07 December 2017

Baseball America's Orioles Prospects Top Ten

In years past, I would present my own top ten as well as composite top tens.  I do not really do that anymore.  I am a novice evaluator at games, but a pretty decent source aggregator.  It helps develop my view, but I think I should more tip my hat to those who are investing far more energy than I am into these lists.  One of the first things to remember with any list is that the ranking numbers do not represent equidistant distances in value between the players.  The space between a number 1 ranking and a number 2 could be narrower than 3 and 4.  It may well be that someone ranked 7th could easily be ranked 15th.  Things get jumbled, so try not to be so narrow in your focus.

The List

Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun is the messenger of news this year and it has been pretty refreshing.  He shows a great deal of inquisitiveness and really tries to nail down what we know or what we do not know.  Enjoy him.  I imagine he is going on to better things, so read it.

Major points:
  • Austin Hays has emerged as the best Orioles prospect.  It is good to remember that does nothing particularly well, so he snuck up on a lot of evaluators.  In general, average tooled players tend not to be able to keep all of their tools at level as they move forward.  Scouts like to see a loud carrying tool to serve as a bearer for the rest of the player.  That does not describe Hays.  That probably still follows him with his top 100 ranking which will be released next year.
  • Mountcastle also leapt over Sisco.  I have been a long pessimistic voice on Sisco.  His defense still aspires to be adequate behind the plate.  He has improved in framing and blocking, but his arm still looks simply passable.  If he gets pushed out from behind the plate, the suggestion is that he is stuck to left field.  My read on him is probably more pessimistic on his catching and more optimistic that he could play second or third where the bat would not need to carry him as much. Mountcastle though looks like a strong bat first player who should be able to hit enough to play any position.  I think finally people have stopped repeating the company line of him being a shortstop since the company finally moved on with what everyone with any knowledge of him had already concluded.
  • I think the top ten works in a couple ways.  Now, it is important to note that scouts' opinions can vary widely.  For the most part, you have a top tier of Hays, Mountcastle, and Sisco.  Harvey, for some, dips into that group. Scott, for some, does as well.  The next group are guys with lower ceilings or are a little bit further away with Harvey, Scott, and Hall.  All of these guys have some measure of high ceiling, but have distance ahead of them.  After that you have a list that probably jumbles back to 15 with names like Keegan Akin or DJ Stewart not present on the top ten, but likely there in the next five.
  • The club's minor league situation looks light years better than it was a few years ago.  The club has several good position player prospects and really a legion of interesting arms below that.  One of the deficiencies is that the pitching largely is located in the low minors, but it certainly seems more robust than it has been for the past decade or so.  It may have taken five or so years, but Duquette's group has really stabilized the minors to some extent.  That said, being handicapped in the Latin American market really hurts, but so far they have adapted well.  It is an impressive change of events to what things looked like in 2015 or 2016.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

From the link: "..the Orioles don't engage in the market for international amateurs, and they had traded all but $500,000 of their bonus pool money for 2017-18"

Is there an article on this site that explains this decision by the Orioles? Why on earth would an organization not try to pick off Latin American talent?

Jon Shepherd said...

Probably a couple dozen or so articles over the past 10 years. A common topic here.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jon, BORAS had a pretty big miss on Chatwood. Can we see an update on FA pitchers adjusted for Chatwood's contract? With all the expected competition for the good SPs, it seems like everyone's predictions were low - MLBTR, FG, BORAS. Maybe an updated model could tell where the O's might really be able to go. Beginning to look like a whole lot of Vargas and Miguel. Sigh. I sure would like to at least see them sign Dyson to improve the defense behind the second rate pitchers we're going to have.

Unknown said...

Let's be honest, Buck wouldn't play Dyson in center on any kind of regular basis anyway, at least barring a significant injury to Jones. I know several people have advocated for him on here, and I can see why, but at the price he's likely to command I'm not convinced he'd be a great investment as a 4th-outfielder or wildly offensively-subpar COF.

As to your main point, 3/38 isn't really all that much more than 4/42 or whatever BORAS had for Chatwood. Only a small upgrade. I don't think it signals a total overhaul of the pitching market. And I think we know I'm not all that sad to see Chatwood go somewhere else. Although I was a bit disappointed to see Fiers turn down the O's...

Anonymous said...

Don't miss that Minor's contract also exceeded BORAS and others. Every contract so far has been high and we haven't even gotten past Otani, Darvish, and Arrieta after which some of the bigger money teams will start to get desperate. As pointed out here, Chatwood was a good risk considering his numbers outside Coors and he could have been a good long term solution for the O's due to his relative youth. 4/44 is Ubaldo money while 3/38 exceeds that considerably. 3/38 is $8M more than 4/42. $8M will buy you a decent UTIL IF.

Jon Shepherd said...

Roger - BORAS had Chatwood at 10.5 a year for fours years and he got 12.6 a year for three years. In terms of AAV, it was the closest of the prediction approaches (MLBTR, FG, FD-fan project). From a qualitative viewpoint, an extra 2 MM a year would buy out that final year. So, it is off, but within reason. It missed Minor's AAV by 0.6 MM and Fiers by 0.2 MM. It is doing just well. The only model I am tweaking in season is the catcher model. The others stand as they are.

Jacob - Agreed.

Roger - Minor's contract did not exceed BORAS. BORAS Thought 9.9 and he got 9.3. Fiers was projected at 5.8 and he got 6.

Anonymous said...

OK, Jon. Let's just hope the O's can still come up with some sort of successful negotiation with someone. I'm kind of shocked there aren't more J. Garcia rumors floating around. Maybe the O's can get in on him before his market develops too competitively.

Anonymous said...

Based upon your final blueprint, the O's could still come out smelling like a rose if they can sign Cobb, J. Garcia, and Tillman along with Dyson (or Cobb, Cashner/Chacin, Santiago). I think they can do better than my suggestion of E Nunez by picking up Travis Demeritte in Rule 5.

Jon Shepherd said...

I think Garcia overvalues himself right now and his team is letting the market play out a bit more. It may also be useful to note with Garcia is that there may be some bad blood between him and the Orioles even though that was from a couple regimes ago.