for Razzball this year and admits to being biased toward speed and pitchers simply because others are not.  He’s contrarian simply for the sake of it.  I honestly almost took his rankings out after I correlated his wildly deviated rankings, but ultimately left them in.  Not sure why…)

My personal philosophy on prospects centers more on potential and upside than closeness to the majors.  I will rank a higher potential, lower minors player higher than I will a utility, major league roster filler type who is closer to the bigs.  Sometimes that ends up biting me on the tookus, as we’re all aware of the TINSTAAPP principal and the rate of flameout for some, but in general the process tends to work well.  I also value positional talent a little higher than I do pitching (again . . . . TINSTAAPP…) unless there is a clear reason to value the arm highly, but that is quite rare.  Just look at the top pitching prospects over the past few seasons and you’ll see why I hold to this philosophy:  Injury (Glasnow, Kopech, Whitley, Honeywell, Urias, Syndergaard), flameout (Alex Reyes, Jose De Leon, Yadier Alvarez, Anderson Espinosa, Kolby Allard, Daniel Norris), or a general lack of anything more than mediocre performance befalls virtually every highly ranked pitcher.  Every once in a while a Jose Berrios or Walker Buehler slips through, but even then there is still injury concern.  Very few and far between are the highly ranked pitching prospects that actually pan out into reliable, middle to top of the rotation arms.  My personal philosophies in no way affect the player rankings individually, but they will color the team rankings within my Farm System Rankings.

With that in mind, let’s get to the reports.

The first article with the first group of reports has been published on the Mutiny site and those teams prospect lists have been attached here.

Rank the teams in a reply and I'll tabulate the consensus rankings.

Thanks for participating.
Brendt Crews
Bako Bums


World Series Champions
SCRUBS Modern Baseball League
Bums - 2007, 2009, 2012, 2016

Mutiny Simulation Baseball League
Spits - 2007, 2009

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #1
Nice work Brent. I'm sure this took a lot of effort. I'm guessing we're looking at the bottom of the barrel with these systems. I don't have to time to spell out my thoughts but here is how I rank these systems from best to worst:

1 - Kraken
2 - Sweets
3 - Raniers
4 - Blues
5 - Devils

Revised 8/12 due to an error in my formula.

Dan
Brooklyn Kraken

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #2
Here's my view of these 5 very fine teams.

Sweets
Blues
Rainiers
Kraken
Devils
Jason
Ankeny ACLs

"I'm pissed off now, Jobu. Look, I go to you. I stick up for you. You no help me now. I say 'F#@& you Jobu', I do it myself."
-Pedro Cerrano, Major League

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #3
Sweets
Rainiers
Blues
Kraken
Devils
Kyle - 2008, 2015, 2019 MSB Champion

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #4
Rankings from NO-D.

Rainers
Sweets
Kraken
Blues
Devils
Brent A. Brown
Chicago Rum Runners
President of Baseball Operations

World Series Champions
CJWL - 2017 (Grinders)

LCS
NABL-AL 2018 (Louisville Bats)

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #5
Great write-ups, Brendt.  Those are fun to read.
Kyle - 2008, 2015, 2019 MSB Champion

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #6
I'll give the top spot to the Sweets simply because of Nolan Gorman.
1. Sweets
2. Rainiers
3. Kraken
4. Blues
5. Devils
David
Phoenix Miners

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #7
I'll give the top spot to the Sweets simply because of Nolan Gorman.
1. Sweets
2. Cutthroats
3. Kraken
4. Blues
5. Devils
Rainiers, not Cutthroats, right?
Brendt Crews
Bako Bums


World Series Champions
SCRUBS Modern Baseball League
Bums - 2007, 2009, 2012, 2016

Mutiny Simulation Baseball League
Spits - 2007, 2009


Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #9
DAng, I've been slacking, I know how much goes into cranking out these puppies. I hope you all are taking a bit of time to read through a rank. To put my money where my mouth is here's how I'm seeing it.

1.Sweets (I like the top 3 and there are some guys I think will move up the list next year that I like as well - by far the best of the bunch)
2.Rainiers (I'm a big Carrol fan and I think there's some guys at the bottom that while they won't be stars, will be useful cheap guys at the back of the roster)
3. Kraken (While ranked 3 definitely due to trading, I could see this change for the better come next year pretty easy)
4. Blues (Trades, Trades, Trades - pre-trade, they are 4th in my book but post there's an argument for 5)
5. Devils (I'm still shaking my head over Adams fall from grace. There are going to be some useful players at the bottom of the minors but the star potential is missing)
Matt
Mother Lode Argonauts

Re: 2020 Farm System rankings - Developing Systems

Reply #10
1 Kraken
2 Rainiers
3 Sweets
4 Blues
5 Devils
bob h - Robots