Baseball America’s 2005 Prospect Handbook has just been published and to coincide with its publication Jim Callis, Baseball America’s Executive Editor, agreed to step into Da Box for some prospect chat. Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook ranks the top 30 prospects for each major league team, 900 players in total, and is a “must-have” book for minor league fans. Subscribers to BA’s web site have been able to read scouting reports on the Blue Jays top ten prospects but you have to buy the book to read about numbers eleven through thirty.

The Prospect Handbook ranks minor league farm systems from one through thirty and in 2004 the Blue Jays were ranked at number eight. This year the Jays have dropped to number fifteen. The Handbook describes how organizations are ranked based on impact players and prospect depth. Most top prospect lists don’t have any Blue Jay prospects in the top 50 which supports the “lack of impact players” argument. On the other hand the depth of the Jays system appears to be very good, eight of the Jays top ten prospects are playing at AAA or AA. In addition the Jays number eleven prospect, Gabe Gross, is arguably better than many other teams sixth, seventh or eighth prospects.

The first question to Jim then was why number fifteen? Jim had the answer. “I don’t look at it being an equal balance between depth and impact because, ultimately, when you are talking about winning in the big leagues you win with impact players. Depth is nice to have and is important for filling in holes or using in trades. That is why the Blue Jays rank fifteenth. I agree their depth would rank higher than fifteenth and they have a nice group of solid type players but when you think of Carlos Delgado, who could hit 40 home runs a year, or Roy Halladay, they don’t have those high impact players. That is not a knock at their system, fifteenth is still good and to be honest the difference between fifteen and eight is not a huge wide gulf, but what the system lacks now is the true impact players that were a trademark of the Blue Jays system in the past.”

Baseball America is currently revealing their top one hundred prospects for 2005 and the Jays have three players ranked in the top 100: Aaron Hill is at number 64; Brandon League at number 69; and Guillermo Quiroz at number 79. Three Blue Jay prospects in the upper half of the list, and none in the top 60, supports BA’s organizational ranking. Although Jim did not say so, impact players are usually in the top 3 to 5 prospects for a team, so the organization rankings are based in the most part, on the quality of a teams top 3 to 5 prospects.

The Blue Jays feature many pitchers among their top prospects, and with pitchers progress being more unpredictable could this have lowered the Blue Jays rating? “Not so much”, Jim replied, “you just have to look at the pitchers on a case by case basis.”

Jim then ran through a snapshot of the Jays top prospects to support his case.

“Brandon League, maybe he is a closer, I like him, I see a guy with a great arm but he hasn’t blown away minor league hitters.

Francisco Rosario, I like him too, he has a good arm but has been hurt a lot.

David Purcey, like his arm too, but he has been very inconsistent in his college career.

Dustin McGowan has injury issues.

You don’t discount guys because they are pitchers but you go down the list and it’s hard to say there is a slam dunk number one or number two starter.”

Jim then turned to the hitters.

“I like Aaron Hill, good solid all-round player, I am not sure he is a guy you build your club around.

Guillermo Quiroz, good arm, some power in his bat, also not the best batting average or on-base guy.

Russ Adams, I like him, I see a solid major league player, more of a second base than a shortstop, but is he an all-star? But if you are looking for a guy to build your championship club around I am not sure if any of those guys fit the bill.”

Jim has given us a very clear explanation of the approach BA takes to prospect lists and rankings. Most Blue Jay fans would acknowledge that the Jays have few minor league stars in their organization, but the Jays make up for it in quantity. As Jim points out, quality is much more important than quantity to BA.

In 2005 the Jays had four minor league teams make the playoffs and, with the exception of Syracuse, all teams were strong. Some of the strength at the lower levels can probably be attributed to the Jays drafting of college players but organizational strength is not a valuable metric for BA’s rankings. “ For talent rankings we don’t look at it that much, when you draft a lot of college players you have a lot of 22 and 23 year old players, I don’t have numbers in front of me but I have to think that at low A, and High A the Jays had some of the older teams,” he said.

Drafts, JP and Development

The Blue Jays have had three drafts under the Ricciardi leadership, and the system appears to be deeper now, how does BA think the scouts have done? “They have brought good talent in and we did rank their 2002 draft as the best in baseball,” said Jim, “David Bush and Russ Adams have already made the big leagues, but you have to wait two or three years to really evaluate a draft.”

Jim went on to draw some historical parallels. “I did a draft study for BA for our college versus high school story, where I looked at the first ten rounds of the draft from 1990 to 1997, and the Blue Jays had brought in more talent than any other team. I think that’s a tough standard to live up to. Under Pat Gillick and Gord Ash they drafted high impact, high school players such as Halladay, Delgado, Stewart and Rios. The biggest difference is the new regime looks exclusively at college players and they are safer picks, and you have a better chance of getting some return on your investment, and you get a quicker return on your investment, but you lose the upside. You have a solid system but it’s more apt to plug holes than to generate stars that carry the team. I am not going to rip the new regime, and I like their system, but I think that is the big weakness right now.”

How does Jim evaluate the job JP has done so far? “I think it is very tough for JP to come in like he did and be told he has to slash payroll. I think in the next couple of years he has more financial freedom and he has more depth of prospects, and if he wants to he can trade two or three prospects for a big ticket guy some team is trying to unload. I will be honest when he first came in and made some trades and traded Billy Koch and made those other moves I thought the moves made sense, and even last year his moves made some sense and although I didn’t think the Jays were going to overtake the Red Sox and Yankees but I thought on paper the team looked pretty good. I don’t think it’s fair to second guess someone when I agreed with the moves in the first place, it’s not like he gave a $12 million contract to some guy who stunk.”

“I thought Hentgen was cheap, and I thought Phelps would be better and I though Batista would pitch better and I wasn’t alone, the Jays were a dark horse team this time last year. I don’t think they are any contracts handcuffing them on the roster now.” Jim continued to be supportive, with a touch of humour. “He has had tough decisions to make and he made them, and I know he will rest easy knowing I agree with him.”

Drafts have been evaluated in BA and in Batters Box, but player development between the draft and the major leagues is a black hole and do organizations differ in their success after the players have been drafted? Jim believes that all organizations are not created equally but the results are very difficult to measure. “I know people credit the A’s because of Mulder, Zito and Hudson but they have had their share of arm injuries. Yes it does make a difference, the Braves have been successful in developing young high school arms but other organizations haven’t. Look at Carlos Delgado or Vernon Wells. How much of that talent was there when they were signed or how much credit do you give to player development? It used to be the Red Sox had a bad reputation but they developed Clemens and Boggs during that time. On the other hand there are probably some players whose careers were ruined because they could not help them grow or their arm were blown out.”

Jim knows of one team that tried to understand this better. “I know the Red Sox did a study of minor league coaches and how players improved under their watch for the year. No one knows what they found but it is hard to reach a conclusion.”

Jim mentioned a funny angle. “When an organization goes bad, and they have a bad farm system, and you ask the scouting side, they say we brought in good players, they just screwed them up in development. Then the coaching staff will say we’ve done our best, we can’t do anything with these guys.”

Blue Jay Prospects

Jim provided some Baseball America perspective on several Blue Jay prospects.

“The hardest guys for me to evaluate are players such as Brandon League, great stuff, tremendous velocity, good movement, but he has never struck out more than a hitter an inning. If you look at his stuff you say he could be a closer but it bothers me when guys don’t blow away hitters in the minor leagues. But pitchers can always change so you can never be sure.”

“Gustavo Chacin has better hit rate than League but looking at his stuff you would never guess it. His best pitch is his cutter that doesn’t blow guys away, it just gets them to hit ground balls. Chacin, given that it was his fourth year of AA, and given the lack of a true out pitch, could be more of a reliever than a starter.”

“We have Jamie Vermilyea at number 21, wondering realistically what his role is, great strikeout to walk ratio, not the hardest guy to hit, sinker, slider, curveball, cutter. His movement and control are his best attributes, doesn’t have a true out pitch, and because of that he won’t be a closer, or a starter.”

“Gabe Gross was ranked number eleven, it was a case where there were other guys we liked more. It is not an exact science, you could take him over Chacin or Banks and some would. The issue is whether he will show the power the Jays expected. He has a habit of getting ahead in the count and it almost looked like he was looking to walk, he has to show more power.”

“Jason Arnold did not make the list.“

“John Ford Griffin was close to the bottom. When Griffin was drafted by the Yankees it looked like a great pick for them. He realistically will be a left fielder at best, more likely a DH, and has not hit well enough, although last year he hit for more power but struck out a lot. He is an interesting guy, when he was drafted stats guys liked him but tools guys weren’t as convinced, and looks like tools guys won that one.”

“John Hattig is also down towards the bottom of our list and I have evaluated the Red Sox (for the Prospect Book) for a number of years and I am familiar with him. I don’t see him as a third baseman, he is probably not as good as Hinske at third, but when you put him at first you need more hitting from him. I see him as a bench player, might not hit enough to play every day, but considering they got him for Terry Adams it was a good pickup. “

“We had Yuber Rodriguez at number twelve, he is tough to rank because if you look at pure ceiling he might be the best power, speed guy in the system but he is the farthest away.”

“Vito Chiarravalloti, Ron Davenport, Raul Tablado, Miguel Negron, I am not sure if any of those guys are big league regulars. I know the FSL has big parks but for Vito to hit fourteen homers at age 23 in High A, you have to do better than that for a first baseman. Davenport did well but you have to repeat it. Negron might have had the best year of his career but would have to do more than that to keep going up. Tablado did have a nice year, K/BB ratio was not great, you wonder if it could be exploited at higher levels. All those guys need to get better, some guys you say they need to maintain their performance but these guys need to get better.”

The ranking of Yuber Rodriguez at number twelve, right behind Gabe Gross, shows how the BA lists are put together. As Jim stated Yuber has a big upside, but Yuber played in rookie ball as a 20 year old this year and is ranked just behind a player who had 129 at-bats in the big leagues. As Jim stated it all comes back to potential.

The Baseball America Top Prospect List

The BA list has Michael Levesque’s name on it, but how much of a role does Michael have compared to the rest of the editorial staff at BA? “Michael does the leg work, he will talk to people in the system, scouts and others outside the system. Some organizations will tell you their internal rankings others won’t, I am not sure how much direction the Jays people gave Michael. Michael puts together his list then John Manuel and I review it and give feedback to Michael. We could say “what about this guy over that guy”, or “I like this guy better than that guy”. Michael does most of the work and we make suggestions.”

As was noted at the top the Prospect Handbook is now shipping. If you order the book directly from BA the book should be shipped right away. If you want to order from Amazon you can reduce your shipping cost (free if you buy another book to bring your order to $39) but the book will take longer to get to you. The book will also be available soon in major bookstores.

A huge Batters Box thank you to Jim Callis. His explanations provided excellent insight into how Baseball America puts together their top prospect lists and how they approach ranking the Blue Jay’s system. Don’t forget to buy the book!

Finally remember that top prospect lists cannot foretell how a prospect will perform once he faces major league opposition. The Blue Jays and their fans hope that the Blue Jays depth of prospects develop into impact players at the major league level.