Hadn’t Looked At It That Way Before…

Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook will be out later this month or in early February (and is a MUST own for the well-informed baseball fan – I still pick mine up at least once a day), and the Royals will own the obvious distinction of the top ranking among minor league systems.

We knew that was coming back around July.

But Jim Callis responded to an interesting question, and his answer was surprising. Not in a bad way but more in that “Wow. I…can’t believe I hadn’t noticed that before” way.

First, the question itself:

Let’s say the Royals system was split into two groups. One has all of the prospects who have been acquired over the past year via the draft, international signings and trades. The other has all the prospects acquired before that. What would each group’s Top 10 look like?

From www.baseballamerica.com (share this quote)

Say what you want about Dayton Moore’s ability to set up a major league roster, but if The Process doesn’t work out for Kansas City and he ultimately gets fired, he’s got about a three second wait before his phone starts ringing to be someone’s head of player development or assistant GM. The guy can find young talent.

If the Royals had not been allowed to make any trades, draft picks or international signings in 2010, their top ten, according to Callis, would look like this:

1. Eric Hosmer
2. Wil Myers
3. Mike Moustakas
4. John Lamb
5. Mike Montgomery
6. Danny Duffy
7. Chris Dwyer
8. Aaron Crow
9. Yordano Ventura
10. Tim Melville

Even if Melville never figures out his control issues and Ventura never makes it past Double A, even if a couple of the young lefties are struck down by injury, that’s a very good top 10.

In 2010 alone, Dayton Moore drafted, signed or traded for this list:

1. Christian Colon
2. Jake Odorizzi
3. Jeremy Jeffress
4. Brett Eibner
5. Jason Adam
6. Tim Collins
7. Humberto Arteaga
8. Orlando Caxite (formerly known as Paul Carlixte – yeah I’m confused too)
9. Elisaul Pimentel
10. Luke May

Is that as strong as the first group?  Not really.  It’s not that close.  The top six aren’t dramatically behind, though.  Eibner, Adam and Collins are teeming with upside, while Colon and Jeffress are pretty safe, solid picks.  Odorizzi is about a 10-20% improvement on his secondary pitches away from being a very solid right-handed pitching prospect.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that second group alone could be in the middle of the pack.

In one year, Dayton Moore took a stacked farm system and added the equivalent of at least an average system’s top 10.  Now that’s a pipeline of talent.

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