Dispelling The Mets "Weak Farm" Myth
Written by Benny B.   
Wednesday, 20 January 2010 08:00

Over the last couple of years, all I keep hearing is how the Mets can't trade for such and such a player because they don't have "the chips"...Then we get Johan Santana, and now we really cleaned out our farm system right?  Wrong.

Doug Grey over at redsminorleagues.com comprised a ranking of franchise farm valuations using John Sickles preliminary prospect rankings, research by Victor Wang & surplus value calculations by Erik Manning from Beyond the Boxscore.  Here's what he found:

sickelsfarmrankings_medium

The Mets rank right in the middle of the pack coming in at #13 sandwiched in between the Royals and Reds.  Not great, but certainly not the stereotype of doom and gloom that is pushed by the media and right here on this site.

On the other hand, what I find most interesting (and satisfying) is how shitty the Phillies farm system is.  Yup the Phillies rank #27 out of 30 teams with a combined valuation of 58.58.  That's nearly half as much value as the Mets farm system.  In other words, according to this statistical analysis, the Mets farm system is twice as good as the Phillies....Let that sink in a little bit more:  TWICE AS GOOD.

So when Mike says the mets should go about fixing "all cracks in the [Mets] foundation (farm system)", it would appear it is not the Mets whose farm is in a dyer situation.  Many Phillie fans like to puff their chest out and give their front office a pass when they sign a 40 year old left field more suited to a DH role, trade one of the best pitchers in baseball for an older more injury prone best pitcher in baseball and needlessly sign aging back up players to multi-year deal all because "The Phillies are a championship caliber team".  Well, so were the Mets in 2006-2008.  Injuries and a lack of MLB ready talent is what did them in during that time period.  As unlucky as the Mets were last year with injuries, the Phillies had very few.  The tide turns very quickly in the MLB and luck and injuries play a significant part.  It will be interesting to see how the Phillies farm system produces when they are inevitably forced to use it...and that could be the beginning of the end of this Phillies team.

So Phillie fans, discuss amongst yourselves.  I am sure I will see well thought out statistical rebuttals in the face of such damning evidence with no emotional homer-ism going on...ah, who am I kidding, these are Phillie Phans we are talking about!  Bring on the comments about misspellings in this post.  Enjoy.



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Comments (10)Add Comment
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written by will.H, January 20, 2010
in 5 years, i'd love to cross reference this list of A-C+ players and see how they pan out. Also, its nice to see the indians at the top. Hope the phils 4 prospects counted for something. In reality, its just an opinion piece and thats ok by me.
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written by Benny B, January 20, 2010
Well, it is more than an opinion piece as actual stats and analysis are taking place. But you are correct in that it is not easy to project what a player will eventually be. A stud can flame out, and some dude can come out of nowhere. That being said, Sickle, Wang & Manning know their stuff.
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written by will.H, January 20, 2010
sounds like a law firm.

and even if they do know their stuff, how long did they take to do this study?
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written by team2beatmike, January 20, 2010
i only used the mets farm system in the minaya piece as something that could deserve some attention, not necessarily a problem. I don't think the Phillies have a good farm system, they never have. They just have good players at the top. And the fact that we just dealt 4 of our top guys has to be mentioned and makes a ton of sense.

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written by will.H, January 21, 2010
mike if you think about it, the number is 7
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written by Benny B, January 21, 2010
You touch on a very important/confusing point Mike/Will. Even if we accept the argument that Halliday is better than Lee, how much better is he really? 1, 2 wins? Why go and trade all of those prospects gutting your farm when all you had to do was fork over money? On top of that, wasn't Lee still under contract for another year? Sure the money to sign lee for 4-5 years could have hamstrung the club as far as future free agent signings, but I just don't see how that justifies gutting your farm system all to essentially move sideways/improve marginally.
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written by will.H, January 21, 2010
benny im assuming something happened during failed extension negotiations with cliff and his agent. Something made Ruben go out and aquire Roy who agreed to an immediate extension which might not have been possible with Lee.

Also, it can be argued that Roy Halladay is probaby one of the three best pitchers in baseball.. as well as the most durable. Also, its going to be hard to gauge Lee's wins in the NL to Roys wins in the NL considering Cliff only played a month or two here in the national league. I wonder what Halladay can do with a full 6 months.

Over/under 7 complete games?
Nice post
written by Joe MetsFan, January 27, 2010
Almost as good as the original post from Amazin' Avenue that this was copied from.

http://www.amazinavenue.com/20...-franchise

They said:

"Doug Gray at RedsMinorLeagues.com has compiled minor league valuations for every MLB franchise using John Sickels's preliminary prospect rankings (his Mets rankings are here), research by Victor Wang, and surplus value calculations by Erik Manning at Beyond the Boxscore."


You said:

"Doug Grey over at redsminorleagues.com comprised a ranking of franchise farm valuations using John Sickles preliminary prospect rankings, research by Victor Wang & surplus value calculations by Erik Manning from Beyond the Boxscore."


Theirs was published two full days before yours. Pretty blatant plagiarism there, Benny B.
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written by Benny B, February 02, 2010
@ Joe Mets Fan,

I love a good argument, especially from my own team. However, this is not one of them nor do I think you understand the definition of plagiarism. That's taking someone else's own original work and presenting it as your own. The first sentence of my entire post you are quoting is my source credit, which by definition is the exact opposite of plagiarism. Sorry my source quote was too close to AA's, however, I was trying to credit all the authors as accurately and succinctly as possible.
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