White Sox... 3rd worst farm system in baseball

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by doublem23

If you read the article posted you'd notice the author essentially agrees with you, saying that small differences are highly subjective (are the Cubs really #10 and Astros #11?) but that doesn't mean there aren't some CLEAR divisions in terms of talent pool and the Sox are still, sadly, lagging well behind the league. Nobody in their right mind would look at the talent the Rays have acquired and developed, for instance, and compare them to the White Sox's farm system and think it's still a coin flip between which system will pump out better players over the next 5-10 years.

But obviously the celebration in this thread is a bit in jest. The Sox farm system is still horrendously barren, and it is no comfort that the teams immediately surrounding us have recently had their systems depleted by graduations or big splash "win-now" trades that have worked and produced results at the MLB level. We're, unfortunately, devoid of talent all over the place.

I skipped over the body and just looked at the rankings to see how silly they looked.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by DumpJerry

I skipped over the body and just looked at the rankings to see how silly they looked.

Well I'm sure your obviously much superior overall minor league system rankings will also be published by a nationally respected blog community any day now.

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by doublem23

Well I'm sure your obviously much superior overall minor league system rankings will also be published by a nationally respected blog community any day now.

I ignore the minor leagues. The games aren't televised and even if they were, I would be too busy to watch enough of them to form an opinion. I don't rely on stat lines to tell who is good and who isn't, that is only part of the picture.

[CoopaLoop]

Originally Posted by DumpJerry

Well,the fact that so many crappy MLB teams have top-flight farm systems (according to this link) tells me how valid it is rating minor leaguers.

lol three out of the top four are all playoff contenders.

And the Pirates are coming along pretty nicely.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by DumpJerry

I ignore the minor leagues. The games aren't televised and even if they were, I would be too busy to watch enough of them to form an opinion. I don't rely on stat lines to tell who is good and who isn't, that is only part of the picture.

You "ignore the minor leagues" yet account for over 30% of the posts in this thread.

Awesome.

[rdivaldi]

Originally Posted by doublem23

Ask Gordon Beckham how well it works when you get rushed to the Show.

I will.....right after you ask Bryce Harper and Chris Sale.

"Rushing players" is and will always continue to be an invalid argument...

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by rdivaldi

I will.....right after you ask Bryce Harper and Chris Sale.

"Rushing players" is and will always continue to be an invalid argument...

The term "rushing" players doesn't have anything to do with time, it's based on a player's physical and mental ability to survive at the next level. Harper (who, by the way, has 2x the MiLB service time of Beckham) and Sale clearly could make it and were advance appropriately. But if your argument is that there's no such thing as moving players too quickly in the minors, well, that's 100% wrong, I don't know how to sugar coat it for you.

At any rate, the answer was to why the Red Sox, with a nice stable of lower level talent, would hesitate to call up a guy from A-ball to fill in in the Major Leagues.

[rdivaldi]

Originally Posted by doublem23

The term "rushing" players doesn't have anything to do with time, it's based on a player's physical and mental ability to survive at the next level. Harper (who, by the way, has 2x the MiLB service time of Beckham) and Sale clearly could make it and were advance appropriately. But if your argument is that there's no such thing as moving players too quickly in the minors, well, that's 100% wrong, I don't know how to sugar coat it for you.

So if the person in charge of player development and GM of a baseball team think a player is ready for the major leagues, that's not good enough for you? At the time of Beckham's promotion he was hitting AAA pitching hard and really didn't have anything left to prove.

My point is that every individual player reacts differently to a major league promotion, whether they had 100 at bats in the minors or 1000. To say a player was "rushed" because they aren't hitting in the majors is a knee-jerk statement in my opinion.

It may just be that Beckham isn't a good hitter and no amount of minor league seasoning or major league coaching can change that.

[SoxNation05]

Can anyone give me an explanation as to why Simon Castro is still highly regarded?

At one point he was one of SD's best pitching prospects but it seems he has fallen since then. Yes, I know our system is so weak and a high rating in our system is not much but even relative to prospects in our system I cannot see why he has been rated as high as #3 overall! He's 25 years old, he cannot keep anyone off the basepaths and secondary stuff is severely lacking. Can anyone counter an arguement to make a case for Castro?

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by doublem23

You "ignore the minor leagues" yet account for over 30% of the posts in this thread.

Awesome.

I'm not ignoring you, that's why. Have I weighed in with an opinion about specific players in the White Sox or another team's system? Nope. In fact, I can't recall having done so except maybe once or twice over the years.

I just sit back, strap it down and wait for the call ups.

[dickallen15]

The good news is if the most important thing to be successful is to have your farm system ranked high, the Tigers are in bigger trouble than the Sox.

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by dickallen15

The good news is if the most important thing to be successful is to have your farm system ranked high, the Tigers are in bigger trouble than the Sox.

Only if free agency is banned.

[kittle42]

So we can't talk about team strengths or possible finishes relative to each other until the games are played.

We shouldn't talk about the strength of minor league systems until prospects are called up.

Should we, in fact, talk about anything that may happen in the future?

[SoxSpeed22]

The problem with those ratings is that most of the highest rated prospects are in the lower levels of the league and there really is no way to anticipate other stuff happening. The guys in AA and AAA are important to help out in case of injuries at the Major League level. That said, I am glad we jumped up to 28. We've been okay with pitchers so far.

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by kittle42

So we can't talk about team strengths or possible finishes relative to each other until the games are played.

We shouldn't talk about the strength of minor league systems until prospects are called up.

Should we, in fact, talk about anything that may happen in the future?

No, you can speculate and talk all you want. I just don't have the time or inclination to study minor league players who have, at best, a 3% chance of playing in The Show. That's all.