Future Forty Updated
So, I know it’s been too long, but the Future Forty has been updated once again. You can find the link over on the left hand side. As always, I’ve tinkered some.
The graphs from last time have gone away – sorry. They were, at this point, too much work and not enough reward. They might come back eventually. We’ll see.
I got rid of the somewhat ambiguous categories of prospect types and replaced them with affiliation level. Between the WAR/ETA columns listed for each player, you should be able to infer more information than a placement of “projected regular, a few years away”, and categorizing the prospects by level of play should give you a pretty good idea of how far from the majors a particular prospect is anyway. Plus, this makes the Future Forty a better reference guide for those who are looking at it to figure out who to watch when going to a minor league game, which is a nice side benefit.
The minor league rosters haven’t been decided on yet, by the way, so some of the placements are guesses. Triunfel could start out in High Desert, for instance. We’ll update these once the rosters become public.
Don’t worry about not having any prospects listed for the Aquasox – most of their prospects come from the draft, so it will start to fill out in June.
Some basic overall thoughts – the M’s probably have more prospects ticketed for Triple-A than any other club in baseball. For the most part, they aren’t high upside types, but the M’s have pretty significant depth at the highest level. If nothing else, the Rainiers should be pretty good this year, especially when you factor in some of the roster filler types are useful Triple-A players.
If Triunfel starts off in High Desert, that West Tennessee team is going to be barren.
Four of the best young pitching prospects in the system are ticketed for High Desert. Can’t wait until we get out of that place. On the bright side, Raben should have lots of fun there.
Overall, I think the M’s system is average-ish, compared to the rest of MLB. They probably won’t graduate many players this year, and they’ll have four picks in the top 50 during the draft this summer, so if the young arms stay healthy and progress, the M’s are easily looking at a top 10 system next year.
I know it is just me being lazy, but I’d love to see another column in the table with how and when we acquired the player.
Just wanted to pause and say thanks Dave! Appreciate the hard work as always.
Wow the war for Josh Fields kind of jumps out at ya…
Only three relievers posted a WAR of 2.5 or greater last season (Rivera, Papelbon, Fuentes)…. only ten bested a WAR of 2. You go Josh.
I’m sure this gets asked every year, but are WAR and ETA linked, here? I realize that ETA is when they’ll begin to contribute, but does contribute mean that will be the year they perform the listed WAR, if everything goes to plan? That is, barring unforseen circumstances, does Aumont project to be a 3.25 WAR player in 2011? Thanks for clearing this up, and thanks for all your hard work! Future 40 day is practically a holiday for me 🙂
What do you think of Hensley, Dave? I know it’s hard to predict his health, but BA, among others, peg him as a possible breakout candidate, while you don’t seem to be quite as high on him as you are on Lorin and Pribanic.
So is Shawn Kelley projected to be a 2 win player as a reliever? Because if I remember correctly you have to be an absolute relief ace and pitching in the 8th/9th to be worth that much (K-Rod last year, for example, was worth 1.8 wins).
Dave,
This seems to imply that Matt Tuiasosopo can be a league-average 3B later this year. Am I reading that right? I recall that in the past you haven’t had that high of an opinion of Tui. What’s changed?
There’s some good looking young men in the Mariner system right now. It’s nice to see that. And there are some high-upside guys down on the farm.
EDIT: And where are my manners? Thanks for doing this. This is the regular feature I most look forward to on USSM.
Only three relievers posted a WAR of 2.5 or greater last season (Rivera, Papelbon, Fuentes)…. only ten bested a WAR of 2. You go Josh.
If he can sort out his command, he’s got a good enough arm to be a relief ace.
I’m sure this gets asked every year, but are WAR and ETA linked, here?
WAR is explained in detail in the series I did at FanGraphs. You can find all those in the FanGraphs glossary. ETA is year when the player can begin to contribute, not when they hit their full value.
What do you think of Hensley, Dave?
I know a few people like him, but I don’t see it. The stuff is rather pedestrian, and the arm problems don’t help matters. I’d love to be wrong about him, but I think he’s getting a little more love than he should because he went through an NC school.
So is Shawn Kelley projected to be a 2 win player as a reliever?
There were a few incorrect WAR ratings for the relievers in Tacoma (thanks to copy and paste) – Kelley and Pena have both been fixed.
This seems to imply that Matt Tuiasosopo can be a league-average 3B later this year. Am I reading that right?
No – he might be able to a competent fill-in if they trade Beltre this year, but he’s still got some work to do to get to his +2 win potential.
Great stuff — now just change the date by the link to the left under “Reference Material” — it still says “11/6/08”.
You’re very high on Adam Moore, too. If Moore can step in and contribute at catcher, what becomes of Jeff Clement?
(Not that it’s a bad thing to have more than one catcher prospect.)
Yup, I understand WAR 🙂 Thanks for clearing this up…I am now interpreting “contributing” as being above replacement level, then. Someone please correct me if this is wrong.
Love the Future Forty. As always, thanks Dave for taking time to update it. It seems like the M’s have a plethora of 3B talent in the system at the moment, especially if it turns out that 3B is Triunfel’s best position. While in some ways it’s a nice problem to have, do you have an educated guess as to how these guys will sort themselves out in the next 2-3 years? In other words, who should we expect to win the coming competition there, and who among the losers is likely to remain with the team at another position?
This, along with the organizational ranking at Fangraphs, is invaluable to any Mariners fan. Thank you.
Michael Saunders stands out for me, given my preference for instant gratification. Should the M´s be including him in their planning for the outfield next year? How is his defence?
FWIW, Hensley isn’t in our Top 30.
You think Aumont’s only two years away?
That’s incredible. And exciting. That’s incredibly exciting.
I’m appalled that you didn’t even include the #11 prospect in the system 2 years running (according to BA). Clearly you have an anti-Dominican Republic bias.
Whups, sorry, I forgot we’re not on the fangraphs board.
BA’s coverage of the Mariners has really been sub-par lately. There’s almost nothing left to like about Peguero, but they continue to drool over his potential.
Now for my real question:
A few years ago, you wrote a post that reminded everyone that while spring training stats are meaningless, overall spring training performance is not. To that end, I’m wondering if you’ve heard any comments about Tuiasosopo’s performance. Do the scouting reports back up the stats? Tui is probably the only candidate on the Rainiers roster for any sort of breakout to a new level of performance, and it’s been nice to see him come out of the gate hitting the crap out of the ball.
Am I crazy for thinking you might be a little conservative on Adam Moore? Kenji was a 3.3 run player in 06. I’d like to think Moore at least has that kind of potential. No?
This is great, thanks Dave.
A request for anyone: for comparative purposes, I’d love to know what the relative WAR is for someone like Wieters. I tried over at Fangraphs but failed to locate it, so I must be doing something wrong.
“I’d love to know what the relative WAR is for someone like Wieters”
Mauer and Victor Martinez have put up multiple 5 win years from behind the dish. I’m guessing Wieters (the best catcher prospect in a while) is probably capable of those types of seasons.
Dave wrote about Wieters at Fangraphs, as did Ryan Glass in a Fantasy-oriented post. Fangraphs does have projections for him that give him a wOBA ranging from .349 to .401, which you could convert into runs (and from there into wins) if you knew how many plate appearances he’d get and what value to give him for fielding. Since nobody really knows how to evaluate defense for catchers, it’s a bit problematic. If we ignore fielding, and assume he’ll get called up relatively early in the season and see (say) 450 PAs, you get a range of 1-3 wins for his offensive contribution (assuming I did my math right and rounding up a bit in a lame attempt at including the Camden Yards park factor). You then want to add in the positional adjustment for catchers (3.5?) And given that he’s also supposed to be above-average behind the plate, he’s obviously worth more than that — and will be worth even more over a full season. And who knows, he could easily blow past those projections too.
The calculation of WAR from wOBA (as well as calculating wOBA) is found around paragraph 6 in Dave’s discussion from last year. So try doing the math yourself — it’s fun!
I was told there would be no math.
Sorry, that’s the revised WASL, and it won’t be out for a while yet.
What happened to Austin Bibens-Dierkx?
Is he still with the organization?
Bibens-Dirkx is still around, and still trying to recover after the organization had the bright idea to completely alter a motion that was working for him.