Our 'Elite talent pipeline' has thinned, considerably

[glenn__davis]

6 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

At what point do we question the job Koby Perez is doing? Or our pitching development plan? 

I'd say about 1-2 more years.  Hernandez and Basallo were the first "real" international class they put together.  Hernandez is a bust, Basallo is a unicorn but even then still is only in AA and only 19.  There are some interesting international names doing well in the lower levels, including Aron Estrada who just got promoted to high-A.

As for the pitching, I firmly believe they're following something similar to the Astros model of signing a bunch of guys with good measurables and trying to teach them to pitch.  Obviously they don't spend high draft picks on pitchers.  I think they're looking especially in the international waters for those types of players.  Sign a ton of them and see who develops.  But it takes time obviously.

If we don't see some of these guys making real contributions in full season ball in the next 2 years or so I think it's fair to start questioning things.

 

[deward]

9 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

At what point do we question the job Koby Perez is doing? Or our pitching development plan? 

Given how far behind he was starting from, I'd assume Perez gets at least another year to show some results. The pitching program should be under hard scrutiny right now.

[ChosenOne21]

Farm system is a means to an end, not an end in itself. We've got so much young position player talent that if we don't generate any new position players of significance for the next half decade, we're still going to be a pretty awesome team. Obviously I hope we do better than that if for no other reason than to make trades, but I'd rather have an amazing core of under-25 players at the major league level than the top farm system.

[Greg Pappas]

Just now, ChosenOne21 said:

...I'd rather have an amazing core of under-25 players at the major league level than the top farm system.

We all do.

[LookinUp]

12 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

Hehehe yeah, I was just posting about that as well... great point.  It seems that these players are getting to A ball, and hopefully AA soon.  It's a long process, but Elias trusts Perez and if he stops believing in the work he's doing, he'll replace him.  The pitching issue is a very real one.

I've always heard it's a loooong process. I just wonder how long that process is. Are we giving it another year or two because that's how far away we see a few guys from being, or is it some overall assessment?

I think it's the former. I guess it doesn't matter, but pretty soon it'll be put up or shut up time. 

[theobird]

I’m not too impressed with the FA class of pitchers except Corbin Burnes. I think we have to have the full court press on to sign Burnes. 

After that, I think it’s find the tools guys and train them up to pitch. And development of international arms.

[Yossarian]

Other than Basallo, what position players project to be average, or better, major leaguers?  It is pretty slim pickins down on the farm.

Beavers?

Willems?

Bradfield?

[Frobby]

38 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

 

Thoughts?

Note: Forgive me if someone else has brought this point up in a thread somewhere.  I don't recall it.

It’s been discussed extensively in the minor league forum.  For example:

https://forum.orioleshangout.com/topic/54188-it-feels-like-the-dark-years-again-checking-the-minor-league-box-scores/

My thoughts are: I’d rather have a bunch of elite 20-26 year old players on my major league team than have a bunch of elite 18-24 year old players down in the minors.   We’ve promoted a bunch of talent to the majors and traded some for other players we needed.  We don’t need a huge influx of players from the minors now, just the occasional gem to compliment what we already have in the majors.  I’m very happy with how things stand.

 

[Sports Guy]

It was always inevitable. What matters is how they can recover from the losses. The drafting after the first few picks has generally been poorish and the Intl market hasn't provided anything other than potential thus far.

That being said, Elias has held onto the elite guys and the best prospects we have had. He has dealt from the depth and not from the top, which is what he should be doing. I will take the elite talents over several of the middling talents any day of the week.

We may have some depth issues next year if we have to replace players.  That remains to be seen but I am not really all that worried about this. You can't keep all of them anyway.

[Jim'sKid26]

Well, if Elias was paying more attention to the day to day operations of the front office instead of working so hard to outsmart the guys on MLB Central we might still have a top farm system........

[CaptainRedbeard]

The Orioles currently have the #2 farm system by Fangraphs’ Farm Value rankings:

https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/farm-system-rankings

(These are post-trade deadline, as the Rays have now moved ahead of the Orioles.)

Once the Orioles graduate Holliday (65 FV hitter: $62M), Mayo and Kjerstad (both 50 FV hitters: $46M each), they’ll lose a total of $154M - almost half of the current total $321M.

That said, that will leave them with $167M, which is still only a little bit below median. Not  top system, but middle of the pack and far from the worst.

There’s definitely a gap in the pipeline now, since Basallo is the only great prospect at the AAA/AA levels and Beavers, Fabian and Bradfield haven’t hit well enough to force promotions quite yet. But there’s a lot of interesting pitchers (pretty much at all levels), lower level / international guys and all the new draftees coming in.

Time for the Orioles to show their reputation as a player development machine is still deserved and start getting some of the lower level names to pop. That’s what teams like the Rays, Dodgers, Yankees do to constantly replenish for graduates.

[Roll Tide]

54 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

This one guy, I think his name is Burnes, seems pretty good.

Just need to figure out a way to keep him.

[Sports Guy]

Kiley McDaniel re-ranked farm systems:

1. Baltimore Orioles -- $361 million

Current top prospect: Jackson Holliday, SS

Preseason ranking: 1st, $371 million

What has happened since: Heston Kjerstad and Colton Cowser graduated from my top 100 list to the O's big league lineup and a couple potential starting pitchers from the system (Cade Povich and Chayce McDermott) made their big league debuts. The Orioles made some trades sending away prospects for major league help, shipping out Connor Norby, Mac Horvath, Jackson Baumeister, Seth Johnson and Moises Chace among my top prospects who were traded at the deadline. While that is a lot of subtraction, Baltimore once again dipped into the up-the-middle position player demographic in the MLB draft by adding Vance Honeycutt, Griff O'Ferrall and Austin Overn.

The Orioles are still No. 1 because Jackson Holliday (yes, he is still prospect-eligible), Coby Mayo, and Samuel Basallo are all in the top 10-15 prospects in baseball -- but the first two are in the big leagues and Basallo is in Double-A, so the O's could finally be in line for a tumble down these rankings after sitting on top for a while. They'll have to settle for an incredible young core on a first-place team in MLB's toughest division as a consolation prize.
 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/40733088/2024-mlb-prospect-rankings-update-farm-systems-top-30-teams-draft-trade-deadline

[Rbiggs2525]

There is so much left to see before we can say our farm has thinned out. This was the best DSL teams in the history of the Orioles. We have a strong draft class about to debut. We will sign another 7 million $ of international pool in January which most other contenders cannot. With the success of Basallo and now the most recent class do we start to get top 10 international players? 

[Greg Pappas]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

It’s been discussed extensively in the minor league forum.  For example:

https://forum.orioleshangout.com/topic/54188-it-feels-like-the-dark-years-again-checking-the-minor-league-box-scores/

My thoughts are: I’d rather have a bunch of elite 20-26 year old players on my major league team than have a bunch of elite 18-24 year old players down in the minors.   We’ve promoted a bunch of talent to the majors and traded some for other players we needed.  We don’t need a huge influx of players from the minors now, just the occasional gem to compliment what we already have in the majors.  I’m very happy with how things stand.

 

Yes, we all agree that having great talent here is/was the goal (and achieved it seems).  That is far more important than having it on the farm. That is not, nor ever has been, at question (for me at least LOL).  I'm also quite happy with where we are.   Elias has done a very god job and hopefully we can make a run this year and in the years to come.

Mods are welcome to move this to the Minors forum.

Edited August 6 by Greg Pappas