AL East Farm System Review

Final installment of my farm system review. And the longest one yet. Makes sense when you’re writing up 3 of the top 5 farms in one post.

Due to popular demand, a quick recap:

HM = honorable mentions, or “farm fodder” depending on my mood
LT = Lottery tickets (long shots to be more than an MLB bench bat, or even make it to the majors)
DC = Depth charters (literally prospects that only showed up on the BA depth charts in their respective orgs)
S = Scrubs (prospects who weren’t in the BA book, depth chart or otherwise

I will be doing both a break down and a 100 Characters section for this installment.

And as always, questions, comments, confusion or complaints, leave ’em below.

Banocolates:

HM: Taylor Walls, Blake Rutherford, Luis Gonzalez, Moises Gomez, Peyton Burdick, Tahnaj Thomas, Cristian Javier, Nick Neidert, Michael King, Keegan Akin, Adbert Alzolay, Dane Dunning, Andres Gimenez, Gabriel Rodriguez, Travis Swaggerty, Victor Victor Mesa, Mauricio Dubon

LT: Nick Pratto, Anderson Tejeda, Cole Winn, Austin Allen, Garrett Stubbs, Omar Estevez, Anthony Alford, Rylan Bannon, Wander Javier, Terrin Vavra, Jose Siri, Victor Bericoto, Benyamin Bailey, Robert Dugger, Damon Jones, Cody Stashak, Yu-Cheng Change, Riley Pint

DC: Willie MacIver, Eli White, Vince Fernandez, Ronnie Dawson, Buddy Reed, Matt Hall, Yadier Alvarez, Jacob Nix

S: Trevor Oaks, Joe McCarthy, Cal Stevenson, Franklin Labour, David Paulino, Josh Taylor

Breakdown:
Just, give me a moment to catch my breath…..
Full disclosure, I refuse to apologize for any typo’s in the Banocolates farm system. There’s just too god damned many for me to check for typos. We get it Jeff, you are physically capable of owning 80 prospects. That doesn’t mean you should.
Ok, on to the actual breakdown.

Robert is the clear #1 on just about any farm, and most would slot Lux into the #2 spot. Pache, Waters and Marsh are more glove first, but still deserve respect in their own right.

Incredibly, you have to go down to Banocolates 23rd prospect before you enter the “Farm Fodder” section of their farm. On the way down the list you come across a who’s who of safe, close to the majors, defensive oriented prospects. The bottom 3 of his top 25 are where the Farm Fodder starts, but he still manages to populate another 17 prospects at the same level in the honorable mentions section. Highlights include Andres Gimenez.
But wait, there’s more! 20 Lottery tickets! Highlighted by Austin Allen, Anthony Alford, Wander Javier, Yu-Cheng Chang and Riley Pint. And for some reason, Banocolates has even managed to keep around 6 more scrubs who few MLB teams have even heard of. None of these guys are worth remembering, but David Paulino is always worth a highlight.
Banocolates top 25 could reasonably produce 14 MLB players, 10 of which could be impact players.

The rest of his farm ain’t stopping there and could support the Banocolates team with 21 MORE MLB players, of which, 6 could be impact guys.
I’ll say this again, exhausting.

100 characters:
Too many damned prospects, most of which seem pretty decent, I guess. Also, buy an arm already Jeff!

Fajita Eaters:

HM: Riley Thompson, Lewis Thorpe, Lewin Diaz, Trevor Rogers, Blayne Enlow, Alex Faedo, Eric Pardinho, Tim Cate

LT: Jonathan Bowlan, MJ Melende, Sam Hentges, Antonio Gomez, Brian Miller, Anthony Banda, Beau Burrows, Oliver Ortega, Andy Young, D.J. Peters, Bubba Thompson, Luke Raley, Josh Stowers, Luis Medina

DC: Forrest Wall, Cole Ragans, Stephen Gonsalves, Mason Englert, Kevin Maitan,

S: Trent Gimabrone, Pierce Johnson

Breakdown:
Ok, now this is a manageable farm system. Thank you for the consideration, Ben.

Fajita Eaters’ top 3 can probably match even the Banocolates’ top 3. Adell, Luzardo and Rodgers are a solid start without a doubt. And unlike the Banocolates, there’s an arm somewhere in the top 20. Casas and Bohm round up Fajita Eaters blue chipper hitters, while Whitley, SWR and Hall round out the arms.

Not quite as deep as Banocolates, you still don’t find farm fodder until you go down to #21, and pass up on the likes of Solak, Morejon, and Taveras along the way.

The farm fodder fills out the last 5 spots of the top 25 and goes a reasonable number of players into the Honorable Mentions section, highlighted by Bobby Bradley, Yamaguchi and Eric Pardinho.

The Fajita Eater’s lottery tickets, with a reasonable depth of 15 players are highlighted by Banda, Thompson and Stowers. The rest of the farm is filled out with has-beens, all of which are of equal has-beenery.

Fajita Eater’s top 25 could reasonably produce 14 MLBers with 9-10 impact players. The rest of his farm could generate 12 more MLBers, of which 4 could be impact players.

100 characters:
Still a lot of prospects, but more reasonable I guess. And this 1 could actually produce a rotation.

G.I. Zo’s:

HM: Nick Schnell, Corey Ray, Tony Santillan, Devin Smeltzer

LT: Victor Mesa Jr., Jared Walsh, Connor Wong, Jeferson Quero, Maikol Escotto, Travis Blankenhorn, Kevin Alcantara, Colin Barber, Trey Supak, Alec Bettinger, Connor Menez, Wenceel Perez, Blaze Alexander, D’Shawn Knowles, Greyson Jenista, Jack Herman, James Marinan

DC:Richard Palacios, Rodolfo Castro, Dermis Garcia, Cody Thomas, George Feliz, Tanner Dodson, Yerry Rodriguez, Cody Ponce, Lucas Erceg, Buddy Kennedy, Yunior Severino, Tristan Pompey, Alvin Guzman

S: Angel Rojas, Alexfri Planez, Brayan Medina, Osiel Rodriguez, Mike Nikorak, Danny Hultzen

Breakdown:
Similar to Fajita Eaters and Banocolates, plenty of blue chippers in the G.I.Zo’s franchise. Most would probably list Jasson as the #1, although Kelenic and Skubal are plenty respectable, and I’ve had a soft spot for Kristian Robinson for years now. The farm fodder starts at #15 after further passing on the likes of Toglia, Dennis Santana, Perdomo and Crouse. Farm fodder continues to the end of the G.I.Zo’s top 25, and continues with 4 more players in the Honorable Mentions, highlighted by Pauson, Greg Jones and Erick Pena.

17 Lottery tickets on the farm with such names as Vicor Mesa Jr., Trey Supak, Alec Bettinger and Blaze Aleander. 13 more prospects listed on Depth Charts such as the likes of Dermis Garcia, Dodson, Ponce and Erceg. Lastly, rounding out the G.I.No Go’s are Mike Nikorak and 5 other scrub level prospects.

The G.I.Zo’s top 25 farm system could reasonably produce 14 MLB players, upwards of 9 of which could be impact players. The rest of his farm could produce a further 15-16 MLB players with a further 3 impact players.

100 Characters:
Early returns looking good for the most recent ALE rebuild. Banocolates 2.0? Or Raging Ferrets 3.0??

Tom Cat’s:

HM: None:

LT: Lucius Fox, Steele Walker, Jared Oliva, Luis Barrera, Tyler Phillips, Edwin Uceta, Jonathan Arauz

DC: Ricardo Genoves, Pedro Gonzalez, Kyle Zimmer, Daniel Brito, Jacob Gonzalez, Drew Ellis, Arquimedes Gamboa, Chavez Young, Quentin Holmes

S: Jose Mujica

Breakdown:
The weakest farm system by a comfortable margin in the AL East. With a total of 5 prospects above the Farm Fodder level, there’s just not as much punch behind this list of players. I mean, I think Varsho and Beck are very underrated, but I may be biased. The fodder occupies spots 6 through 15 with such future stars as Cavaco, Misner and Josh Lowe. Lottery tickets follow, and there’s a fair amount of them beyond the final 10 spots of the top 25, with an extra 7 in the LT section. Marcano, Morel and Sam Carlson are players everyone should be keeping a close eye on. 10 players remaining total between the DC and S sections, and how could we not mention Kyle Zimmer in all of his injury prone glory.

The Tom Cat’s top 25 farm system could produce 12-13 MLB players, of which 5-6 could be impact players. The rest of the farm may produce as many as 6 MLB players, of which 1 might become an impact player.

100 characters:
Yawn. Boring. Who cares? After looking at 3 top tier systems, it’s hard to get excited about this 1.