Update:The charts are up to date through Saturday night. Also included is the Cubs/Rays trade. Also fixed two errors I made.
John Sickels is now done with all of his rankings. I know he said he had a few changes to make still, so this could change ever so slightly, though I doubt it makes much of an impact overall.
I went through each system that John graded and took down the grade for both hitters and pitchers. Why did I do that? Well, hitters and pitchers have different values. The value’s that I used were the ones first identified by Victor Wang in an article at The Hardball Times. The guys at Beyond The Box Score took that and made it into a monetary value. Here is what the average prospect was worth who fell in these ranges:
| Top 10 hitting prospects | $32.5M |
| Top 11-25 hitters | $22.3 |
| Top 26-50 hitters | $20.8 |
| Top 51-75 hitters | $12.6 |
| Top 76-100 hitters | $11.1 |
| Top 10 pitching prospects | $13.5 |
| Top 11-25 pitchers | $14.2 |
| Top 26-50 pitchers | $14.2 |
| Top 51-75 pitchers | $10.8 |
| Top 76-100 pitchers | $8.7 |
| Grade B pitchers (as graded by Sickels) | $6.5 |
| Grade B hitters | $4.9 |
| Grade C pitchers 22 or younger | $1.9 |
| Grade C pitchers 23 or older | $1.3 |
| Grade C hitters 22 or younger | $0.62 |
| Grade C hitters 23 or older | $0.45 |
Now I did have to make some adjustments. As we can see, Pitching prospects in the 11-50 range tend to be more valuable than those in the Top 10. Since that doesn’t actually make much sense, I made every pitcher graded as a B+ or better worth the same “average” value of 14.2M.
| Team | A | A- | B+ | B | B- | C+ | |
| H | Value | 32.5 | 22.3 | 20.8 | 12.6 | 4.9 | 0.88 |
| P | Value | 14.2 | 14.2 | 14.2 | 9.8 | 6.5 | 2.6 |
For the C+ guys I had to change a little. I didn’t go through the 268 players who were graded C+ to find the age. So what I did was take the average C grade (split the difference between the two grades). That made 1.6 for pitchers and 0.54 for hitters.I used the weighting for the B grade prospects to wind up with the C+ being worth the same for a C as the B+ was for the B grades. Now that we had the value for each type of prospect, I just ran the numbers for the different teams. One thing to note, I didn’t include the grade C prospects because not all of the C prospects made each list, so the data was left out because it was incomplete. Here are the results:
The Reds came in ranked 7th in his rankings, but really suffered by John’s ranking of Yorman Rodriguez as a C+ prospect. Had he rated him as a B+ or a B prospect the Reds would have ranked 5th (B) or a 4th (B+).
Here is a representation of how each team’s overall value broke down by Pitchers and Hitters value:
John has some more grade changes coming up, so there may be a few more changes to this post later today.
the one thing I noticed is how “bad” or low the Cardinals, Brewers and Astros ranked. It will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few years and whether those teams decline and the Reds stay as NL Central contenders. Though of course, in the Cards case, having a guy like Pujols paired with Holliday can overcome a lot of issues.
Given the Reds have one of the best under-25 rotations in the majors, seeing that they have the 2nd best position prospects in baseball bodes very very well for their future.
That said, it’s time to swing the system’s pendulum back to pitching so that when the current crop of starters hit free agency there are prospects to replace them.
The Reds have quite a few good young arms in Guillon, Correa, Corcino, Lotzkar, Cline, Tuttle, Cisco, Johnson, Sulburan, Mugarian, Amezcua, etc…. If Leake were still in the minors he’d like be an A or A- pitcher. Draft best available player, period. Ideally i’d like a power arm or a big time power hitter for LF with our #27 pick this June or any international signings, but BPA is the way to go.
Awesome job. Sending a link of this to all my non-Reds-fan friends (especially the Royals fan, he needs a reason to hope).
Awesome to see the Reds that high. Looking at how low the Pirates are though, they must have a very sub par Personnel and Scouting organization, they have had years and years of high draft picks.
Unless they open the checkbooks in a big way, the Astros and Pirates are going to stink the next 4-6 years.
Very cool analysis, Doug!
Pending physicals the Cubs will acquire Matt Garza from TB for a pit B+, pos B, pos B- and pos C. They’re supposed to get two minor leaguers in return as well, but not sure who. If those players aren’t above C prospects, then the Cubs ranking goes from 11th to 18th.
A lot of teams in the NL Central are diluting their farm systems to try to compete this year. I think that sets the Reds up for long term success this decade.
The Cubs do have a lot of payroll locked up, but they have the ability to spend that most teams in the divsion don’t which makes your farm system not mean as much.
I will update the post with this once all of the players are verified in the trade.
“I feel happy for the opportunity to keep playing shortstop full time. That was the main reason to accept the offer from the Reds,” Renteria told ESPNdeportes.com.
D@mn it! OCab all over again! I hope Renteria likes to leadoff!
Not the worst thing in the world, though Paul Janish has to be getting pretty mad. This is two straight years he went into the offseason as the starting shortstop and two straight years someone else was brought in to be the starting shortstop who likely wasn’t any better than he is.
Well, Renteria is brought in intended to be backup. Unfortunately, Dusty will never get that memo and he will run him out that as if he was supposed to be starter.
This is way off topic, but I began to think about what this does to Negron and other infield prospects. That made me look up Brandon Phillips contract, which made me look at your organizational depth chart, which made me wonder about Negron at second base. Then I looked up Negron on baseball-reference.com and saw that during his time with Boston they basically tried him everywhere but catcher. It looks like the Reds have moved him around a little but no where near as much as Boston. This leads me to my question. The Reds experiment a little with guys but for the most part keep them in one position, is this odd in comparison to other organizations? Do you think it helps or hurts to do what Boston did with Negron while he was there?
I think it depends on the guy. Some guys can’t really handle it as they need to be in a “routine” and playing a different position every other day messes with that. I think its generally a good idea for middle infielders and center fielders to get time at other positions just in case.
I love it that the Reds are the 2nd overall system in the National League! Very excited about the future.
I dunno, if the goal is having top tier prospects, the Royals (3 A’s and a B+ to our 4 B+’s) and Reds are practically even—and no one else is even close. Very nice to see.
I can’t mention our current farm system and the Royals’ in the same sentence. I have seen some say that the Royals current crop in the minors might be the best – EVER!!! We have some talent, but they are super loaded. You only looked at the position players as well, but for pitching they have 5 B+ to our 1 A(and frankly if he is a reliever he is not an A, more like a B-) and 3 of their B+ pitchers could be A-. If you look at the total points they have almost twice what we have, although I realize that you were looking only at the top end.
What must Valaika be thinking. We talk about Cozart and Negron and others but Chris has already spent 2 years at AAA, had an outstanding one last year and really nothing else to prove.
Valaika had a bunch of singles last year, but that was about all he provided offensively. He didn’t walk hardly at all and he didn’t show any power either. I think he still has a little bit to prove.
Will Valaika be back in AAA or will he be a utility infielder if we can’t resign Cairo? One of Francisco or Valaika seems likely to stick on the Reds bench.
We’ve already resigned Cairo, 2 years $2 million.
Bench includes Cairo, Renteria, Heisey, Hernanigan and an OF.
Hernanigan. I like it!
I imagine that Valaika is back in AAA to start the season unless someone goes down with an injury (though perhaps he starts the season with the big league club and goes down when they need to use a 5th starter).
I do find it a bit disconcerting that our 2 bench infielders are around a combined 70 years old.
We should quit complaining about this whole Janish/Renteria thing. They will both play enough to get their at-bats. Janish has NOT proven than he can be a quality everyday SS. Renteria still has to prove he has the durability to play everyday again. Like Dusty said, “they will BOTH get to play.” Renteria is better than Cabrera……and is a little younger than when Cabrera was brought in. Championship teams are made with the smaller parts……the players who play key roles. We have plenty of studs with Votto, Bruce, Stubbs, Phillips and, when healthy, Rolen. Jocketty is now adding valuable smaller pieces that will contribute towards the team goal of winning it all. I didn’t even mention the excellent pitching we have. Renteria is someone who has “been there” and still has something left. If he can get in shape this offseason and stay away from injury, he can be someone with a lot of key at-bats and hits. The guy just showed he could be an integral part of a team on the biggest stage of all. Let’s cut him a break. I love Janish and his glove…….but he is not proven yet as a FT player and the brass are obviously not convinced he will be…..though he has shown enough to make on think he MIGHT. Jocketty is big on depth and this gives us much better depth. I like Valaika a lot but a half year in AAA will not hurt him fine-tune his game.
When was Janish ever given an opportunity to prove himself offensively at SS?? He has never been given a chance. When he did play last year he was at least as good as OCab offensively.
Renteria better than Cabrera? I don’t think so!
The Reds need to stop the rent an old shortstop and build this position along with all of the other youth. No need to have Janish learn the job when all of the other players are years ahead on experience.