Here are the definitive 2021 CPL farm system rankings, courtesy of yours truly and with the help of my computer. For more insight, go listen to the podcast I recently did with Tommy and Ben.

Prospect valuation

My infamous, data driven prospect evaluation scheme. It controls everything I do for my team. Of course, I used it here to value every team’s farm system. Here’s how it works.

I collect scouting grades from several major sources. This includes tool grades as well as overall prospect grades. I consolidate and weigh them based on my preferences. Anyone who has been paying attention over the last 3 years will know I weight hit tool the most, and anything Keith Law says as the least. This spits out a big picture number which I just call FV (future value).

This is all typical so far. Where I usually diverge is this next step. I then take minor league performance over the past three years. I look at several key statistics which are the best indicators of future major league performance. I compare them to both league average for their level, and also relative to their age to get a JAOV (Jeffersons Apparent Offensive Value) score. This JAOV gets mapped to FV, a 120 JAOV is equivalent performance to a 60FV player. A 100 JAOV is equivalent to a 50FV player. JAOV from the past three years and the previous FV get mashed together into JASS (Jeffersons Adjusted Scouting Score).

To run a brief example, prior to the 2020 season, Brandon Marsh had a consolidated prospect FV=58.5. This is strictly based on inputs from all the major scouting sources. He had a 2019 JAOV=128, ie he played 28% better than the typical prospect at AA that year. That JAOV bumps up his JASS to 61.1, so I treated him as an equivalent 61.1FV prospect. For the purposes of valuing farms, I convert everything into first round pick value. This is something that is easy for most owners to quickly wrap their head around. Below is the formula I use, which is a best fit equation to somewhat subjective data points. An 80FV prospect is worth about 8 first round picks, mostly based on recent Wander Franco trades and the Otani purchase back in the day. 55FV prospects are worth a single first, because that is where they get drafted. 40FV prospects are worth basically nothing, because they are freely available to be picked up in-season.

The Farms

Lets get to the good stuff. Most of you probably scrolled right here anyways. It is really simple from this point, just add all the prospect valves together. The first table is just raw bulk value of everyone’s prospects. Again, this is based on equivalent 1^st round pick value. In theory, Pat could trade the entirety of his farm for 48.8 first round picks, 25.5 of which would come from hitters and 23.3 from pitchers.

Have I assembled the most fearsome array of hitting prospects that this league has ever seen? Yes, yes I have. Do I also have a top group of pitching prospects? Absolutely, ranked #7 by pitching prospect value. Is Pats farm technically more valuable than mine? Sure, but its close.

The best way to look at this is tiers. Pat and I are on another level playing 4D chess at this point. Zo is sitting solidly at #3. Eric, Fred, Rem, and Cale are basically interchangeable at 4 thru 7. While those four have wildly different MLB teams, they all have excellent farm systems to be excited about. Shue, Vince, Dan, and Ray make up the next tier with interesting and respectable systems. Tom has a slight lead over the bad tier of him, Nelly, and Carroll. To maintain the analogy, JK and Brian might be playing tic-tac-toe with almost nothing good to say about their minors.

I want to see more numbers

Of course you do. Here is a ranking based on only the top 30 players in each system. Because of how my system favors the top end already, there is not much change. I also included the average FV (its actually the average JASS) of the top 30 in each farm, as well as the average for the entire farm. Max FV is the JASS score of your #1 prospect.

What about draft picks?

I’ve found it strange how future draft picks are never discussed when talking farms. After all, future picks are just nameless prospects. I ran some numbers to look at that too. The big caveat is I used an extremely simplified system to value picks. Any future 1^st round pick, regardless of year or expected position, is worth “1”. Any 2^nd round pick for any year, any team, is worth 0.5. A 3^rd is 0.25, etc etc. I am well aware of the flaws in this system, so Cale does not need to text me talking about Erics 2023 1^st being more valuable than most other 1^sts.

The rich get richer. Not even Zo can match my stockpile of future draft picks. This difference easily puts my farm value above Pat for the clear #1 spot. Not a ton of other movement here, just some reshuffling of the tiers. The usual suspects are hoarding all of the picks, with also the usual suspects not caring much about picks. The strange exception in my mind is Dan, who is holding a ton of pick value. I do not expect this to continue past the trade deadline.

Hope you enjoyed the read! As always, any questions or comments can be texted/emailed to me. Any complaints can be sent via certified mail to Rob Manfred.

-Jefferson Leach, Chief Prospect Nerd, Banocolates Inc.