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Other clubs: Astros, Braves, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Indians, Orioles, Reds, Red Sox, Rockies, Royals, Tigers, White Sox.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: this is not a high-potential system. Joe Gatto sits at the top of these rankings because someone had to. That’s not meant to demean Gatto’s abilities, or anyone else’s in the Angels’ minor league pool, but it’s just a product of owner Arte Moreno’s and upper management’s decisions the last five years. Most of the top talent has been included in trades to bring in less volatile assets at the big league level. A lot of early picks have been given up to sign present-value free agents, and the draft philosophy has been mostly focused on safety rather than upside.

That said, the system isn’t designed terribly to the end of supplementing their strategy for the parent club. They get their stars from outside the organization, and they will be able to fill in the gaps with a lot of role players, upside bench bats and decent pitching depth that this group should be able to provide. So while, in a vacuum, the system may seem like a disappointment, it just puts a little more pressure on the front office to make sound major league signings and hold them over for a few acquisition seasons. Management deserves credit for bringing in some projectable talent in the last couple drafts, with many of them figuring to restock the upper levels of the minor leagues in due time.

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When news reports broke in November that Jose Reyes had been arrested in Hawaii for an alleged incident of domestic violence, many assumed that he would be the first test case under Major League Baseball’s new domestic violence policy. As I noted at the time the agreement was announced last August, both MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association have agreed to a new set of rules to govern cases in which a player has been accused of domestic violence, sexual assault, or child abuse.

Among the provisions in the new policy was one giving Commissioner Manfred the power to place any player accused of domestic violence on paid administrative leave for up to seven days. This provision was intended to give the league sufficient time to investigate the alleged incident before deciding on an appropriate level of punishment, while at the same time preventing a player involved in a domestic incident from appearing on the playing field.

Given the seven-day time limit of any such interim suspension, MLB’s announcement on Tuesday that the league was indefinitely placing Reyes on paid leave until after his pending criminal proceedings in Hawaii have been resolved initially took some by surprise. Indeed, considering that Reyes’s criminal trial in Hawaii isn’t scheduled to begin until April 4th, the leave that MLB announced on Tuesday will undoubtedly extend well beyond the time limit seemingly authorized under the new domestic violence policy.

In reality, however, although many observers – including me – missed this detail when MLB first announced its new domestic violence policy in August, the new policy agreed to by the league and union did in fact include an additional provision that applies to Reyes’ case.

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Other clubs: Astros, Braves, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Indians, Orioles, Reds, Red Sox, Rockies, Tigers, White Sox.

The Royals’ farm system has taken a lot of hits in the past couple years as the organization sought to augment the parent club with pieces for a pair of postseason runs. Though there’s a lack of sure-fire impact talent, they have a nice group of prospects who possess the floor of a nice complementary player and reasonable upside. At the end of writing this list, I came away more impressed with their minor league players than I thought I would. There’s a lot to like on the pitching side in particular, though they have a lot of bats who could be excellent additions to their big league lineup. Overall, you can see the influence their big league philosophy has on the types of players they target, with a lot of solid defensive talents who possess good speed.

Some surprises on the list include keeping Kyle Zimmer at the top. The reports I’ve heard give Zimmer a great chance at getting a full, healthy season in this year, and his potential as a frontline starter hasn’t gone away. Raul Adalberto Mondesi slips into the 45+ FV group for me because I want to see him turn his tools into in-game production before totally buying in, but the potential there is as good as anyone in the system. I project Foster Griffin and Ryan O’Hearn higher than most, as I like a lot of what they both bring to the table, though Griffin is much more unproven at this stage.

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Last week, I gave my thoughts on the best and worst transactions of the winter, but those lists only covered 16 different moves — four trades appeared on both lists — so they don’t exactly represent a complete overview of the offseason. So, in the spirit of thoroughness, I figured it was worth giving a brief overview of my take on every team’s moves this winter. As always, a reminder that my opinion is just that, and you can put as much or as little weight on it as you’d like; a lot of the comments below are going to look silly in 12 months.

And as I mentioned in the worst transactions write-up, MLB teams have gotten a lot better at making decisions in the last five years, and it is now much more difficult to find moves that are clearly destructive to the organization. In general, teams are mostly making smart decisions, or at least justifiable ones, well within the margin of what can be known at the time a decision has to be made. There will be deals that don’t turn out, and moves organizations regret making with the benefit of hindsight, but with just a few exceptions, most of the moves made this winter appear to be rooted in reasonable assumptions.

The result of more efficient decision making? The offseason probably matters a lot less than it used to. Because the market is doing a better job of valuing players rationally, and we don’t have as many rogue GMs just giving away star players, it’s tough to dramatically overhaul your franchise in just one winter. The magnitude of what a great offseason means has been diminished, and sustained winning in baseball is now more about making a long series of good decisions than it is about winning big on a handful of moves. But, with all that said, there are still some teams who helped themselves more than others this winter, and what follows is my assessment of how each team fared in their attempt to upgrade their organizational standing.

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At ESPN, they recently wrapped up their prospects week. I thought I’d zag from that zig, however, and instead wrote a piece for Insider about 30-year-olds and how they’ll age. Using some research from Jeff Zimmerman on aging by player type, I tried to spot some 30-year-olds who are about to go into the tank, and some that might age better than we expect.

But while working on the piece, I asked Zimmerman to update the research on player-type aging, starting in 2005. That’s the year baseball stiffened their steroid policy. Here’s something strange: in this, what we might call the “post-PED era,” it appears as though certain player types have begun aging in an entirely different way.

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In the early 1990s, a cerebral New Hampshire native was the best starting pitcher on the Cardinals’ staff. A control artist who relied more on on guile than on gas, Bob Tewksbury went 33-15 over a two-year stretch and made an All-Star team.

Last summer, St. Louis drafted a cerebral New Hampshire native who shares several of Tewksbury traits. Carson Cross is all about changing speeds, sequencing, and hitting spots.

A 14th-round senior sign (Tewksbury was a 19th-round pick), Cross went 10-2, 2.29 in his final season at the University of Connecticut. He then logged a 2.70 ERA in 10 outings with the Cardinals’ State College affiliate.

Cross’s game is “more mental than physical” and command is a strength. Not being a flamethrower, he considers location vital to his success.

“I’m not blowing the doors open like some kids,” explained Cross. “Fastball command is big for me. If you’re out there hoping you have that pitch working and it isn’t, then you’re kind of stuck in the back seat.”

Cross throws a cross-seam fastball, and not always at the same speed. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s be honest. I’ll start. I’m not a very good baseball player. I used to be much better than I am now, but even back when I was better, I was not good. I fit in with my high school competition and, later, adult league, but in the grander scheme I was, sadly, not good. You are also probably bad at baseball. I know because you are reading this and not playing baseball. That’s okay. It’s what joins us together, you and me.

But what if you had to play? What if you were sitting in the bleachers at Camden Yards and all the Orioles came down with 168-hour food poisoning. What if the team bus blew out a tire between the airport and the ballpark and there were no other buses available because the Pope was in town for a week and he loves buses. So, you need to play!

The team needs you, but it also knows you are terrible. You have to play, but you have to play as little as possible while playing. Where could you play with out hurting the team? Well, nowhere. You’re going to hurt the team. Badly. You’re going to really hurt the team because you are awful. Terrible. The worst. You’re just barely better than me, although that’s like saying rotten food is better than poo. It is, but it’s also what Olympic announcers refer to as a “low bar.”

The worst part is that you have to play for a week’s worth of games. And you’re starting. All six games (there’s an off-day but it’s in Baltimore [sad face emoticon]). That’s one long monster truck rally! You have to hit and play the field. No DH for you. Maybe you’re stuck playing for the Red Sox and David Ortiz is like, “No way, bro. Get out there.” Maybe the other people who are forced into duty are older, fatter, and worse than you. Maybe I have to play DH!

So. Now we have to figure out where to put you. First things first: let’s figure out the batting order. Course, it’s actually not hard to figure out the batting order. You’re batting last. The less you bat the better. Because you’re horrible. Sorry to dwell on the fact; I just don’t want you to forget. It’s sort of the point of this article. But it’s probably for the best, batting ninth. I mean, really, do you want to stand in against 95 mph heat? I sure as hell don’t. I don’t want to tell you what I’d do in my pants in that situation, pun sadly intended. I’d bat 10th if I could. I imagine, whether you admit it or not, you would too. But you can’t. You’re hitting ninth. Congratulations. Hope you can foul one off, maybe. Also try not to mess your pants too noticeably.

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You come here to read baseball analysis, not baseball blog analysis, but just this once real quick, I’m going to turn the metaphorical camera around. Let’s spend a few minutes talking about FanGraphs!

If you’re reading this post in your browser, you might see off to the right a list of authors. Just to the right of that, there’s an additional list, of tags. You’ve probably never paid attention to these tags, or categories, and they do appear poorly organized, but we try to tag all of our posts. Now, we certainly don’t do a perfect job. And we did a worse job in the past. But it’s always been something that’s supposed to be done, and among the various categories are all 30 individual baseball teams. Focusing on those, then: look closely. Under “Angels,” for example, you see “Post Count: 299.” That means there have been 299 FanGraphs blog posts with an Angels tag. Is that a lot, or is that a little, or is that just right?

We can easily look at the numbers for all 30 teams. We can see who we’ve written about the most, and who we’ve written about the least.

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The Astros vaulted themselves into the playoff hunt on the backs of their young talent and smart free agent buys. Now that many of those players will be staying with the major league club, you might expect the system to be relatively barren. In fact, however, it is littered with mid- to upper-range prospects that could help as soon as this year. Though Houston has decent quality and quantity of prospects, the most interesting thing about this system is how much turnover it has seen since last offseason. Only five of the top-15 prospects from Kiley’s list last year remain eligible for this year’s list, the rest gone via trade or promotion.

One of the joys of scouting Astros prospects is the run environments of their High-A and Triple-A affiliates. Many of the top prospects in the system – AJ Reed, Derek Fisher, JD Davis, Francis Martes, etc. – spent all or or part of their 2015 seasons in High-A Lancaster, quite possibly the most hitter-friendly park in the country. That fact makes it a fun task to figure out whose skills have improved versus whose have been artificially elevated by an extreme run environment. For many of them, evaluators almost have to ignore their High-A production and wait to see them in Double-A. I have to admit, Fisher fits into that category for me somewhat. It also makes Martes’ stat line look even more impressive.

For these rankings, there aren’t too many eye-opening choices for the upper spots on the list. I have AJ Reed in the number-one spot, believing his offensive ability to be strong enough to make him a more productive big-league player despite his defensive position. Besides Tyler White and Jon Kemmer jumping up this list for their potential at the plate, there’s Kyle Tucker and Derek Fisher sliding down just outside of the 50+ FV group. I don’t feel completely confident in my evaluation of Fisher yet, and Tucker is too young and raw for me to be comfortable ranking him ahead of the others above him.

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Yesterday, I ran down my 10 favorite moves of the winter, highlighting the acquisitions that I thought were the best combination of return on investment and franchise impact. Today, we’re going to tackle the flip side of that coin, and look at the 10 moves I wasn’t quite as high on.

This side of the list has become increasingly difficult in recent years, as the people running MLB teams have become much more efficient with their decisions, and there are many fewer obvious mistakes than there used to be. These days, the worst moves of the winter are more marginal, with teams spending a little too much money for a still useful player here or there, or trading something from their farm system that perhaps should have brought back something more impactful.

We don’t see that many franchise-crippling moves anymore, however, so a transaction appearing below isn’t condemnation of that franchise; it’s more just that these teams may have had better options rather than going down the path they ultimately decided upon. And since there aren’t as many candidates for this part of the list, we’ll skip the dishonorable mentions, and get right to the ten moves that I didn’t really care that much for. Read the rest of this entry »