I couldn't find a thread where this theoretical point would have made sense...

The Red Sox find themselves in a relatively unique position that only a few teams in major league baseball share. Because the Sox are almost always one of the best teams in baseball, I think they have to take a very different approach to player drafting and development than other teams in the league. For mid-market teams like the Royals, Devil Rays, or even the A's, they need all the help they can get from their system. I constantly hear the term "major league ready talent" banteed about by the sisters of the poor franchises in MLB, when trade time comes around. Well I believe the Sox rarely, if ever, need major league ready talent... they instead need to develop and aquire "future impact player talent". Furthermore, when evaluating their own system, they need to indetify who is likely to ever have a shot of helping the Red Sox, and who could help another team with lower standards.

Now and in the future, when the Sox evaluate their system and look to aquire new talent in the draft, they must look beyond middle-tier talent. Take Freddy Sanchez for instance... (we'll consider him a SS as well as 2B because theoretically that is where he would have more value to a franchise). Now Freddy has the chance to become a regular player in this league, but the question is whether he would have been good enough to be a Red Sox for a long period of time.

Whenever, the Sox decide whether or not to move or aquire a player they have ask themselves, "Is this guy a future Nomar or a future David Eckstein?". A guy like Nomar is a great value to any team, especially the Sox... but a guy like Eckstein, while a pretty good player, is much more valuable to the Angels than the Sox. The people of Boston, IMHO, would not be satisfied with Eckstein as the starting SS for a lengthy period of time. The people of Anaheim, apparently are fine with that. The Sox should have, and hopefully did, run that sort of analysis with Sanchez. Sanchez will likely by in the bigs for a while, but it is highly debatable if he'll ever be an all-star.

Any prospect that comes up with the Sox would have to leapfrog the likes of Johnny Damon or Trot Nixon or David Ortiz... and guys like that aren't very common. I'm not saying we should just purge the farm system... but should we, and do we give these matters proper consideration when evaluating and making trades.

So my question is... Does this approach make sense to you all?

If so where do we classify the likes of Youkilis, Shoppach, H. Ramirez, Lester, Anastacio Martinez etc... and more importantly are they tradeable commodies or valuable members of the future Red Sox?

I would say that the Sox need to be looking at the value of their farm system in terms of the ability to acquire talent at the Major League level first, and less about prospects actually helping the parent club. Most prospects never amount to anything in the big leagues; I'm sure if OCJ finds this thread he will atest to that. Because we have the money to retain a high quality major league roster and to overspend on the draft and international scouting, we need to make the most of our competitive advantage and pool these resources to providing the best major league roster, not the best pool of possible future regulars. This doesn't mean trade EVERYONE for ANYONE, but if you have a deal on the table to bring an ace like Schilling to Boston, you have to lean towards pulling the trigger. Pitchers like Fossum/Lyon/DLR are ready to contribute at the major league level. I'm sure they will have fine careers, but can you see these guys being anything beyond the 11th/12th man in the Sox pen for years to come? Schilling is a much more valuable player to us than the future careers of these three.

I think that's part of the reasoning for going college-heavy in the draft. These guys become ML-ready faster and thus our system can continue to result in trades for the next few years. I think once more of our college draftees begin making an impact, maybe the pendulum will swing back towards HS players a little bit with hopes of drafting actual impact players for the Sox. The problem with this is that it's a higher risk / higher reward. However, we have the resources, so why not take advantage of it.

Thoughtful posts, gentlemen. My compliments.

The functioning of the minor-league system+ can be partitioned into a number of activities;(1) Drafting, (2) Player development, (3) Transaction strategy.

In terms of drafting, I think Theo et al. are ~Beane in terms of decisional focus on performance rather than "player tools". That leads them to be wary of high-school prospects who have a time-wise minimal performance record. (A benefit of this approach is that players tend to move through minor-league system more rapidly). In terms of player development, the SOX follow a Branch Rickey type, Dodgers type "model" where there is a genuine organization/team philosophy or approach. Patient hiitters are valued; pitchers with command -who throw strikes - are valued. In terms of transaction strategy, and we have no data to date on Theo's picks, I'm confident that Theo will include prospects, and early-career folk with small salaries, readily in trades.
As an almost certain contender in 2004+, the SOX will presumably be constantly seeking to place players on the roster who can contribute immediately.

B-Cape hit the nail on the head with his insight on the organizational philosophy, which can be simplified down to two stats... OBP, and K/BB... of course that is an over-simplification. So just as important as "will the player be good enough to play in Boston?" is the question, "How does the player fit in with the organizational philosophy?"

Perfect example: Kevin Youkilis. Is anyone out there projecting this guy to be anything more than an Eric Hinske or Cory Koskie type third baseman? And that might be best case scenario. But because of his supreme patience, he has not been moved. This is what is important in Theo's eyes. I hope Youk gets on base a lot.

So do you guys think that as the '03 class plugs some of the leaks in the system, and future college picks hopefully ascend quickly, that we will see more of a balance in the future in terms of HS and college picks? Also we can group international signings with HS picks.

My opinion is that this is likely to happen; for now we have to rejuvinate the system and seek players that present trade options ASAP -- low ceiling, quick risers. I think that will become very apparent this year as we watch many of the '03 class move to High A and AA, yet recieving very few accolades as typical "top" prospects. However, Theo and the trio want a "$100M player-development machine" and you have to figure that part of having the advantage of resources is the ability to expend these in order to go after high-risk/reward type players that can actually benefit the parent club. However, implementing this strategy immediately could be an awful idea because it has the potential to leave us with very few tradeable players at the deadline. Thoughts?

Respectfully, not using your farm system for the benefit of the parent team would not be wise. Why would you use these young men to benefit other teams when you haven't really tested them out in the higher levels? Minor leaguers drafted out of college have 4-5 years to make it to the show or be traded in order to beable to make it. Other teams push less talented players up to the show and with good results. Is it that we have too much talent in our minor league system? Trade the players from the minor league system quickly to help the Sox and help the players that are traded. Your thoughts?

Ah but it's a fine line an organization like the Red Sox has to walk.

Building a minor league base is critical to teams such as the Royals and Devil Rays, who clearly need to work on smaller payrolls-- their farm system is their main import for players, and since the success level of draftees is far from 100%, the greater the amount of talent in their farm system, the greater the chances of pushing through productive major league players in a given year.

For "win now" teams like the Sox, Yankees, and Mets, there's a certain medium one must reach. A team for instance cannot sustain itself over the long-term with no farm system whatsoever (barring very, very shrewd acquisitions on the free agent market). Meanwhile, a team with a sizable payroll has a tough time selling seats when it will not upgrade the major league roster at the expense of maintaining an overabundant farm system. This is not an effective use of resources. You are not using the "prospects" to make your team better currently, and when these prospects are to be major league players, you now have a smaller payroll, which is nice to have, but if you have the monetary resources, is far from a necessity in today's baseball climate.

I still like the balance the Sox have right now. Granted they have a couple holes they failed to fill through free agency, but the farm system seems to be at that happy medium. If we turned down the Beckett trade because we wanted to keep Hanley, one would have to inquire about the philosophy of the team. (No different of course, that if we turned around Marte for Gathright)

I think this team needed to go after college players in the first couple of drafts to quickly fill in our farm system but this last draft saw many more hs players like blue, bowen get picked earlier. Of our first 8 picks 4 were hs players. Some of these hs kids are a gamble to many teams because of signing issues but this is where the redsox can standout. Like Rozier before, an excellent hs player that has college as his negotiating ploy to work out more money from us, other teams left him alone and he dropped several rounds. Hansen last year dropped to us because of his agent, this is what we need to use to our advantage. By all means work the international free agent market for the next pujols as many teams on tighter budgets scale back on their foreign prescence. The plan should be to use all means possible.

Nothing is more exciting than the anticipation of the next stud player either pitching or playing the field brought up from the farm, players we watched advanced each level getting closer each year. I am dying to see Lester someday shutout the mfy at the toilet. Hansen saving game 7 of the WS and giving the ball to the redsox. Marte hitting a homerun to beat the mfy.....

I'm always glad to see the Sox draft from D-1 schools. These young men have had more experience and are ready to step in and play excellent ball. The HS drafts are good, but you must see that the experience is just not quite there, maturity wise. I like to see ball players that are here to play ball,ready to advance and have the maturity and knowledge to beable to accomplish this.

There are two problems with this though:
1) The high upside college players don't last. If you've got good numbers and good upside, you're gone (barring a Hansen like salary drop).
2) The remaining players have skills, but not upside. It's nice to have guys like Abe Alvarez to fill out you're minor league teams and give you an okay trading chip, but they probably won't emerge as a star, or even a MLB regular. Most high end talent comes either from college guys taken early, or high school players. It's much rarer to find a college guy taken late in the draft who emerges to become anything worthwhile.

Why don't you think that the high upside college players don't last? Where are they going? They were drafted to play ball and in the show. Your thoughts? The remaining players have skills,but not upside,who are you talking about? HS players or college draftees? Playing in the minors is good ball,but I'm pretty certain that all of the players that are drafted want to make the big time. There are sleepers that are drafted late,sometimes because they have choosen to stay for their senior year,etc. If given the chance I think that alot of the late draftees would make better,more stable,more useable players. You don't get to the minors if you have nothing to show. Do you think that Hansen will stay a red sox long?

I think what Abe means is that college players with huge upsides don't last beyond the first round, and those taken later are less likely to be impact players at the big league level. At least that's how I understand what he's saying. I see his point, but there are always exceptions.

Interesting theory,but why wouldn't the later drafted player be as good if not better? The draft is a crap shoot at times and sleepers can come from the later draftees. Your thoughts?

Pertaining to the Red Sox Prospects, how are the position players coming according to the first day of minor league spring training?

Spring Training for the minor league players is going on. It's not as easy to get some information on how each player is doing. How and where can I get some information?

That's what I meant. The guys that you can really expect to do well, who have a college track record of excellence along with a known upside (think Stephen Drew) never last. For the most part, beyond the handful of guys like that each year, who rarely last beyond the Top Ten (Craig Hansen like signability guys being the most common exception), you're largely just taking guesses. It's not the NFL, you don't really have a good idea of what to expect from anyone.


Well, on the first point, I'd say common sense dictates that for the most part, guys taken later will be worse than guys taken early. In the 1st round at least, beyond that the baseball draft is basically a crapshoot as you say.

The main point, is that in the later rounds you have an absolutely enormous amount of guys with similiar numbers, scouting reports, and probable upsides. There is almost no way to know which of them will ultimately succeed, because they are all so similiar. Beyond the 1st round, drafting "strategy" isn't particularly complicated. This isn't the NFL, where you've scouted guys and have a pretty good idea of what they can accomplish. In the MLB, you've got a giant list of players, and you're basically just choosing them according to your draft philosophy (the Sox's for instance places a premium on catchers, or at least it did last year). Sleepers are just lucky picks. Most guys who succeed are just lucky picks. It's basically that easy.


Redsox.com? ESPN? Just look.

I was just down there for a few days, and there isn't much information to share regarding how guys are doing. They haven't started spring games yet, and drills don't really tell you much. Outside of Mitch Stachowsky recovering from mono and a pitcher or two dealing with minor arm fatigue, everything seems pretty ordinary. Everyone I talked to seemed anxious for some real action.

Since spring training is going to wind down in a few days, what are the thoughts about having so many players stacked up? It's great being a Red Sox fan.

[font=Tahoma][b][color=#3333FF] I think ADAM STERN is the hottest prospect but we sent him down to pawtucket. That was a few days ago and we have lost every game since. Sometimes we need someone who takes chances, does the spontaneous thing and is so enthusiastic that he takes impossible opportunities to win the game for his team. At bats is just fine, but I think winning each game with a super human save is more important. Its the DRAMA and the Excitement I want to see, that last caught ball that wins the game. One day soon, Tony and Theo will see that without STERN, they just cant get it done. Sure, a player has to play by the rules, BUT SOME RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN. I hope I see him later in the season, seasoned and ready to be the Lucky Charm he already is.

I'm not outta order! You're outta order! The whole freakin' system's outta order! You want the truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! 'Cause when you reach over and stick your hand into a pile of goo that used to be your best friend's face, you'll know what to do! Forget it, Marge — it's Chinatown!