Today's Yankees story in the paper was on Joe Girardi and how he handled his first mini-crises of the season.
Also, check out the "Ask Anthony" baseball mailbag on the blog I share with Baumbach. You have to scroll down a bit to get to the questions. There are 11 of them and some are about the Yankees. There's also one question I don't have an answer for and I'm looking for a little help. It's Question 7.
Comments (11)
dru, chip, hyd et al...
thanks a ton for yesterday amazingly quick response to my question and the brilliant info and links you supplied re our farm system! (and the great debate that followed).
i have to wonder if the depth of the system is not over hyped. despite the well documented cashman "revolution" we find ourselves a year later with igawa coming up as 2nd option to replace an injury / demotion. and rasner, though sparkling vs. the mariners, is also no news.
and yes, i know that horne is injured but i don't think he was ready to make the jump to ML anyway. our best prospects seem to be quite a distance away from the majors, and we all know (and experience) what the stats are regarding how often a prospect comes through.
not to mention that looking at position players we are definitely short.
how would you rank our system?
Gil,
As a general rule I never try to get too excited about prospects as they do get hyped up so much by the team that we expect Mickey Mantle and we end up with Mickey Klutts.
The Yankees system is short on catchers (although they have two decent prospects there if you ask me); LH pitching and power hitters. I think the Yanks can actually afford to trade some pitching prospects to fill those holes though.
I always believed the farm system should be used to bring along players of the future or to trade for missing pieces on the major league team. I am happy the Yankees have stopped or slowed down the trading of prospects for 37 year old players who are out of gas.
Gil
Baseball America's Minor League System Rankings 2008
1. Rays
2. Red Sox
3. Reds
4. Rangers
5. Yankees
6. Dodgers
7. Rockies
8. Braves
9. Nationals
10. Angels
11. Mariners
12. Padres
13. Cardinals
14. Marlins
15. Diamondbacks
16. Orioles
17. Mets
18. Twins
19. Indians
20. Cubs
21. Brewers
22. Phillies
23. Giants
24. Royals
25. Blue Jays
26. Pirates
27. A’s
28. White Sox
29. Tigers
30. Astros
I think that was before the Santana deal, so the Mets drop down several spots.
Gil: Bottom line on prospects is that "Everyone's Baby is the Prettiest" Do the Yankees overhype their prospects - sure. But so does everyone else. The thing to remember is that every team evaluates their prospects in different ways. The Yankees, for example, base their evaluation on a player's ceiling. The A's tend to go for guys who may not be studs, but are closer to being major league ready fundamentally. The reason for this is that the Yankees, because of their financials, can afford to miss on prospects and make up for it with trades/free agents. A team like Oakland can't.
On another note: Joe Torre was just on WFAN talking about how this year in LA is the first time he has had fun managing in the last 5 years. That he was tired of having to justify his work each year when he got the team to the playoffs. Is Joe trying to spin? Is he trying to oversell the "hardships" he faced in NY to maintain his hero/martyr image among the fans?
Chip,
No, he's just being honest.
Concur, Jim. The farm system is designed to help the big league club. Whether that be via the trade route or from callups and development, it should serve that specific purpose.
That said, you're Mickey Klutts line was one for the ages. I want your permission to use it liberally!
Boss,
It's all yours my friend!
The Yanks have angled their drafting strategy for high ceiling pitchers ahead of position players. It is true that our system lacks "MLB ready" prospects right now, but there is hope with Gardner/Duncan/Gonzelez/Miranda in SWB, Tabata/AJack/Corona in Trenton, Sublett in Tampa, and what, at times, seems like the whole Charleston team. To say that we're light on catchers is FAR from true. We have three quality prospects there in Cervelli, Romine and Montero. Granted two of them are in low A, but that's ok. They'll get around. Are any of our prospects "can't miss"? No. That's not fair to say, but everyone is drooling over Montero right now as well as a number of our pitching prospects. The problem is, Yankee fans want their prospects to be stars and if they're not stars, they don't want them, while other teams are pretty happy with their role players coming from their system. There are teams that would be giving Gardner a chance to start RIGHT NOW and possibly Gonzalez too. Duncan is finally coming around, which is nice. For a system that had 9/25 guys come up within the past 3 years on their opening day roster (Cano, Wang, Melky, Duncan, Joba, Hughes, IPK, Ohlendorf, & Albalejedo), it must be doing something right, even if not all of them have been "instant successes". If we increase that number to 4 years next year, it will probably rise to something like 14/25 (guys leaving: Hawkins, Farnsworth, Ensberg, Giambi, Moose and maybe Abreu, Pettite, & Betemit). If all 8 leave, I'd expect that at least 5 come from the system (especially 2 bullpen arms or 3 depending on where Joba is then), Gonzalez will probably be the utility guy and Gardner will either be a starter or the 4th OF. Add in that 4 of the other older regulars would be from within and we could have 18/25 guys from our system. I'm impressed.
5th is a nice place for our system to be ranked for a team that hasn't drafted in the top half of the draft in over 10 years and has turned over most of their good draft picks to other teams by signing FAs. The Yanks could be well served to let Abreu walk and pick up 1/2 picks for him and a pick each for Hawkins/Farnsworth if we're lucky. Heck, if Moose pitches 'well' all year, he could net us a draft pick too.
He is not being honest he wants pity would he rather the enviroment to pre - 96?? the last 5 years was difficult because the truth was leaking out that he is not a good manager but a shrink but in this case his patients were Immune to the Medicine
I just want to say thanks for all the info and discussion of our farm system/minor leaguers during the time between games. I really appreciate all I learn here. I don't respond to these posts because I don't know enough to have anything meaningful to add, but I read them with attention and appreciation!
Thanks guys!
Chip: What do you say we make this an off day tradition? I think there are 2 more this month. It would probably help Kat out.