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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‘Tis the season for prospect rankings. With little else going on in the baseball world, prospect writers typically spend the month of February releasing and discussing ordered lists of prospects and farm systems. Even within the past hour at this very site, our own Jeff Zimmerman published a farm-system ranking derived from the scouting grades produced by Baseball America.

This year, I showed up to the party a little early by putting out KATOH’s top 100 list last month. I still have more to give, however. And here I present you with KATOH’s organizational rankings.

My methodology for compiling this ranking was pretty straightforward: I simply aggregated all of the KATOH forecasts by team. Still, there a few caveats worth mentioning.

• To be considered in this exercise, a player must have recorded at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced in 2015. KATOH derives its forecasts from minor league stats, so it can’t really formulate an opinion on players who didn’t play much in 2015. As a result, many of the players who were drafted in 2015 are omitted.

• This exercise only considers players projected for at least 1.0 WAR over their first six years in the big leagues. Ideally, I’d consider all prospects, but that would involve verifying the teams for thousands of mostly nondescript minor leaguers. That obviously taken some time. This one-win threshold cuts pretty deep into a team’s farm system. The average team has 18 players above this cutoff, while none have fewer than 10. That feels like more than enough for these purposes.

• KATOH tends to favor hitters over pitchers, especially on the high end. So this analysis likely favors organizations with farm systems that are hitter-heavy over those that rely more on pitchers. This is likely because a pitcher’s stats capture a smaller portion of his future potential relative to hitters. Factors like velocity also very important when it comes to projecting pitchers.

• And as always, stats don’t tell the full story. This is the output from a flawed statistical model that fails to take into account many of the factors that go into evaluating a prospect. If an organization has a lot of raw, toolsy prospects, it’s likely to be underrated here.

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You smell that? It’s baseball’s prospect-list season. The fresh top-100 lists — populated by new names as well as old ones — seem to be popping up each day. With the individual rankings coming out, some organization rankings are becoming available, as well. I have always regarded the organizational rankings as subjective — and, as a result, not 100% useful. Utilizing the methodology I introduced in my article on prospect evaluation from this year’s Hardball Times Annual, however, it’s possible to calculate a total value for every team’s farm system and remove the biases of subjectivity. In what follows, I’ve used that same process to rank all 30 of baseball’s farm systems by the surplus WAR they should generate.

I provide a detailed explanation of my methodology in the Annual article. To summarize it briefly, however, what I’ve done is to identify WAR equivalencies for the scouting grades produced by Baseball America in their annual Prospect Handbook. The grade-to-WAR conversion appears as follows.

Prospect Grade to WAR Conversion

Prospect Grade	Total WAR	Surplus WAR
80	25.0	18.5
75	18.0	13.0
70	11.0	9.0
65	8.5	6.0
60	4.7	3.0
55	2.5	1.5
50	1.1	0.5
45	0.4	0.0

To create the overall totals for this post, I used each team’s top-30 rankings per the most recent edition of Baseball America’ Prospect Handbook. Also accounting for those trades which have occurred since the BA rankings were locked down, I counted the number of 50 or higher-graded prospects (i.e. the sort which provide surplus value) in each system. The results follows.
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Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado.

Earlier this week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Detroit Tigers. In this companion piece, I look at that same Detroit farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

1. Michael Fulmer, RHP (Profile)

KATOH Projection: 3.8 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 50 FV

Fulmer enjoyed a breakout season with the Mets last year and kept it going after he came to the Tigers in the Yoenis Cespedes deal. Both his strikeout rate and walk rate improved as he made the jump from High-A to Double-A in 2015, giving him the lowest ERA — and second lowest FIP — in Double-A last year.

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

To say the Tigers have had a “type” is an understatement. They have consistently brought in hard-throwing pitchers with either command or secondary-pitch questions, and most of them have ended up as relievers by the time they make it to the big leagues. As Kiley pointed out in last year’s rankings, it’s hard to fault the Tigers’ process, as they continue to develop enough talent to reinforce their big league team via trades, and Mike Ilitch has had no problem spending money to fill in the gaps with free agents.

When 2015 didn’t go according to plan, they were able to replenish their stock by trading from the underachieving parent club. And to their credit, they have started to target a more diverse group of players in the draft and internationally. There is still a lack of impact talent in this group, but a lot of depth and interesting prospects that will contribute to a winning club.

I would draw attention to the rankings that differ from other lists, but honestly, most of the grades are so similar you could shuffle them around and we would be saying the same thing. For just a few from the top end, I buy into Christin Stewart‘s power potential despite him being a recent draftee who didn’t used to have much pop. I would bet I also have more faith in Mike Gerber’s steady skill set than most. Otherwise, some guys are lower, some are higher… I can’t argue with anyone who disagrees on these guys because there aren’t big differences between a lot of them, especially on the pitching side.

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Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland.

Earlier this week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Colorado Rockies. In this companion piece, I look at that same Colorado farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

1. Trevor Story, SS (Profile)

KATOH Projection: 7.2 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 50 FV

Story’s prospect trajectory resembles a bathtub curve — which is to say it’s gone from high to low and back to high again. Drafted 45th overall back in 2011, he got off to a strong start in the low minors, but hit a wall as soon as he reached High-A. Story got back on track in 2015 when he hit .279/.350/.514 between Double-A and Triple-A with 20 homers and 22 steals. Story was one of the top offensive performers in the high minors last year, which is mighty impressive for a shortstop. His 25% strikeout rate is cause for concern, but is largely outweighed by everything else he does well.

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

The Rockies’ system is a long list of potential major league contributors, topped by nearly a full team of 50+ overall grade prospects. They haven’t had the best luck developing young pitchers, but Jeff Hoffman and Jon Gray give them a chance at building a cost-effective pitching staff in the near future as they try to retool, while a stable of younger hurlers may arrive in three to four years. I don’t see any huge surprises on this list for people, though having Brendan Rodgers number one may be debatable. Gray gets bumped down a bit for command concerns, though obviously his upside is apparent. Catcher Dom Nunez and starting pitcher Peter Lambert may be higher on this list than you will hear elsewhere, and Carlos Estevez‘ relief potential bumps him into the 50-grade territory for me.

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Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati .

Earlier this week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Cincinnati Reds. In this companion piece, I look at that same Cincinnati farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors. Read the rest of this entry »

Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL.

Last week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Cincinnati Reds. In this companion piece, I look at that same Cincinnati farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

1. Jose Peraza, 2B (Profile)

KATOH Projection: 14.9 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 55 FV

Peraza burst onto the prospect scene in 2014, when he hit .339/.364/.441 between High-A and Double-A. His high BABIP came back to earth a bit in Triple-A last year, but was still roughly a league-average hitter. His .293/.316/. 378 showing wasn’t bad at all for a 21-year-old. Peraza is an interesting prospect due to the outlier-ness of many of his attributes. For example, both of the following sentences are accurate. One: he’s a 70-grade runner who makes tons of contact, is a strong defender up the middle, succeeded in Double-A as a 20-year-old, and held his own as a 21-year-old in Triple-A. And two: he’s a second baseman with minimal power who never walks and has been traded twice in the past seven months. There are clearly pros and cons to Peraza’s profile, but when fed into KATOH, they yield a very favorable projection. I’m always skeptical of the projections for outlier cases like Peraza, so let’s turn to the Mahalanobis comps for more clarity.

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Last week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Chicago White Sox. In this companion piece, I look at that same Chicago farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

1. Tim Anderson, SS (Profile)

KATOH Projection Through First Six Seasons: 6.0 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 55

At the plate, Anderson’s 2015 at Double-A strongly resembled his 2014 at High-A. He struck out in over 20% in his plate appearances, walked in less than 5% and hit for an unremarkable amount of power. While he improved his walk rate to near-respectability — from 2% to 4% — he sacrificed a chunk of power in the process. Last year, however, he complemented his relatively empty .300 average with a boatload of steals, which speaks to the 22-year-old’s athleticism. Anderson’s undeveloped bat still gives KATOH some pause, but shortstops with top-notch speed don’t need to hit much to be productive.

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