The A's Farm System: Plenty of Room for Improvement

As I said previously, the Baseball America and John Sickels were quick to downplay possible the system entering the new year. Baseball America ranked the A’s at 28, while Sickels agreed for the most part. Sickels had them at 24. This was largely in part to injuries to prospects such as Jemile Weeks and slow starts to the season by Chris Carter and Max Stassi, to name a couple.

Chris Carter and Max Stassi did not have “slow starts,” they had bad seasons, period. Attempting to cover up their performance deficiencies by hiding behind the irrelevance of month-to-month performance (to the extent it’s even true— Stassi clearly got WORSE as the season progressed, though there’s some intimation that that may be partly due to injuries) does you no credit.

An argument can be made that the A’s above average 2010 farm system ranking was in the top half due to the Michael Taylor acquisition, however, I’m sure many A’s fans would quickly re-do that trade if given the chance.

Given how crappy Brett Wallace has looked lately, I seriously doubt they have any second thoughts about that one. The root of the problem, and indeed of so many of the current A’s problems, is the mind-bogglingly stupid first Holliday trade. Everything else is little more than counting how many pennies on the dollar the A’s got out of it.

There were many players who not only had breakout and healthy seasons, but are expected to do the same in the coming year as well.

Not a single one of the pre-2010 Sickels A’s top 20 had what I would term a breakout season. Zero. A couple of guys seem to have become real prospects after being completely off the radar screen entering 2010; other than that, it was a disaster. Of the handful of “breakouts,” I’d say (in discussing “expectations”) that the overwhelming consensus outside of AN is that Parker, Krol and Sogard, at least, are unlikely to repeat their 2010 seasons. I have no idea who else you might be referring to as “expected to do the same in 2011.”

However, you could probably say the same about Carter and Taylor after the ’09 season right? Wrong. The difference is, many of the guys who had breakout 2010 seasons, have tremendous upside, and plenty of time to fail and then get back up on their feet.

Right, because Taylor and Carter are two unathletic schlubs who no one had ever heard of before 2009. Except, wait, that’s not right. Taylor was the 2008 Phillies Minor League POY. Carter won the same award for the A’s. Each of those guys had multiple dominant seasons under his belt prior to 2010, which is why they were graded high and why their subsequent performances have been so disappointing.

Rashun Dixon, Tyreace House, Ian Krol, and Jeremy Barfield are a few of those guys.

Claiming that any of those guys except Krol had a “breakout” season (and even he’s borderline, since he was reasonably well regarded when drafted and wasn’t that awesome in 2010) is to stretch the term like bubble gum. Two of those guys had sub-.110 isolated power in 2010; House is so utterly powerless it’s safe to say that he’s a complete nonfactor as a major league prospect. Barfield at least wasn’t utterly slappy in 2010, but he has a career ISO under .400 from a corner outfield spot, and I’ve heard nothing suggesting he’s the next Ichiro out there.

Ian Krol is highly regarded by many. The lefty does walk many batters, but strikes out more than a batter per inning. (EDIT: I got confused with KroL’s small high-A sample size. Krol actually had a very low walk rate. Thanks to CaliforniaJag for pointing this out) With a .273 2010 BABIP, Krol does miss bats, but needs to build on a strong year in order to improve, obviously.

I won’t pile on the errors here (other than to observe that it’s important to look at full-season stats, for which I would suggest baseball-reference.com, as it’s much easier to see there), but I will point out that low BABIP has zip to do with missing bats; it’s not quite as meaningless in the minors as it is in the majors, but it’s of little use to predict success (though it can be of some help in spotting players with good surface numbers who are nevertheless likely to fail).

Two guys who I scouted in New Hampshire last year, I am very high on – Danny Farquahar and Trystan Magnuson. Aside from the fact that these two are two of the best guys you’ll ever meet,

Not relevant to your thesis.

both could easily compete for a final spot in the A’s bullpen. If not, you’ll definitely see them in ‘11 barring any setbacks. Magnuson features a 89-91 fastball with plus command. He also throws a very good curveball as well as a solid change. He doesn’t strike out many batters, but is a pitcher and not a thrower. Reminds me a lot of Jon Rauch.

Jon Rauch, the guy with a career minor league K/9 innings of 8.62, compiled almost entirely as a starting pitcher? Magnuson is far worse than Rauch was in the minors, and Rauch in the majors is a commodity (fungible middle relievers) which is a dime a dozen. As for Farquhar, I mean, whatever. He’s markedly worse than Sam Demel, who was recently traded for a season and a half of an overpaid Conor Jackson.

Keep in mind as well, the likes of Dixon, House, Choice, Weeks, and Cabrera are all big time athletes, Something that most other teams lack.

Proof of this? I hardly think all the other teams stopped drafting athletes just so’s the A’s could snag them all.

These type of players are definitely more durable and usually have a bigger ceiling.

Most of them have already missed all or significant parts of a season to injury, the only exceptions being Dixon (who “only” missed three weeks or so last year) and the two guys who were so recently drafted they’ve hardly had time to yet.

The book on Choice is that if he isn’t going to be a bust, he’ll be a superstar. I personally agree. Hec, Chris Carter in Triple-A for another season can only mean more experience by getting extra at-bats. Talk about a potential superstar player.

Chris Carter with an .850 OPS— surely a mark which would constitute a success from a hitting standpoint, which is about as much as you can ask for— is barely an above-average player, and not even remotely in the ballpark of “superstar,” unless you insist on adopting the viewpoint of the news media in which position and defense are irrelevant and raw home run totals are all that’s of any interest.

But the whole point is simple. The A’s have plenty of guys with more upside than you can imagine.

Try me.

All in all, out of every farm system ranked in the lower half by the so-called experts, look for the A’s to improve the most, or close to it. When your organization gets plagued by injuries and what not, there’s always room for improvement and rebound seasons.

Again, where’s the evidence for these unsourced claims? How many injuries did other teams have? Why should we expect the A’s to have fewer injuries next year, when the best predictor of future injuries is past injuries?

Also, if I was taking bets on rapid improvement, I’d pick a team with a lot of comp picks, not one that just gave away its second-rounder.

I don’t want to sound like I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth here (I critique because I love, honest!), but this piece suffers from some serious defects. Leaving aside style issues, you’re very long on generalized claims (especially about other systems) and very short on warranting for those claims. This is a blog so no one can exactly make you do otherwise, but in an environment where it’s important to make sure that claims can be sourced, like a newspaper or journal, three-quarters of this would have ended up on the cutting-room floor.