Breaking Consensus in Prospect Rankings

Why I ranked how I did, inside and outside the Top 10

I’m big on upside, but I need to see skills, not simply raw tools. I treat my rankings board as a system that can best feed the big-league club value, either directly or via trades.

I do not look at my Mariners prospect rankings as if it’s a roster. I believe it’s borderline silly to categorically prefer high-probability players over ceiling at any point in a club’s rankings. I’d much rather have a 3% chance at an all-star second baseman in four years than a 70% chance at a platoon left fielder or middle reliever within a season and a half of the Show. That goes for the Top of the system as well as the bottom.

Why? Because major-league quality platoon players and middle relievers are so much easier to find via trade and free agency, and one 3-win or better second baseman, for example, is astronomically more valuable. Literally no organization is out of the market for those players via payroll restrictions or trade assets. None.

Also, I put zero value in farm system rankings — Literally zero, they do not matter, and they do not remotely dictate future success (they can suggest an opportunity, but that requires the rankings and overall player assessments to be correct, and the club’s front office to own a clue or two in how to utilize it, which is more often not the case) — just ask the likes of the San Diego Padres, who had elite farm system evaluations in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, yet they didn’t make the playoffs for 6-9 years after that, and have missed the postseason three times in the last six years, despite the Wild Card additions.

You can throw the early Jack Zduriencik farm systems into that mix, too.

And ask the Washington Nationals, who didn’t rank anywhere near the Top 10 for years — despite producing the likes of Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg, and Juan Soto from their system — and still went to the postseason five times in eight years, including a World Series title in 2019, plus never finished worse than second in the NL East from 2012-2010. —

I do, however, put value in how the system is used by the club, what they are after in terms of the aim to win in the majors, and how they go about finding it.

Most clubs, including Seattle, need to develop extremely well to win, and that’s not simply about the number of homegrown players or regulars. They need to grow their own All-Stars. There are multiple ways to do that, but one of them is to aggressively target international prospects and take the shot one or two will pan out at a high level.

Julio Rodriguez is the Mariners’ shining example, and four of the org’s Top 10 prospects have a chance to do something relatively similar.

I’ve made this point on multiple episodes of the Podcast, but it fits here, too: If you want star position players, you’re more likely to find them as prep selections in the Draft or via international free agency.

That’s not to say college draftees can’t be stars, because Aaron Judge, Turner, and Cal Raleigh were Top 15 in MLB in fWAR among non-pitchers, and all were drafted out of college. But the other 12 of those 15? Yeah. And it goes deeper… Top 30, Top 50, whatever. It’s the way it works. It’s different with arms, however. Polar opposite, you might say.

Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is, I think about things differently. Farm systems do not have to compete on the field as a unit. Ever. How they might impact the parent club is truly the lone element in the equation.

So let me explain why I have some prospects ranked higher and lower than just about everyone else.