Baseball America Top 100 ‘23: 5 Red Sox

Rovin Romine

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Do you really think this is what I meant, or really even follows from my what I wrote?
Yes. Because it seems like you're bending over backwards to try to assign some value to Law's analysis.

The take-away of which would be what exactly? We have few cost-controlled younger players? Nope. We have few desireable trade chips to acquire talent? Nope. There's nobody in the farm that will contribute when needed at the ML level? Nope.

And yet it's very important for Keith Law Readers to know he somehow brings something of value in assigning our farm system not the number 17 spot, nor the number 19 spot, but the 18th spot. Or whatever. Because there's a very tight needle to thread that he believes applies only to the Sox?
 

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Isn't Law's criticism that they don't have depth not that they're hoarding mediocre depth? His rating surely can't be based on the top of the rankings, since there's no way a system with 3 in the top 40 and 4 in the top 75 can be that bad unless you think they have nothing beyond those guys.
Law has such a short blurb, I don't put too much stock in the actual rankings (if you start from the top of his list you don't get very far down before you run into teams where being top heavy is the selling point), and he doesn't mention depth at all. He doesn't like our pitching, and he spends a lot of word space going after Yorke (to the point where it seems personal or defensive of his negative criticisms of him as a draft pick). As I said before, @jon abbey's critiques on his writing apply.

I think it's intellectually useful to look at outlying opinions and examine the team through them, and I'm the one who's down on the Sox's depth. The guys we have (covered nicely in @billy ashley's post #101) shows a bunch of guys who you don't mind if they get plugged in for a game or two, but they don't have the apparent upside where you wouldn't want to try and replace them with a better option if they were getting a good number of MLB starts. I guess Matta is who I'd be hopefull about in the group.

But of the 4 on the "top 100", Casas will Graduate really quickly; the system has done it's job to supply both he and Bello as starters. But after that Mayer & Bleis are really far away (I think mid-2024 is optimistic for Mayer, but we can hope, I guess), and their talent is tantalizing enough where it would be really hard to trade them, and you certainly wouldn't trade them for depth, so they're sort of off the board this year. That just leaves Rafaella, who I see as basically JBJ during his best defensive years, but with his offense from last year if he can't get his approach under control, and I definitely want to see him get his pitch recognition and swing decisions sorted out before I buy into him as an everyday player.
 

ehaz

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Noticed KLaw responded to someone's question about this from today's chat:

Q. "Red Sox: Four top 100 prospects and their farm feels deeper (position players wise at least), but the system over all is quite lowly ranked. In your opinion, how much has Chaim improved the Red Sox farm in his time at the helm? Move you give him most credit for?"

A. "I don't think their farm is deeper overall, and the low ranking is because there's kind of a big drop before you even get out of the top 10, plus the real lack of any starting pitching prospects there - Mata and Walter both have high reliever risk and those are their top 2. I think too much of the conversation around the state of the farm is going to Bloom, though. It's not just one person's responsibility."

Also, in response to a different question about incoming NPB players vs top MiLB prospects in general, he crapped a bit on Yoshida and said he doesn't think he'll be a very good MLB player.
 

johnlos

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Noticed KLaw responded to someone's question about this from today's chat:

Q. "Red Sox: Four top 100 prospects and their farm feels deeper (position players wise at least), but the system over all is quite lowly ranked. In your opinion, how much has Chaim improved the Red Sox farm in his time at the helm? Move you give him most credit for?"

A. "I don't think their farm is deeper overall, and the low ranking is because there's kind of a big drop before you even get out of the top 10, plus the real lack of any starting pitching prospects there - Mata and Walter both have high reliever risk and those are their top 2. I think too much of the conversation around the state of the farm is going to Bloom, though. It's not just one person's responsibility."
I don't think it makes much sense to lower the ranking on a system because they're hitter- or pitcher-heavy. If anything TINSTAAPP (for all who believe) so you'd rather be hitter-heavy. Teams can make trades Keith!

Also, in response to a different question about incoming NPB players vs top MiLB prospects in general, he crapped a bit on Yoshida and said he doesn't think he'll be a very good MLB player.
Dying on the anti-Yoshida hill. Either these projections are wildly off or he's going to be receiving a tweet from a new burner of mine every few days when Yoshida's wRC+ is 130 in August.
61090
And if The Athletic's piece on Yoshida is to be believed the Sox do not think he'll be a particularly bad LF in Fenway, so those defensive metrics also might be skewed downwards.
 

mikcou

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I don't think it makes much sense to lower the ranking on a system because they're hitter- or pitcher-heavy. If anything TINSTAAPP (for all who believe) so you'd rather be hitter-heavy. Teams can make trades Keith!


Dying on the anti-Yoshida hill. Either these projections are wildly off or he's going to be receiving a tweet from a new burner of mine every few days when Yoshida's wRC+ is 130 in August.
View attachment 61090
And if The Athletic's piece on Yoshida is to be believed the Sox do not think he'll be a particularly bad LF in Fenway, so those defensive metrics also might be skewed downwards.
I know these projections have been thrown around a lot, but quite simply, they clearly are not reflective of what other MLB teams think. We can infer that much. Now maybe everyone other than Chaim is wrong, but if the other teams put credence in these, Yoshida wouldnt have signed as quickly as he did for as little as he did. If these were remotely accurate hes a $25M a year player. The fact that Boras agreed in an hour and the industry reaction was WHAT? is pretty clear that they arent buying in that these are valid.

I say this as someone who thinks he'll be a solid regular. I just think we need to take the projections with an enormous grain of salt given the apparent consensus from MBL FOs.
 

johnlos

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What evidence do you have we can "infer" what 29 other teams thought or that there is an MLB FO consensus? As has been pointed out many times in the Yoshida thread, The Athletic article indicates this has been a move 4 years in the making, and while Kiley McDaniel and Keith Law were saying things like 'holy cow we can't believe it' other sources in the next few days reported that a few other teams weren't that far away but figured they could wait to see where the bidding war went.

As for the projections: it's not just one set of projections! So either all other teams' models are crazy different from all of the model flavors here (ZiPS, Steamer, and The Bat X all take different approaches) or, more realistically, the Sox just beat the other teams to the punch by trusting their long-researched valuations and making their final offer from the get go.

As this fangraphs piece shows in his year-over-year projections he is likely to decline over the next 5 years, so I doubt he'll be worth a TON more than $90m. But the Sox decided to lock in what they thought was a profitable price point.

I'll also point out Seiya Suzuki, whose stats were remarkably similar to Yoshida's in Japan (if anything they were in a more hitter-friendly league), had what was considered a disappointing year last year and put up a 116 wRC+ (he had two prolonged slumps between a 158 wRC+ in April and a 161 wRC+ in Sept/Oct). His projections for the 3 systems mentioned above for 2023: 135/127/121. I'd argue these give even more credence to Yoshida's projections.
 

grimshaw

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Dying on the anti-Yoshida hill. Either these projections are wildly off or he's going to be receiving a tweet from a new burner of mine every few days when Yoshida's wRC+ is 130 in August.
View attachment 61090
And if The Athletic's piece on Yoshida is to be believed the Sox do not think he'll be a particularly bad LF in Fenway, so those defensive metrics also might be skewed downwards.
Ya, you don't see many Red Sox leftfielders with positive dWAR because you can only be so rangey because of the wall. Benintendi did it one out of three seasons and he's been one of the better fielders there of late. Those projections aren't half bad.
 

johnlos

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Ya, you don't see many Red Sox leftfielders with positive dWAR because you can only be so rangey because of the wall. Benintendi did it one out of three seasons and he's been one of the better fielders there of late. Those projections aren't half bad.
Interesting point, hadn’t considered that. I’m sure the Sox account for that in their own models though, so while I believe you about the poor dWAR measurement for Sox LFers the more important point is Yoshida won’t be costing the team as much as he would on a team that plays its home games at a regular park.
 

mikcou

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What evidence do you have we can "infer" what 29 other teams thought or that there is an MLB FO consensus? As has been pointed out many times in the Yoshida thread, The Athletic article indicates this has been a move 4 years in the making, and while Kiley McDaniel and Keith Law were saying things like 'holy cow we can't believe it' other sources in the next few days reported that a few other teams weren't that far away but figured they could wait to see where the bidding war went.

As for the projections: it's not just one set of projections! So either all other teams' models are crazy different from all of the model flavors here (ZiPS, Steamer, and The Bat X all take different approaches) or, more realistically, the Sox just beat the other teams to the punch by trusting their long-researched valuations and making their final offer from the get go.

As this fangraphs piece shows in his year-over-year projections he is likely to decline over the next 5 years, so I doubt he'll be worth a TON more than $90m. But the Sox decided to lock in what they thought was a profitable price point.

I'll also point out Seiya Suzuki, whose stats were remarkably similar to Yoshida's in Japan (if anything they were in a more hitter-friendly league), had what was considered a disappointing year last year and put up a 116 wRC+ (he had two prolonged slumps between a 158 wRC+ in April and a 161 wRC+ in Sept/Oct). His projections for the 3 systems mentioned above for 2023: 135/127/121. I'd argue these give even more credence to Yoshida's projections.
Public models are not teams models - I think they likely are different than what is publicly available. Teams also dont go hey our model says X and not actually scout the player, especially when the player has never played at the major league level. The model output is only one of many inputs that go into valuation. Thats the entire point here. Yoshida signed almost immediately (within 12 hours of being posted); it is reasonable to infer that the Red Sox were far and away the highest bid before we had any media reporting. If the confidence level in the outputs of the publicly available models on Yoshida was high, it stretches the imagination that the Red Sox were the only team that would go in the $80-$100M range.

Do you have a link that indicates that other teams had offer that were close? I've never seen anyone assert that

I guess another inference is he just loved Boston so much that he wasnt going to sign elsewhere no matter what. I think if that was actually the case, we'd have some reporting on that.

Seiya Suzuki is an interesting comparison - he had a number of bidders and made multiple visits to teams; the public scouting reports were much more positive; he used most of his posting period to decide; and no one was surprised at the ultimate valuation.
 

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The other thing that the defensive $tat$ in Japan said is that he's slightly above average coming in, but below average going out, making Fenway a good fit in that regard, too.
 

SouthernBoSox

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I can promise you Keith Law has never seen Yoshida in person. He has no idea what he will or will not be as a hitter.

His “relief risk” argument is always so strange to me. The ONLY reason Brandon Walter would be a reliever rather than starter is if he becomes a dominant reliever. I’m not sure why that’s supposed to be a negative.

He’s left handed, throws an unbelievable amount of strikes, and has offerings for both right and left handed hitters. I have no idea why he carries “reliever risk” outside of the fact he’s a funky lefty who could be an amazing reliever.

It’s just odd.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Either Law will be right about Yoshida, or he won’t. Just have to see how it all plays out, obviously. Respect that Law is clear where he stands and also hope and look forward to him being proven wrong.

Re: Walter, he’s already 26, and he’s yet to throw more than 90 innings in a season. Sure, he could be a decent starter in the bigs but does he project to be? I think Law just sees the Sox pitching as mostly a bunch of JAGs which hardly seems like a controversial take.
 

The Gray Eagle

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What's dumb is if Bello hadn't had to pitch so much in the majors last season, his critique of the system wouldn't make any sense. Or would change to "they only have one really good starting pitching prospect right now, plus a bunch of others who may be starters or may be relievers, plus a bunch of position players."
How many places would he move the system up if Bello had thrown 8 fewer innings in the majors last year? But those innings in the majors last year where he looked promising means the system rates lower now.
The injuries to the Red Sox big league rotation meant Bello was our best option to pitch in the majors in July, rather than being a September call-up. Injuries to major leaguers last year means now our farm system is worse?
 

billy ashley

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I absolutely appreciate Keith Law. For years and years he was one of the best prospect writers around, he also was very generous with his material, producing content related to prospects, books, pop culture, etc. for little to no cost. His entire career, he's had no problem holding an outlier opinion. He's been right about a ton, but as any long time sox fan can tell you, he's also had some pretty significantly bad takes (Pedroia most notably).. It's part of what makes him an interesting analyst. He's very much willing to put his feelings out there without much hedging.

I do think the industry has passed him a little, though. There's just so much good quality prospect content out there these days that Law isn't near the top of my priority list when it comes to surfing the web. This is unavoidable, it happens to everyone, and he's been doing this for a long, long time. It's worth paying attention to his ratings, but it's also important to know that he's not the only educated opinion available, now.

Could be right about Yoshida and the general state of the system? Of course he could be. You'd want some disagreement on these things (the sox system more than Yoshida, where the analyst community is less excited about as a whole). Without outliers, there would rightly be some concern about herding of opinions (I'm sure this happens).
 

jon abbey

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I absolutely appreciate Keith Law. For years and years he was one of the best prospect writers around, he also was very generous with his material, producing content related to prospects, books, pop culture, etc. for little to no cost. His entire career, he's had no problem holding an outlier opinion. He's been right about a ton, but as any long time sox fan can tell you, he's also had some pretty significantly bad takes (Pedroia most notably).. It's part of what makes him an interesting analyst. He's very much willing to put his feelings out there without much hedging.

I do think the industry has passed him a little, though. There's just so much good quality prospect content out there these days that Law isn't near the top of my priority list when it comes to surfing the web. This is unavoidable, it happens to everyone, and he's been doing this for a long, long time. It's worth paying attention to his ratings, but it's also important to know that he's not the only educated opinion available, now.

Could be right about Yoshida and the general state of the system? Of course he could be. You'd want some disagreement on these things (the sox system more than Yoshida, where the analyst community is less excited about as a whole). Without outliers, there would rightly be some concern about herding of opinions (I'm sure this happens).
This is a much nicer version of what I was in the middle of writing...

I personally don't think Law was ever that good, but it's true that he used to be adequate at least, plus there was a lot less competition. Now it seems like he has largely stopped trying, and basically every other prospect rating list is more informed and insightful. I pay for The Athletic, am obsessed with finding info about prospects, and still don't think it's worthwhile reposting or discussing his work anymore.

Kiley McDaniel for ESPN (formerly Fangraphs) is IMO currently the best at this, he seems to have incredible sources and puts in endless hours, I really appreciate his output (he is on ESPN+, which is also paywall).
 

gammoseditor

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What's dumb is if Bello hadn't had to pitch so much in the majors last season, his critique of the system wouldn't make any sense. Or would change to "they only have one really good starting pitching prospect right now, plus a bunch of others who may be starters or may be relievers, plus a bunch of position players."
How many places would he move the system up if Bello had thrown 8 fewer innings in the majors last year? But those innings in the majors last year where he looked promising means the system rates lower now.
The injuries to the Red Sox big league rotation meant Bello was our best option to pitch in the majors in July, rather than being a September call-up. Injuries to major leaguers last year means now our farm system is worse?
This is more of a flaw with rating farm system and prospects in general as opposed to the total health of a franchise. My only defense of the process is more fans know who Bello is and what the future outlook is on him. Most read prospect rankings to learn about players they know less about.
 

curly2

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Re: Walter, he’s already 26, and he’s yet to throw more than 90 innings in a season. Sure, he could be a decent starter in the bigs but does he project to be?
I hope he does, but he's hardly a sure thing. He's thrown 180.1 innings in the minors, only 7.2 of which he wasn't older than league average. I love guys who throw strikes and think he's got a shot to be an MLB starter, but he's not a can't-miss guy.
 

Fishy1

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Either Law will be right about Yoshida, or he won’t. Just have to see how it all plays out, obviously. Respect that Law is clear where he stands and also hope and look forward to him being proven wrong.

Re: Walter, he’s already 26, and he’s yet to throw more than 90 innings in a season. Sure, he could be a decent starter in the bigs but does he project to be? I think Law just sees the Sox pitching as mostly a bunch of JAGs which hardly seems like a controversial take.
Not sure what to do with the first half of this post. Obviously he'll either be right or wrong... You could say that about literally anyone. Obviously we have to see how it plays out. Most importantly, why should we respect someone for being clear about where they stand when where they stand doesn't seem to have any basis in fact or square with any of the projections or how other players from similar leagues have transitioned?
 

johnlos

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Not sure what to do with the first half of this post. Obviously he'll either be right or wrong... You could say that about literally anyone. Obviously we have to see how it plays out. Most importantly, why should we respect someone for being clear about where they stand when where they stand doesn't seem to have any basis in fact or square with any of the projections or how other players from similar leagues have transitioned?
Agree. Seems lazy. He brags about forming opinions after seeing guys in person and he clearly has no read on Yoshida. Looking forward to Yoshida proving them wrong.

Already getting reps in with the team:View: https://twitter.com/tylermilliken_/status/1624957568157208576
 

johnlos

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Public models are not teams models - I think they likely are different than what is publicly available. Teams also dont go hey our model says X and not actually scout the player, especially when the player has never played at the major league level. The model output is only one of many inputs that go into valuation. Thats the entire point here. Yoshida signed almost immediately (within 12 hours of being posted); it is reasonable to infer that the Red Sox were far and away the highest bid before we had any media reporting. If the confidence level in the outputs of the publicly available models on Yoshida was high, it stretches the imagination that the Red Sox were the only team that would go in the $80-$100M range.

Do you have a link that indicates that other teams had offer that were close? I've never seen anyone assert that

I guess another inference is he just loved Boston so much that he wasnt going to sign elsewhere no matter what. I think if that was actually the case, we'd have some reporting on that.

Seiya Suzuki is an interesting comparison - he had a number of bidders and made multiple visits to teams; the public scouting reports were much more positive; he used most of his posting period to decide; and no one was surprised at the ultimate valuation.
Yeah that’s why I said flavors of models. I have no doubt teams have proprietary models but I also doubt they’re so far ahead that the three most well-known prediction systems are systematically off those of 29 teams.

And to your point it’s about models *and* scouting, and I was dubious too until I read we’ve been scouting him for four years. Have you seen reporting suggesting anyone else was? I’ll admit I’m a little worried that once you obsess over a guy you find reasons to like him, but The Athletic deep dive did make it seem like their analytics team had specific measurements to look for and they liked what they saw.

Seiya is also a good comp because Yoshida cost only $5m more. Considering Seiya was signed in what seems like a totally different era money-wise, I’d argue Yoshida cost relatively less when normalizing from the 2021 to the 2022 offseason.

I’d have to dig around to find all the later sources that trickled in after everyone made a big deal about one Dec 8 report from Kiley McDaniel (because it had a snippy quote from an anon exec saying he’s “worth less than half”). A few I did find right away: 1) a week after the deal Boras said in the introduction presser that over 12 teams requested a Zoom meeting and he only granted a meeting to 3, so if we’re going to infer what teams are thinking based on reports it’s safe to say only 3 were in the ballpark moneywise 2) from The Athletic piece “After years of scouting, dissecting video, analyzing data, forecasting projections and digging into his background, the Red Sox were convinced Yoshida would be worth their investment and they didn’t want to miss out on him. While scouting in Japan waned during the pandemic, when it picked up this past year, the rest of the baseball world became well aware of Yoshida’s attributes. The Red Sox had indications at least five other teams would be bidding heavily on the outfielder. They decided to act fast.”
 

Granite Sox

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I was randomly in Tokyo on business in November 2019 and went to the US vs. Japan game in the WBSC Premier 12 tournament (Olympic qualifier for the US) in the Tokyo Dome. On Team USA were Houck, Dalbec, CJ Chatham, and Noah Song. I was interested in seeing any/all of them play, as well as watching Japan (who basically brought an All-Star team to the tournament). Yoshida played for Japan, though I have no specific recollection of him in that game. I did, however, sit right behind Brett Ward, the Sox Pacific Rim scout and the guy who has been most instrumental in Yoshida’s advocacy. He struck up a conversation with me, as I was wearing a Sox pullover. I asked him if he was there to check out the Sox US guys; he said that was more a secondary goal but that this tournament was a great opportunity to scout Asia as all the significant regional teams (Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea, Australia etc.) were in the same place. He was based in Australia at the time, and was there to scout pretty much everyone except the US. So I’m sure the Sox have been building a database on Yoshida probably going back at least to 2019 if not earlier. Was fun getting his reaction to various players.
 

Fishercat

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I think there's a semi-reasonable argument against holding "no pitching" against a farm system, namely in that the hit rate on pitchers seems to really spotty in terms of what you get. This could just be me being wrong but I feel like there's a lot more variability in SP output once you get past like, the Top 10-15 or so. Like just jumping back ten years to 2013 there's some legit good pitchers in the Top 10 (Cole, Wheeler, and if he didn't pass Jose Fernandez) but I think the next best pitcher turned out to be Kevin Gausman or Julio Teheran - whereas in the same year you have hitters that turned out better than any of the pitchers except maybe Cole (Xander, Yelich, Lindor, Correa) as well as some great players further down in the list where pitchers don't quite follow as well.

Like obviously having both is what you want but if you're giving me a choice between a lot of great hitting and no pitching or the opposite, give me the hitters all day.
 

chawson

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No pitching.
And this on Walter

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Thoughts on Brandon Walter pre-injury last year? Nearly a 23-1 K-BB ratio in his AA innings is pretty nuts

Eric A Longenhagen
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He'd have been a 50 had he not gotten hurt, velo was also down before he went on the IL.

If he's clearly healthy this spring I'm moving him on
:

Walter is 26, which would make him the oldest player on that FanGraphs list besides Kodai Senga. So it looks like Longenhagen has him as roughly comparable to a Ken Waldichuk or Hayden Wesneski type of value (both age-25) should he comes back healthy, if I'm reading that right.
 

nvalvo

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Four top-50 prospects isn't bad at all, especially when you consider that Bello was 8 IP away from being the fifth.

Fangraphs has been the farm ranking that has been the most bullish on the Sox' farm improvement. So, uhh, I guess we're going to get a pretty interesting test of farm ranking methodologies over the next few years.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Four top-50 prospects isn't bad at all, especially when you consider that Bello was 8 IP away from being the fifth.

Fangraphs has been the farm ranking that has been the most bullish on the Sox' farm improvement. So, uhh, I guess we're going to get a pretty interesting test of farm ranking methodologies over the next few years.
Except that likely a lot of other recent prospects just graduated that would have likely pushed one of the lowest of the four back out, no?
Is this meaning that Bleis will pass by Mayer or that Mayer will have graduated by then?
 

The Filthy One

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Except that likely a lot of other recent prospects just graduated that would have likely pushed one of the lowest of the four back out, no?

Is this meaning that Bleis will pass by Mayer or that Mayer will have graduated by then?
Reading the chat, I think FG is starting to hedge a little on Mayer, citing concerns with his hit tool that are similar to those of Torkelson and Kelenic. I think Longenahgen thinks Bleis will pass him this year.

Yes, I’m a little scared of the hit tool because of what has happened to Tork and Kelenic, who have similarly stiff front sides during their swings. That said, Marcelo’s hitting hands are so freaking sweet and he’s performed to expectation so far, so he’s still stuffed on here.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-top-100-prospects-chat/
 

nighthob

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Is this meaning that Bleis will pass by Mayer or that Mayer will have graduated by then?
Boston is lucky enough to have two really elite prospects, and Bleis has the higher ceiling of the two. Mayer comes with the possibility of topping out as an above average offensive player. Bleis looks like the kind of OF that can put up a string of OPS+ 150 seasons.
 

themactavish

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Bleis must be a pretty speedy fellow. He had 18 steals in 2022. Take away the 5 homers and 4 triples from his 46 hits, and add his 10 walks and 3 HBP, and it means he stole 18 times in 50-ish on-base opportunities. Of course, he could have been on base other times on a fielder's choice (and he could have stolen both 2nd and 3rd), but then again, he could also have had runners on base in front of him too (so he could steal only if the runner ahead of him went). Simplifying things to 18 steals in 50 on-base opportunities, a 36% rate seems pretty good.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Boston is lucky enough to have two really elite prospects, and Bleis has the higher ceiling of the two. Mayer comes with the possibility of topping out as an above average offensive player. Bleis looks like the kind of OF that can put up a string of OPS+ 150 seasons.
If Mayer only ends up as Carlos Correa (with a healthier ankle), I guess I can live with that.
 

billy ashley

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Bleis must be a pretty speedy fellow. He had 18 steals in 2022. Take away the 5 homers and 4 triples from his 46 hits, and add his 10 walks and 3 HBP, and it means he stole 18 times in 50-ish on-base opportunities. Of course, he could have been on base other times on a fielder's choice (and he could have stolen both 2nd and 3rd), but then again, he could also have had runners on base in front of him too (so he could steal only if the runner ahead of him went). Simplifying things to 18 steals in 50 on-base opportunities, a 36% rate seems pretty good.
Would recommend not reading much into stats at that level, especially base stealing stats.

The reasons to be excited about Bleis is that his exit velocities are good for a major leaguer, his defense scouts well, he's a plus runner, an excellent athlete in general and appears to have any idea of what he's doing while hitting (again the slash line doesn't tell us that much, but scouts suggest he already appears to be batting with a plan).

He has pitch recognition issues, which makes total sense for someone with his level of experience...

He's going to be a fun one to watch.
 

The Filthy One

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Fangraphs has their ZiPS Top 100 Prospects list up. A few notables:
  • Yoshida is 12th (the #2 outfield prospect according to ZiPS). Not surprising given that ZiPS basically sees him having elite offensive outfielder upside.
  • Casas #35
  • Mayer #41
  • Rafaela #45
  • Yorke is unranked but the #9 2B prospect
  • No Bleis
I assume ZiPS has trouble with players like Bleis who have little track record in games.
 

In my lifetime

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Fangraphs has their ZiPS Top 100 Prospects list up. A few notables:
  • Yoshida is 12th (the #2 outfield prospect according to ZiPS). Not surprising given that ZiPS basically sees him having elite offensive outfielder upside.
  • Casas #35
  • Mayer #41
  • Rafaela #45
  • Yorke is unranked but the #9 2B prospect
  • No Bleis
I assume ZiPS has trouble with players like Bleis who have little track record in games.
Baltimore does the best: 4 top 50 including 2 top10 and 8 top 100
The Red Sox are the only other organization with 4 top 50. Although that does not mean they have the 2nd highest ranked organization in terms of prospects since they have 0 in the 50-100 range and only 1 in the top 30. It does put the RS in the top 10 overall (although Yoshida is certainly not what most view as a prospect, considering his experience and age).
 

bosox188

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The ZiPS prospect rankings are always an interesting exercise in comparison to the other lists, but man does it throw some oddball results in there. I wouldn't put too much stock in how it orders Red Sox prospects, although the Red Sox specific ones aren't quite so egregious.

Orelvis Martinez at #5 is wild, I'd love to know what data made the algorithm put him that high. He was young for AA at only age 20, but he has major strikeout and plate discipline issues, with no real improving trend. I saw him play the Sea Dogs last year, I'm not sure I actually saw him take a pitch or make contact the entire game. There's a reason nobody has him in their top 100 anywhere. They only address how ZiPS categorized him defensively in the article, but it's the bat flaming out that should be the problem.

I assume ZiPS has trouble with players like Bleis who have little track record in games.
Seems like that is the case, ZiPs will be down on players without too much minor league time under their belt. They noted that for James Wood, who was buried all the way down in the 50s despite being a guy who's flashing the power potential of an Elly de la Cruz or Oneil Cruz, but with quite good plate BB/K numbers. Bleis has even less of a sample then Wood, so him missing the list doesn't mean anything.

I could ramble on about other parts (Andrew Painter as the 4th best pitcher below Kyle Harrison? Matthew Liberatore inside the top 40??) but I suppose that's best done outside of a Red Sox thread...
 

Just a bit outside

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Keith Law has Eric Longerhagen (sp) on his podcast. They have a pretty extended conversation about Bleis. It is about 5 minutes into the podcast. Longerhagen talks about how his batted ball data is already major league level.
 

jon abbey

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Baltimore does the best: 4 top 50 including 2 top10 and 8 top 100
The Red Sox are the only other organization with 4 top 50. Although that does not mean they have the 2nd highest ranked organization in terms of prospects since they have 0 in the 50-100 range and only 1 in the top 30. It does put the RS in the top 10 overall (although Yoshida is certainly not what most view as a prospect, considering his experience and age).
There are 10 MLB teams with at least 3 of the 50, including all five AL East teams (!!!), 17 of the top 50 in total. The division is only going to get tougher.
 

Devizier

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Pretty sure it means he could end up as a reliever rather than a starter.
That could literally be said about any pitching prospect, and had been said about some pretty great ones (e.g. Pedro Martinez) so more information would be useful. My point is largely that these kinds of comments are useless.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Sure, but the point is that the Sox don’t really have pitching prospects of significance- the better the prospect, the more likely he would be a successful starter, I assume. Law doesn’t seem to project any of the Sox pitching prospects as long term starters.
 

Fishy1

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Sure, but the point is that the Sox don’t really have pitching prospects of significance- the better the prospect, the more likely he would be a successful starter, I assume. Law doesn’t seem to project any of the Sox pitching prospects as long term starters.
It's true that the Red Sox haven't had a "great" pitching prospect in a while. As far as I can tell the last two to be ranked top 100 by Baseball America were Jay Groome and Anderson Espinoza. Neither of who are in the organization anymore or have even made it to the big leagues.

The Red Sox have also literally just graduated at least a few guys who could make it as good to average starters (running the spectrum from Bello, Houck, Crawford) and others who profile to be good relievers, like Whitlock, even though none of them were top 100 prospects. I still think of all of these guys, to a degree, as prospective: we've seen a little bit of what they can do in the big leagues, and the team is relying on them, to different degrees, to show up and show out. The fact that they have "graduated" according to some absolutely arbitrary set of standards of what counts as a prospect that is set up by people like Law so they can "judge" farm systems totally ignores the actual continuum prospects/players exist on and how they are treated by teams like the Red Sox. I see guys like Brandon Walter and Ryan Fernandez who are putting up terrific peripherals despite being unranked and I wonder if they're the next set of good, unranked pitching prospects to graduate and help the Sox.

Guys like Law love to make these speculative lists but abhor actually looking at the production of the farm system itself. I wish the systems were judged retrospectively -- histories of farm systems, as compared to the prospect lists made by guys like Law. But that probably wouldn't pay as well.
 

billy ashley

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Espinoza actually made the majors last year. Rooting hard for him. He's overcome a ton of injuries.

He's not a SP of course. He was also pretty bad in a limited look.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/anderson-espinoza/18593/stats?position=P

I think Mata has been a top 100 prospect, too (could be wrong). He still has a chance, but like Espinoza, injuries have robbed him of a ton of development time*.

*Just looked it up, Mata never made it to the top 100. I think he peaked as a prospect shortly after the lists came out and then got hurt. I know he was very well regarded, though. To that point, Bello had a similar path, in which he was seen as a pretty good SP prospect who took a massive leap but was no longer considered once the lists came out (due to promotion rather than injury).
 
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Fishy1

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Espinosa actually made the majors last year. Rooting hard for him. He's overcome a ton of injuries.

He's not a SP of course.
You're right, my bad. I don't have a lot of hope for him. The BB/9 are Daniel Bard-esque at this point -- but at 37 years old Bard is back at hit, so who's to say!

EDIT: Kopech too. Always can rely on SoSH to fact-check you