Keith Law's Farm System Rankings

[rdivaldi]

Originally Posted by Daver

He's not a pitcher, HS pitchers are a complete crapshoot, position players are more of a calculated gamble. In this case you are drawing to a good hand, Cuban players play at their highest level early, and against decent competition.

Drafting high school pitchers is very risky. We're actually lucky to have 2 of the better ones of the past couple of years in Danks and Floyd.

[jabrch]

Originally Posted by rdivaldi

Drafting high school pitchers is very risky. We're actually lucky to have 2 of the better ones of the past couple of years in Danks and Floyd.

And we got them by not overpaying them out of HS and waiting to see what they'd look like (a bit more) before acquiring them.

I have no problem with rolling the dice on a HS pitcher. I have a problem with paying them the sort of money that Porcello didn't get from the Sox or any of the other teams that passed on him as well.

[EMachine10]

Originally Posted by Domeshot17

Even if Garza didn't turn the corner in Tampa, he still may have pitched more productive innings in his Minny Career then Broadway and McCullough will in their Career.

Porcello has to give us a reason not to anoint him. The kids has been amazing since joining the Tigers farm. Yes he may blow out his arm, but he is so smart for his years. The reason his K's were down this year is he was afraid of killing his arm and learned to be a pitcher and getting ground balls. So he isn't just pounding fastballs, but using his pitches really efficiently. I guess it stings for me because he was a guy I was really high on when he hit the draft. It was clear he was a special talent, and for the money we spent on Uribe and Erstad in 2007 we could have had him.

Yes, we draft cheap. We consistently spend in the bottom 1/3 of all teams in the draft. I am not saying we draft every above slot player on the board, but there is no reason we should not be spending in the top 1/2.

Because we can't work with Boras we constantly pass on top talent that falls in the higher rounds. His job is to get the best deals he can for his players, while I do not like him or his ethics, if I was a player I surely would want him to represent me.

And we need to make major strides to get back in the top 10. It is hard to judge a draft for a few years. Some are really high on last years draft, some are really down, I am kind of in the middle on it. We will see.

I've thought about that as well, but I've also thought about another side to this statement. Take Jordan Danks, for example: Sure, he slipped in the draft because he didn't develop power at Texas, and maybe scouts thought he slipped a little bit in terms of overall value, but Boras kept demanding a large amount of out of slot money for the kid, despite his continuing fall through the draft. Teams will continue to pass on him because they don't want to pay that kind of money in the later rounds. The farther he falls, the more money he loses on his bonus. I always thought this was why Danks showed Boras the door, and his brother did the same.

If you're an established big time player and wouldn't mind playing in NY/Boston/LA, then Boras might be a fine option, but if you're even say a good player, that every team would want to make a run for, he may not be appropriate for you.

[Britt Burns]

Originally Posted by rdivaldi

Drafting high school pitchers is very risky. We're actually lucky to have 2 of the better ones of the past couple of years in Danks and Floyd.

And we didn't even draft them. Both had some track record of success and durability in the minors before we acquired them. I think the whole Moneyball- Billy Beane drafting strategy has been proven as a fraud by now, but the one part of that I agree with is to not waste high-round picks on HS pitchers. We've actually been pretty good about avoiding them, with the Stumms and Honels being the exceptions that prove the rule.

[FedEx227]

Originally Posted by Britt Burns

And we didn't even draft them. Both had some track record of success and durability in the minors before we acquired them. I think the whole Moneyball- Billy Beane drafting strategy has been proven as a fraud by now, but the one part of that I agree with is to not waste high-round picks on HS pitchers.

It was never suppose to be a be-all, end-all. The thing with Beane is he typically wants to do what give him the best value.

At the time Moneyball came out people were down on college pitchers and high on high school pitchers. Billy was merely trying to say, I can get low-risk players at a great value at this point of time so I'm going to do it.

You're now seeing a few more teams go after college players and thus drive the value up, now if you look at some Billy Beane drafts they tend to have a decent amount of high school players.