The Baseball Gauge and the strength of our farm system over time

[Frobby]

The article about the Phillies posted in another thread pointed me to a website I haven't seen before,  The Baseball Gauge (thebaseballgauge.com).    This  site has some very cool features.    Among them, it has a listing of every farm system from every year dating back to 1871 and how many players and how much rWAR that farm system eventually produced, and where the team ranked among all the teams in MLB that year.     Using that, I produced the following chart for the 2000-2019 Orioles (the players listed exceeded 5 rWAR and I've added that information to the numbers provided by The Baseball Gauge):

Year	No.	rWAR	Rank	Drafted/Added		
2000	36	105.4	17	Roberts, Bedard	
2001	33	 69.5	23		
2002	29	 36.0	29	J. Johnson				
2003	27	 32.3	30							
2004	31	 98.8	20	Markakis	
2005	25	 43.1	27		
2006	26	 44.6	29		
2007	26	 25.8	29	Britton					
2008	31	 80.4	22	Arrieta, Wieters, Tillman	
2009	34	143.7	 5	J. Turner, Schoop	
2010	27	110.9	14	Givens, Rodriguez		
2011	25	 96.9	17	Machado, Arrieta
2012	27	103.1	15	Davies, Bundy			
2013	25	 70.3	17	Gausman, Hader			
2014	29	 70.8	12	Mancini, Yastrzemski	
2015	24	 38.5	18	Means					
2016	29	 33.4	11							
2017	18	 11.0	20							
2018	18	  2.3	22		
2019	15	  1.9	15							

(I have a version of this chart that shows when these players graduated the system, but I can't make the format work on here so I've eliminated that column.)

A little context is needed.   The numbers and the comments are as of March 1 of a given year.    So, the players I listed as drafted/added in 2000 were actually drafted or added between March 2, 1999 and March 1, 2000.   Also, the players in the farm system in 2000 have had more time to produce rWAR than the players who were in the farm system in subsequent years.     Once you get into the 2010's, the rWAR results start shrinking meaningfully due to the fewer number of years the players have had to graduate from the system and produce rWAR.   Still, the ranking compared to other farm systems that year provides perspective.

As you can see, we had some incredibly bad farm systems in the 2002-07 period.    In fact, of the 450 farm system/years between 2000-14, 2002 ranks 427th, 2003 ranks 432nd, and 2007 ranks 440th.     (I omitted 2015-19 since the players in those systems haven't had much time to graduate and produce rWAR.)

It is no surprise that our 2009 system was the best in the 2000-19 era.   That system had Arrieta, Wieters, Britton, Tillman, and Schoop in development, not to mention lesser lights like Bergesen, Reimold, D. Hernandez and others.    And in hindsight, the most valuable player in the whole system was actually Justin Turner, acquired from the Reds in the 2008-09 offseason.   Who knew?

Finally, a bit more context.    That 2009 system, at 143.7 rWAR, ranks only 104th out of 450 among all teams' systems in the 2000-14 period.   Here's a link to the 2000-14 list: https://www.thebaseballgauge.com/history.php?first=2000&last=2014&tab=prospects&pos=All&lgID=All&division=All&bats=All&throws=All&results=250&sort=tot_a&page=1#metric  The median during that period is about 104.6 rWAR, a figure the Orioles have reached exactly three times in that period.    The top system in that period was the 2003 Indians, at 305.4 rWAR.    The top system of all time was the 1989 Rangers, at 433 rWAR.

I'll post some more about this, but will stop here since this post is getting long.

[Frobby]

Another point is that the system has been weak in terms of the number of players produced.    The median number produced of the 450 farm systems from 2000-14 was 36, which you will note matches the highest number the O's system ever produced in that period.   I think that is a direct reflection of our weak international program, which for most teams generates about 30% of their major league pipeline.   

That said, even our weakest systems produced 25 or so players.    And I think that goes to show you that major league players have to come from somewhere.    If your major league team has injuries, it dips into the minors for replacements no matter how bad they are.   And the worse the major league team is, the more it can shuffle bad players up and down without anyone really noticing.    

[Sports Guy]

Good info...conclusion is the same as I think most of us would have thought.

Pro sports is ALL about how much production you get out of those you draft and develop.  When you suck at that, you can’t win.  Some teams, like the Yankees, tried to buy their way through it and while they may have made the playoffs a lot, they would get exposed against the best teams in the playoffs.  

[Frobby]

54 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Good info...conclusion is the same as I think most of us would have thought.

Pro sports is ALL about how much production you get out of those you draft and develop.  When you suck at that, you can’t win.  Some teams, like the Yankees, tried to buy their way through it and while they may have made the playoffs a lot, they would get exposed against the best teams in the playoffs.  

The Yankees have had some good farm systems though.    Of the top 100 on the list of 450 from 2000-14, you can find Yankee teams at nos. 19 (2007), 37 (2001), 43 (2008), 47 (2005), 73 (2003), 80 (2004), 82 (2006) and 84 (2009).    That’s impressive when you consider how low they were drafting.    The top two homegrown players in that era were Cano (68.9 rWAR) and Gardner (42.8).    I suspect if one looked at where else the value came from, a disproportionate amount was international signings.   

[VaBird1]

39 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The Yankees have had some good farm systems though.    Of the top 100 on the list of 450 from 2000-14, you can find Yankee teams at nos. 19 (2007), 37 (2001), 43 (2008), 47 (2005), 73 (2003), 80 (2004), 82 (2006) and 84 (2009).    That’s impressive when you consider how low they were drafting.    The top two homegrown players in that era were Cano (68.9 rWAR) and Gardner (42.8).    I suspect if one looked at where else the value came from, a disproportionate amount was international signings.   

The Yankees also were right behind the Astros in implementing cutting edge PD techniques in the not so distant past.  Coincidentally the timing coincided with the Orioles not winning any more.  There is a nice section on it in the book The MVP Machine.  Elias and Mejdal speak really opening about the differences in PD between the Orioles and Astros.  Baumann and Means also speak to the authors.

[DrungoHazewood]

I need to dig into this a little. As you note, they have farm system rankings going back to 1871.  But affiliated minor league teams weren't a thing until at least the 1910s and what we think of as a modern affiliated minor league system didn't really exist until the 1930s.  Before then teams had informal (or maybe sometimes more formal) agreements with independent minor league teams to loan out prospects so they'd get playing time.  But if the minor league Orioles had Lefty Grove, the A's got to call him up only when Connie Mack out-bid everyone else for him and paid Jack Dunn $100k, and that only after Dunn decided he was better off selling Grove than keeping him and winning 110 games a year.

By the Baseball Gauge the 1880 Troy Trojans had a massively great farm system.  The 1880 Troy Trojans had trouble paying the 23 players who played for them that year, they certainly didn't have other teams working for them.

[LookinUp]

This site's lack of ability to rank teams from the 1800's notwithstanding (), it's a really neat tool. I definitely thought of you Frobby when I read that Phillies article. I wondered if you'd do this.

I know that people on this site understand this, but the O's have been epically poorly run since the early 80's. Angelos essentially bought our way out of misery in the 90's, and Buck was able to take some decent but not great talent and turn it into a good team in the 2010's. We haven't been a predominantly home grown bunch since the glory days, and that is why they are now referred to as the glory days.

I get the hand-wringing from people who want to be better now, but I'd watch Elias build depth for multiple additional years if I continued to have faith in his drafting/signing and development program. I would be worth the wait.

[foxfield]

55 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

This site's lack of ability to rank teams from the 1800's notwithstanding (), it's a really neat tool. I definitely thought of you Frobby when I read that Phillies article. I wondered if you'd do this.

I know that people on this site understand this, but the O's have been epically poorly run since the early 80's. Angelos essentially bought our way out of misery in the 90's, and Buck was able to take some decent but not great talent and turn it into a good team in the 2010's. We haven't been a predominantly home grown bunch since the glory days, and that is why they are now referred to as the glory days.

I get the hand-wringing from people who want to be better now, but I'd watch Elias build depth for multiple additional years if I continued to have faith in his drafting/signing and development program. I would be worth the wait.

THIS.

There is criticism that suggests that folks are swallowing bs about the O's and it's not entirely out of the question, if we are honest.  However, the Orioles are not a little spending away from being a good team.  $20 Million or even $30 in the off season will not change this team.  Sure, it might win more games...but winning 82-85 games means nothing if it can't be built upon or sustained.

I think the criticism is premature for the sons of angelos and certainly premature for Elilas.  It may be right, I do not profess to know.  But I do know this:

In order to have sustainable success, the Orioles needed a new ownership and new leadership.  It got leadership with Elias and it at least got some distance from Peter Angelos even if not total change.

A successful rebuild may not occur here, at the present time...but when and if it were to be so, it would be on a path pretty much like the one we are on.  

[LookinUp]

3 minutes ago, foxfield said:

I think the criticism is premature for the sons of angelos and certainly premature for Elilas.  It may be right, I do not profess to know. 

SG will always have the Cozart comment though. It's hard to deny that the O's had options that would have included acquiring better/more prospects in return for taking on more salary. Ownership doesn't seem to support that notion. It has been an option forever and we've never done it, to my recollection.

What I don't know is whether the ROI on that type of deal makes any sense at all. I tend to think it does, as ROI really varies by mode of acquisition. You get the biggest ROI from the cheapest modes (draft, International). You get least ROI, typically, from the most expensive mode, which is FA. Trades are somewhere in between.

But it seems to me that the O's evaluate ROI of prospect acquisitions in trades as something closer to the draft than they do a standard trade/FA acquisition. What I'm saying is that taking on that prospect in an "expensive" trade probably has a worse ROI than the draft, but probably also has a better ROI than FA, so it should be done in the right circumstance.

These are my assumptions at least.

[Sports Guy]

This ownership group also clearly chose money savings over talent at the 2018 deadline and they were so clearly involved at that time.

There isn’t a shred of evidence pointing to them not being very cheap over the last few years.

The argument that spending more money means they still won’t be good is fine. But there is a lot more to spending money and being good than just looking at the 2021 W/L record.  
 

There is nothing wrong with acquiring players a year too early.  The bottom line is you will likely see guys get lesser deals than they should..so in a year or 2 when we want to spend, you are back to paying much higher prices for the same production.  
 

And again, people want to point to covid as if ownership wasn’t cheaping out before that happened or as if this team would all of a sudden be spending more this year if covid didn’t happen.  Come on guys, you know that’s not true.  
 

Im really glad that ownership is allowing Elias to do the things he needs to do in terms of development, intl FA, etc...that’s great.  But that’s also something that you can always do and something they should have been doing all along.  The idea that they have entered a level of normalcy in those areas isn’t a reason to give them a standing ovation.

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I need to dig into this a little. As you note, they have farm system rankings going back to 1871.  But affiliated minor league teams weren't a thing until at least the 1910s and what we think of as a modern affiliated minor league system didn't really exist until the 1930s.  Before then teams had informal (or maybe sometimes more formal) agreements with independent minor league teams to loan out prospects so they'd get playing time.  But if the minor league Orioles had Lefty Grove, the A's got to call him up only when Connie Mack out-bid everyone else for him and paid Jack Dunn $100k, and that only after Dunn decided he was better off selling Grove than keeping him and winning 110 games a year.

By the Baseball Gauge the 1880 Troy Trojans had a massively great farm system.  The 1880 Troy Trojans had trouble paying the 23 players who played for them that year, they certainly didn't have other teams working for them.

Yes, I was wondering about that myself.   I was surprised that the farm info went back further than the 1960’s, to be honest.    I wish the tool allowed you to click on the team for a particular year and see who were the players making up the total.   

[Just Regular]

I thought Branch Rickey for the Cardinals in the 30’s earned his Phase One HOF credentials inventing the farm system.  I imagine he scaled up and refined what other teams dabbled with but it is interesting Gauge could classify some stuff so long before him.

[DrungoHazewood]

23 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

I thought Branch Rickey for the Cardinals in the 30’s earned his Phase One HOF credentials inventing the farm system.  I imagine he scaled up and refined what other teams dabbled with but it is interesting Gauge could classify some stuff so long before him.

He was certainly one of the innovators. The 1948 Dodgers are listed as having over 20 minor league teams including two in AAA and two in AA.

Although I hesitate to call it innovation.  It benefited some Major League teams, especially early adopters.  But it helped relegate teams like the Senators and Browns to near-permanent also-ran status, since they didn't or couldn't afford sprawling systems with hundreds of players.  The '47 Senators had six affiliates, three in Class D, none above AA.  And it destroyed the notion of minor leagues fighting for fans and dollars and trophies, turning them into fake teams with fake pennant races and players who stick around for three months if you're lucky.  Maybe I don't like Branch Rickey so much anymore.  

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

On 12/7/2020 at 4:53 PM, OrioleDog said:

I thought Branch Rickey for the Cardinals in the 30’s earned his Phase One HOF credentials inventing the farm system.  I imagine he scaled up and refined what other teams dabbled with but it is interesting Gauge could classify some stuff so long before him.

He was certainly one of the innovators. The 1948 Dodgers are listed as having over 20 minor league teams including two in AAA and two in AA.

Although I hesitate to call it innovation.  It benefited some Major League teams, especially early adopters.  But it helped relegate teams like the Senators and Browns to near-permanent also-ran status, since they didn't or couldn't afford sprawling systems with hundreds of players. 

Now I wonder if Rickey going from St. Louis to New York is akin to Friedman going from Tampa to Los Angeles in terms of marrying smarts and $$$.