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Thread: Objectively ranking the top farm systems

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    Quote Originally Posted by smootness View Post
    My entire point was that you're attempting to objectively analyze a very subjective process, which comes with inherent flaws. And surplus value is nowhere near developed to the point to use it in such a clear-cut way.

    Sure, I know the Braves prospects more than I know the Yankees prospects. You know who knows both? The guys who do this for a living. They all, without fail, say the Braves' group is much better than anyone else's and frankly deeper than any group they've seen. I'm going on their word, not my own.

    I don't have to come up with data to prove it just because you decided to use data to argue your point. You can believe what you want and use whatever system you want. I was simply pointing out the flaws in this strategy. I still believe the best way to evaluate farm systems is to listen to the people who know these guys and scout them continuously. You also believe this because you are using their rankings. It's just that their rankings are not hard and fast enough to be used in the way you're trying to use them.

    Again, it's great for discussion and interesting, but I'd rather simply take their subjective opinions, especially when they align so closely, than to try to use a subjective process to produce objective analysis. It would require far more research and analytical data than the very basic idea of surplus value to do so effectively.

    I prefer to use their actual valuations of guys than a ranking, especially since they acknowledge the distance between #30 and #120 in the ranking may be virtually nothing, yet they're separated by 90 spots in that ranking and in your surplus valuation.
    What are you even talking about?

    I said the Braves have the #1 system. In fact, I said they are #1 by a significant margin ($350M to $300M). You are arguing against a point I never made.

    And I'm going to pretend you didn't actually write "I don't have to come up with data to prove it just because you decided to use data to argue your point". That has to be the most non-intellectual statement I have seen anyone write in quite some time. You're smarter than that...I hope.
    Last edited by Enscheff; 02-15-2017 at 04:44 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by smootness View Post
    My entire point was that you're attempting to objectively analyze a very subjective process, which comes with inherent flaws. And surplus value is nowhere near developed to the point to use it in such a clear-cut way.

    Sure, I know the Braves prospects more than I know the Yankees prospects. You know who knows both? The guys who do this for a living. They all, without fail, say the Braves' group is much better than anyone else's and frankly deeper than any group they've seen. I'm going on their word, not my own.

    I don't have to come up with data to prove it just because you decided to use data to argue your point. You can believe what you want and use whatever system you want. I was simply pointing out the flaws in this strategy. I still believe the best way to evaluate farm systems is to listen to the people who know these guys and scout them continuously. You also believe this because you are using their rankings. It's just that their rankings are not hard and fast enough to be used in the way you're trying to use them.

    Again, it's great for discussion and interesting, but I'd rather simply take their subjective opinions, especially when they align so closely, than to try to use a subjective process to produce objective analysis. It would require far more research and analytical data than the very basic idea of surplus value to do so effectively.

    I prefer to use their actual valuations of guys than a ranking, especially since they acknowledge the distance between #30 and #120 in the ranking may be virtually nothing, yet they're separated by 90 spots in that ranking and in your surplus valuation.
    The more I read this, the less sense it makes. Here are your points, as best I can decipher them:

    1. Surplus value is not "developed" enough to use definitively.

    Well, yes it is, actually. Trades have been dissected matter-of-factly for a while now based on surplus value of both MLB players and prospects. I have no idea what evidence you have to support your claim.

    2. Professional prospect gurus think the Braves system is #1.

    Correct. I arrived at the exact same conclusion.

    3. You think we don't need data, we need to only listen to the experts.

    That's moronic, but I did listen to the experts. My prospect rankings are a compilation of the 4 most respected prospect lists publicly available at this time.

    4. You think this analysis was insufficient.

    I used the data that was available. I invite you to bring new/better data into the discussion if you have some. Your unsubstantiated opinions carry zero weight in an intellectual discussion such as this.

    5. A guy ranked #30 and #120 are essentially equal in value.

    This is contradicted by every analysis ever done by anyone on this topic ever. The expected surplus vale of the #30 ranked prospect is around $30M-$50M. The expected surplus value of the #120 ranked prospect is well under $20M. This is not based on "I think" data you seem to prefer. This is based on data collected for all prospects ranked in the Top 100 compared to how they actually performed at the MLB level.

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    The most objective way I can think of measuring guys outside the top 200 is asking the prospect writers where they think the Braves prospects are basically at the same level (like how one guy said the Braves 13-21 prospects were essentially equivalent in potential) and placing them as just outside the top 200. Sounds kind of arbitrary though.

    I guess you could try doing this with FVs like smootness somewhat suggested but, as far as I know, there isn't surplus value data for certain FVs and some guys bake risk into FVs while others don't.

    I dunno. Gonna get started on the trade analysis for the heck of it since I have some extra time tonight.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nsacpi View Post
    I dunno. I prefer the package of Heyward (1 year), Upton (1 year), Kimbrel (5), Simmons (4), Wood (3.5), Gattis (4) over Sale (3) and Eaton (5) controlling for the contracts.

    We await that Ventura dude's analysis for the final verdict.
    So, I finished my wild projecting, based on Fangraphs WAR so that the other guy who is doing analysis will have useful data too (plus $/WAR are based off Fangraphs WAR, so eh).

    Dollars per WAR were 7.7 mil in 2015 offseason as far as I could tell. Now they are 8.0. I used those numbers for the Braves and White Sox, respectively.

    So far, I only had to guess on Gattis' arbitration for year 3, so I guessed 8.4 mil based on what thewupk said below. 60% of a 1.75 WAR player at 8 mil per WAR market value.

    Guessed on Gattis. Projected Kimbrel based on last two years before trade being about 2.5, tried to factor in aging regression. Projected BJ as 0 because he was 0.6 and -0.3, don't think the actual amount mattered as he was basically a 0 WAR guy. Heyward I figure we should factor in improvement considered likely in 2015. J Up similarly as 2015 was a fluky bad defensive year. Simmons, I felt like everyone thought his offense would improve and his defense stay elite, so I kept him fairly high, well above career average.

    Player / Ave WAR / Years / Total WAR / Contract / Surplus Value

    Gattis / 1.75 WAR / 4 / 7.0 / 17.33 mil / 4.75 WAR

    Kimbrel / 2.1 WAR / 4 / 8.4 / 43.56 mil / 2.74 WAR
    BJ Upton / 0 WAR / 3 / 0 / 46.35 mil / -6.6 WAR

    Heyward / 6 WAR / 1 / 6 / 7.8 mil / 5.0 WAR

    Justin Upton / 3.5 WAR / 1 / 3.5 / 14.5 mil / 1.62 WAR

    Simmons / 3.75 WAR / 5 / 18.75 / 53.0 mil / 11.87 WAR


    Total Braves surplus value: 19.38 WAR, $149.226 mil
    Total Braves without BJ: 25.98 WAR, $200.046 mil

    For Eaton, I predicted 4.5 for this year, decreasing from there as 32-33 may be a little old for the outfield to be good defensively, I think. I think 5-6 WAR is high to predict as last year was by far his career year, but I dunno, maybe it's fine. Sale, I went off his last few years as he is in his prime.

    Player / Ave WAR / Years / Total WAR / Contract / Surplus Value

    Eaton / 3.76 / 5 / 18.8 / 29 mil / 17.18 WAR

    Sale / 5.2 / 3 / 15.6 / 38 mil / 11.85 WAR

    Total Sox Surplus Value: 29.025 WAR, $232.2 mil

    Was that an okay enough analysis that I should keep going and include the prospects we got, Alex Wood, etc.? I feel like I'm not the right guy to do that because that involves arbitration, haha. If I included Wood and Peraza and not BJ, we easily had more value. Of course, that isn't considering Wood's and Gattis' increased injury risks.
    Last edited by Managuarantano's Volunteers; 02-15-2017 at 10:03 PM.

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    A quick note on arbitration. For the 3 years it is generally 20%, 40%, and 60% of the market value. So if you have a player who is expected to be a 2 WAR per year guy then his estimated market value for each year would be 15.4 million using the 7.7 million per WAR figure. So his 3 arbitration years would yield salaries 3 million, 6.1 million, and 9.2 million. Now things can change if a player is a super 2 and gets a 4th year of arbitration or if they are a defensive first player. But those are the standards most people use.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thewupk View Post
    A quick note on arbitration. For the 3 years it is generally 20%, 40%, and 60% of the market value. So if you have a player who is expected to be a 2 WAR per year guy then his estimated market value for each year would be 15.4 million using the 7.7 million per WAR figure. So his 3 arbitration years would yield salaries 3 million, 6.1 million, and 9.2 million. Now things can change if a player is a super 2 and gets a 4th year of arbitration or if they are a defensive first player. But those are the standards most people use.
    Ah, awesome, thanks.

    I was wondering how the heck people got expected arbitration values.
    Last edited by Managuarantano's Volunteers; 02-15-2017 at 10:02 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ventura's Stolen Bases View Post
    So, I finished my wild projecting, based on Fangraphs WAR so that the other guy who is doing analysis will have useful data too (plus $/WAR are based off Fangraphs WAR, so eh).

    Dollars per WAR were 7.7 mil in 2015 offseason as far as I could tell. Now they are 8.0. I used those numbers for the Braves and White Sox, respectively.

    So far, I only had to guess on Gattis' arbitration for year 3, so I guessed 8 mil. Yeah...I know nothing about average arbitration salaries or where to find them.

    Guessed on Gattis. Projected Kimbrel based on last two years before trade being about 2.5, tried to factor in aging regression. Projected BJ as 0 because he was 0.6 and -0.3, don't think the actual amount mattered as he was basically a 0 WAR guy. Heyward I figure we should factor in improvement considered likely in 2015. J Up similarly as 2015 was a fluky bad defensive year. Simmons, I felt like everyone thought his offense would improve and his defense stay elite, so I kept him fairly high, well above career average.

    Player / Ave WAR / Years / Total WAR / Contract / Surplus Value

    Gattis / 1.75 WAR / 4 / 7.0 / 16.93 mil / 4.8 WAR

    Kimbrel / 2.1 WAR / 4 / 8.4 / 43.56 mil / 2.74 WAR
    BJ Upton / 0 WAR / 3 / 0 / 46.35 mil / -6.6 WAR

    Heyward / 6 WAR / 1 / 6 / 7.8 mil / 5.0 WAR

    Justin Upton / 3.5 WAR / 1 / 3.5 / 14.5 mil / 1.62 WAR

    Simmons / 3.75 WAR / 5 / 18.75 / 53.0 mil / 11.87 WAR


    Total Braves surplus value: 19.43 WAR, $149.611 mil
    Total Braves without BJ: 26.03 WAR, $200.431 mil

    For Eaton, I predicted 4.5 for this year, decreasing from there as 32-33 may be a little old for the outfield to be good defensively, I think. I think 5-6 WAR is high to predict as last year was by far his career year, but I dunno, maybe it's fine. Sale, I went off his last few years as he is in his prime.

    Player / Ave WAR / Years / Total WAR / Contract / Surplus Value

    Eaton / 3.76 / 5 / 18.8 / 29 mil / 17.18 WAR

    Sale / 5.2 / 3 / 15.6 / 38 mil / 11.85 WAR

    Total Sox Surplus Value: 29.025 WAR, $232.2 mil

    Was that an okay enough analysis that I should keep going and include the prospects we got, Alex Wood, etc.? I feel like I'm not the right guy to do that because that involves arbitration, haha.
    Pretty good for a rookie.

    For Wood, he was traded with 4.5 years of control left. As a rough rule, during the arb years a player gets paid half his value. Since I believe he ended up a Super 2, I think it is reasonable to estimate his overall value during the 4 arb years at about 10 wins, of which 5 wins is surplus value. And we can add 1 for the half year. So total surplus value of 6.

    Then there is Peraza, who was ranked high enough to have an expected surplus value around 6 as well. So Wood and Peraza add about 12 to the Braves total.

    I pretty much agree with your Braves numbers. A total of about 32 when you add Wood and Peraza.

    I think you are high on both Eaton and Sale. I would expect Eaton to total about 15 WAR over his contract. Surplus at about 12 WAR.

    Sale I would expect to total 13 WAR (and part of this has to do with having to discount for risk of injury for any pitcher). Surplus about 9.

    Total surplus for White Sox then is 21 versus 32 for Braves.

    Thanks for doing all the leg work.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nsacpi View Post
    Pretty good for a rookie.

    For Wood, he was traded with 4.5 years of control left. As a rough rule, during the arb years a player gets paid half his value. Since I believe he ended up a Super 2, I think it is reasonable to estimate his overall value during the 4 arb years at about 10 wins, of which 5 wins is surplus value. And we can add 1 for the half year. So total surplus value of 6.

    Then there is Peraza, who was ranked high enough to have an expected surplus value around 6 as well. So Wood and Peraza add about 12 to the Braves total.

    I pretty much agree with your Braves numbers. A total of about 32 when you add Wood and Peraza.

    I think you are high on both Eaton and Sale. I would expect Eaton to total about 15 WAR over his contract. Surplus at about 12 WAR.

    Sale I would expect to total 13 WAR (and part of this has to do with having to discount for risk of injury for any pitcher). Surplus about 9.

    Total surplus for White Sox then is 21 versus 32 for Braves.

    Thanks for doing all the leg work.
    Haha, thanks.

    Mainly predicted 5.2 for Sale because the last three years have been 5.2, 6.0, 5.2, and he is in his prime. But he definitely could get injured. I'd settle the difference at 14 WAR total for the life of his contract if that sounds like a deal unless we want to heavily regress Wood's value for injury.

    Eaton all depends on whether you value him as a RF or CF (whether you believe his great defense last year), in my opinion (I know positional adjustments are supposed to account for this). I was valuing him as an RF.

    Either way we value, I think it's close-ish without Wood and Peraza and BJ, and easily more value from the Braves with all three added (or with Wood and Peraza and without BJ). I think to be fair we should include BJ since he was included in the big trades. Simmons is the big mistake/reason why.

    Now would come the super hard part of finding the value of prospects traded for at the time of their trades if anyone wants to do that. Should be easy to take from the writeups about the Sox trades. The Braves- not so much.
    Last edited by Managuarantano's Volunteers; 02-15-2017 at 10:04 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ventura's Stolen Bases View Post
    Now would come the super hard part of finding the value of prospects traded for at the time of their trades if anyone wants to do that. Should be easy to take from the writeups about the Sox trades. The Braves- not so much.
    Enscheff has done most of the work in that regard. But we also need to consider guys like Wisler, Folty and Ender who we received in the trades.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nsacpi View Post
    Enscheff has done most of the work in that regard. But we also need to consider guys like Wisler, Folty and Ender who we received in the trades.
    You will have to go back and find their consensus rankings at the time of the deal. The trade write ups usually include the prospect ranking from the site the writer is affiliated with, or whichever ranking the writer decides he likes.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    You will have to go back and find their consensus rankings at the time of the deal. The trade write ups usually include the prospect ranking from the site the writer is affiliated with, or whichever ranking the writer decides he likes.
    in some ways their current value is more interesting...I don't thing the changes are that dramatic...except for HO

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    Quote Originally Posted by nsacpi View Post
    in some ways their current value is more interesting...I don't thing the changes are that dramatic...except for HO
    I think HO is in some top 10 list I am sure..

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    Quote Originally Posted by bravesfanMatt View Post
    I think HO is in some top 10 list I am sure..
    was

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    As usual, the guys at FG do a better job of explaining things than I can. This pretty much sums up why taking the extra risk of pitching prospects isn't going to be worth it over the long term...the potential reward doesn't justify the additional risk.

    Guest
    10:15 We think of building through pitchers being higher risk. And, in most other circumstances, we think of higher risk being associated with higher reward. But is that the case in baseball? Are there any excess returns to be had for those willing to invest in riskier assets?

    Jeff Sullivan
    10:16 Sometimes, but not close to all of the times. With a guy like, say, Buxton, sure. But take Sean Newcomb. He's a risky pitching prospect. But does he *really* come with unusually high upside? I doubt it. Risky pitchers are overrated, and "safe" pitchers are underrated

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    Quote Originally Posted by Enscheff View Post
    As usual, the guys at FG do a better job of explaining things than I can. This pretty much sums up why taking the extra risk of pitching prospects isn't going to be worth it over the long term...the potential reward doesn't justify the additional risk.

    Guest
    10:15 We think of building through pitchers being higher risk. And, in most other circumstances, we think of higher risk being associated with higher reward. But is that the case in baseball? Are there any excess returns to be had for those willing to invest in riskier assets?

    Jeff Sullivan
    10:16 Sometimes, but not close to all of the times. With a guy like, say, Buxton, sure. But take Sean Newcomb. He's a risky pitching prospect. But does he *really* come with unusually high upside? I doubt it. Risky pitchers are overrated, and "safe" pitchers are underrated
    I think his response is fair. I think Newcomb does have a pretty darn high upside, so I'm not sure exactly how to quantify 'unusually,' but the difference between his upside and Buxton's is why the disparity is there between them as prospects.

    But I'm not sure exactly what you would propose the Braves do. I don't think anyone would argue that avoiding pitching prospects entirely is a good strategy for building a system/team, so I'm interested to hear what you would rather have them do.

    The reason I'm ok with what they've done is because a) I don't think they've avoided hitters; they grabbed Swanson, Inciarte, Demeritte, Jackson, Ruiz, and Peterson in deals (mostly not top of the line guys, which will help make my next point), drafted Riley and let him hit, and have invested heavily in hitters on the international market, far more than they've invested in pitchers there. And b) yes, individual hitting prospects are safer and therefore more valuable than similar pitching prospects, but that also means they're tougher to acquire. Teams are more willing to give you flawed pitchers like Newcomb, Fried, Touki, Folty, etc. The Braves did not have great assets to trade unless they had been able to combine all of them, which is not really a realistic scenario. So they decided to go for higher upside, better talent in pitchers than they could have had in hitters (my opinion, but I think it's logical). They were also able to get more this way. So they decided to base part of the rebuild on a surplus of pitching talent with the thought that as attrition hit, enough would stick and reach their upside that it would work out.

    Grabbing hitters may have been a safer play, but we would have had fewer, and the ones we got would have had less upside. We would have grabbed a bunch of guys in 'ceiling as a solid major league player' territory, which aren't the kind of guys you like anyway, and I agree there.

    Now, the draft is a little different. You can argue you would have gone hitting over Allard, Soroka, Anderson, Wentz, and Muller if you want. That's fine. But we just decided that we liked the pitchers available more, and again we were able to get more of them to hopefully reduce the overall risk.

    Our system on the whole is pretty balanced right now. Top-end hitters in Swanson, Albies, Acuna, and Maitan (even if not all big bats), top-end pitching talent (we know the names there), and we've also been able to grab lesser hitting talent that has a shot to click (Riley, Demeritte, Peterson, Jackson). I don't see it as an uneven system at all.

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    I would have preferred they drafted Lewis, who signed for almost exactly what Anderson signed for, and still would have allowed them to get Wentz and Muller...and maybe even Anderson if he dropped to their 2nd pick.

    I would have preferred them to not package BJ with Kimbrel, who the Padres flipped a year later for Margot...currently a Top 25 prospect.

    I would have preferred they didn't trade a 4 WAR SS under cheap control through 2020 for the risky pitching prospect described above.

    I would have preferred them to trade the riskier 3-4 WAR pitcher who is also under control through 2020, and kept the SS.

    Why did they think it was wise to hold onto the pitcher and trade the SS? Because they are under some misguided impression that pitching is more valuable than position players despite pitchers' inherently higher risk. Because it's the "Braves Way", which is only a thing because they just so happened to have Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux stick around for a decade and they think they are going to replicate that extremely rare scenario that baseball will likely never see again.

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    I was a huge Lewis fan and was bummed when we didn't take him. Who knows how he'll end up but I would have went hitting there instead of pitching. Some scouts did say that if the season were a couple of weeks longer that Anderson would have been looked at as a top 5 pick in the draft anyways so who knows. But I do wish we could have gotten a few stud bats in there somewhere with all the trades we made. Not counting Swanson and Ender.

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    Seems pertinent: Coppy's interview with the SS Podcast kind of touched on a few things related to the rebuild.

    First, I tend to agree that trading assets for prospects is not the hardest thing to do.
    Second, I think Coppy tends to spend a lot of time bringing up JS and Hart and putting forth reasons why things aren't necessarily his fault.

    But, in the interview I thought Coppy plainly put forward the thought that he did not fully have the support of ownership or the fans in carrying out a complete teardown rebuild. That's sort of interesting to the extent that it is true as it explains the dual track nature the rebuild has had from the beginning. You do see some front office efforts to make a show at contending in the short term without really abandoning the root rebuild.

    So I guess the question is whether Coppy would have preferred to tear it all down left to his own devices. I suspect he may have, but hard to say.

    He also spent a little time throwing shade at the Cubs, basically saying that their front office had more room to lose. I'm not sure I totally buy that, though I do agree that their front office had more financial resources to acquire talent.

    So, as most things, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

    --- He also adds Touki to the calculation of the Upton/Kimbrell trade along with $5 million in cash that was put to other purposes. I guess he mentioned Kemp in the same vicinity which isn't really the best argument but I suppose it depends on what you are looking at. You could attribute the international signings or a good portion of them to that $5 million if you wanted.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hudson2 View Post
    I was a huge Lewis fan and was bummed when we didn't take him. Who knows how he'll end up but I would have went hitting there instead of pitching. Some scouts did say that if the season were a couple of weeks longer that Anderson would have been looked at as a top 5 pick in the draft anyways so who knows. But I do wish we could have gotten a few stud bats in there somewhere with all the trades we made. Not counting Swanson and Ender.
    I'll be interested to see if we go this route this year.

    Clearly some of it will depend on how bats and arms perform and signablility. We don't want to go full Wrenn and just take the most ready.

    BUT if there were some college bats worthy of high picks at C, 3B, corner OF that would be ideal. Another Senzel would be Awesome for this team. 2 years they might be starting and then Maitan is only 18. You still can take advantage of those cheap years and then move them to another spot or trade them if Maitan is banging down the door at 20 or 21.

  22. #180
    Mr. Free Trade
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    The one thing missing from the system is realistic power bats.

    Swanson and Albies aren't those type guys.

    I don't see Peterson as that way either.

    Riley has iffy bat speed, need to see how he plays at higher levels.

    Davidson is close to being declared a wash out.

    Who knows about Jackson.

    Demeritt might be the answer but is now an air conditioner.

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