You may have seen Luhnow’s recent conversation with Joe Strauss. Luhnow went on the defensive regarding the latest prospect rankings out there, most of which have been thrashing his farm system. Specifically he called out Keith Law, saying -
‘I’ll put our analysis up against Keith Law’s all day long and after five minutes the debate will be over.’
‘Now we know: Not only do the Cardinals need better prospects, they need better analysts, too.’
In defense of Luhnow, Joe Strauss isn’t nicknamed El Diablo without reason. He has made no bones about his doubts in Luhnow’s ability to draft top-shelf talent. It could be Strauss has got under his skin, and as a card-carrying member Hyperventilating Prospect Geek Fraternity, I understand. I say this tongue-in-cheek. From my dealings with Strauss over twitter, he can be condescending and just plain ornery at times, but overall he’s pretty reasonable and I’d say is a good guy. (I can’t believe I just typed that!) I’m glad he speaks his mind, even if I don’t always agree.
But it’s not just Keith Law that is dumping on the Cardinals’ farm system. Everyone is. Baseball America, Kevin Goldstein, John Sickels, you name it. The system is understandably down after all the trades, trades that helped the Cardinals win a pennant. What Luhnow should be saying, while being careful not to knock his players, is “When I took this job, the Cardinal farm system was ranked near the bottom of the pack every year. We made some trades that helped our team win the NL Central, and we could not have done that without our ability to draft and acquire top-end talent. I am confident that within time, that I can again rebuild the farm system back to respectability. I’ve done it before”.
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If Luhnow thinks that the system is ranked above 25 in MLB, he’s looking at the system with rose colored glasses.
Another way of defending the system is to admit that we are currently bereft of type A prospects, probably more bereft than almost all other teams. You could also point out that most type A prospects don’t pan out as type A major leaguers and then get into the wealth of ready and almost ready B to C plus prospects in our system who are waiting to fill the few gaps in the roster that the Cardinals have. One could argue that our system might be more useful to the Cardinals in their current situation than many other team’s systems would be. We have a wealth of infield and outfield reserve prospects and some good back of the rotation prospects. The only big gap right now that I see is that we really need some closer prospects and need them soon.
Well, it seems to me that he’s looking through rose-colored glasses, but on the other hand Luhnow has tons more info than any of us do.
We – and many analysts like Sickels and Law – know so little about an entire half of the farm system – the recent draft picks and all those the Latin guys. I just don’t see how any outside analyst can have such a strong degree of confidence in an organizational rating given this reality. Luhnow is probably overconfident in his internal ranking, but if that’s true then Law is *definitely* overconfident in his ranking.
I agree that there’s alot in the lower levels of the system (anything below QC really) that could turn out to be good. That said the attrition rate for those players are astronomical and if the 4 full season clubs are bereft of talent, your still probably evaluating 95% of the likely future MLBers in the system. So he may have more info on short season or latin players but that shouldn’t make a significant difference in our evaluation of the system.
My message for both: Grow up, fellas. (Trash talk over the Internet = not cool)
I love Luhnow’s confidence in our farm system (he should be confident, these are his guys), but he should have handled this differently.
Erik’s would-be quote was perfect. Pretty much summed up what should have been said.
Why is Luhnow taking the time to rank other systems so that he can say where ours ranks? What benefit does that get the organization? Don’t our analyst have better things to do than worry about how other systems compare? Ranking of players is for internet geeks like us and Law who have nothing better to do, not for someone trying to put the best system possible together. Ours is what it is and Luhnow should be working on making it better regardless of what other systems are doing.
Carioca, I would be interested in Luhnow’s response to that question.
I think most well-run businesses evaluate themselves relative to competition to understand their strengths and see how they need to get better. I hope that’s what is going on, and these ‘internal’ rankings are not simply the Keith Law/BA type of discussion fodder.
I used to benchmark my operations against the best but I would never waste a lot of time analyzing every one of my other competitors particularly if the information wasn’t readily available. Besides, one is always better to compare and benchmark processes than results.
I follow hockey more than baseball, but media prospect tracking is about the same there, at least for drafting (Red Line is about the leading one). From monitoring nearly a decade’s worth of drafting and development, the one thing I learned is that media analysis is much, much thinner because they simply don’t have the personnel to cover everyone at every level.
Also, media analysis is much more dependent on “what have you done for me lately” than team analysis, which looks more at the long-term development picture. That why players tend to drop clear off of top 10 lists in a year–they had a bad year. In the reasoning I’ve read for most media rankings, entirely too much emphasis is put on performance in the most recent season.
I don’t think Luhnow would agree with Erik’s proposed response, because Luhnow probably does believe the system is much better than Law says it is, simply because the two approach prospect evaluation differently.
azru,
Sorry but I just can’t believe 95% of the talent in this org has reached Quad A already. I appreciate your point about attrition and I am not claiming any of us are ignorant of 50% of the future MLB contributors. But I would guess that we know close to nothing about 1/3 of the future MLB talent in this organization. That includes recent draftees – remember how much everyone hated the Descalso pick a few years ago? And Eduardo Sanchez and Francisco Samuel were not exactly high profile at that time, either!
I would say it’s a significant part of the organization. And if we had the same kind if info on these players that farm directors have, I would guess we would move some organizations 5-10 spots away from where we have them currently ranked.
Again, I’m not arguing with Law’s ranking. It seems justifiable to me. But it also sounds like he’s far too confident in that ranking given everything he doesn’t know. Luhnow at least has a lot of info to draw on – reports from multiple scouts, coaches, and ‘analysts’.
Okay, so I agree that it’s true that we don’t have the information on a lot of the young draftees and Latin signees, but isn’t that true about EVERY OTHER organization?
The Cards traded Brett Wallace and the Wagner Mateo signing fell through. This will drop you in such rankings. Prospect lists tend to influenced by celebrity prospects.
The Cards are better off than where they were circa 2004, when their system was low ranked and full of no-hopers. Now the system is again low ranked, but some of the little known guys may emerge and turn out well someday. Memphis and Springfield both made the playoffs and with little reliance on minor league free agents.
The minor league system works better in terms its processes. Players get promoted quicker and challenged more. There is more depth and though its hard to generalize there are probably fewer arm injuries to pitchers. More value has been put on signing shortstops, catchers, and centerfielders.
who knows? nobody
teams draft through 50 rounds every year
don’t sign all of them, but crap
that’s a lot of players to keep track of, and there is no way keith law or any individual can keep up with a major league team in evaluating them
also, if the organization makes trades, they have to have a pretty good idea of who is in other team’s systems, although i doubt they rate them in aggregate
I like it.
Luhnow calling BS makes sense to me. Would we rather a non-comment. Whether he is right or wrong, letting his feelings be known makes a ton of sense. The truth is Law knows our top 5-7 prospects about as well as Luhnow, but Luhnow knows prospects 8-200 infinitely better than Law. No one will no the answer until all of the Anthony Reyes/Jim Journel/Rick Ankiel (sadly) types flame out and the Brendan Ryan/Placido Polanco/Albert Pujols/Yadier Molina come from relative obscurity to make their marks. See you in 10 years… At which time, no one will care…
Do we realize our minor league system has provided us with every single full time starter through either the draft or draft/trade.
Pujols – draft
Molina – draft
Schumaker – draft
Ryan – draft
Freese/Mather/Craig – draft or trade
Holliday – trade from high valve prospects from draft
Rasmus – draft
Ludwick – signed as minor league FA, but this is very much a part of our player development process
So I don’t see how our minor league system overall isn’t seen as a huge success.
Also we very well could see 2-3 starters emerge in the next two seasons with Garcia, McClellan, Lynn, Boggs, Hawksworth. And of those that don’t find the rotation we end up with some solid bullpen guys to go along with the high power arms we have in the system that could come up very quickly.
I am EXTREMELY pleased with the productivity of our system. Even if our ranking is down overall look at how it has affected our major league team. That should be the only factor that matters.
Why wouldn’t I want to see a Lunhow/Law pissing match? I can’t think of a single reason.
Also, I suspect Lunhow has a very good appreciation of all the other team’s farm systems for trade purposes, for scouting validation purposes, and a host of other reasons.
No analyst can compare 200 to 300 minor league players for 30 organizations and look forward 10 years. This would require infinite knowledge of the future.
Keith Law reaches into obscurity to elevate 5’9″ Audrey Perez as an elite prospect. Perez may turn out to be a star someday, though right now he is a long way off.
I have no problem with the Cards system being ranked near the bottom, because such comparisons have to be made on the simplified basis of just a few players and the Cards do not have many high profile prospects who are evident.
The minor league system seems to be better run and the Cards seem to sign a lot of amateurs. These are positive signs. Will some stars emerge? In due course, some probably will, if the Cards catch a fair share of luck.
Revisiting this discussion, What’s the overrall record for our system this year? I think Luhnow is doing a good job.
What’s Lunhow supposed to say? That our system is full of career scrubs. That’s no way to sell what you are trying to do with the fans, and more importantly his bosses.
The thing with our system is that most of our players are still at least two or three years away from being contributors. Not to mention that promotions to the bigs really robbed the farm system of some good players, Jaime Garcia, David Freese, Jason Motte, and Blake Hawksworth. Outside of Lance Lynn, how many regular contributors can you see in AA or AAA that will be ready this year, or at the start of next year? Adam Ottavino has flashed the potential, but he’s been extremely inconsistent. The Cardinals clearly don’t have the faith in Allen Craig with how he is playing. The Cardinals have a bevy of right handed relief prospects, but no starters or position players of major interest. Pete Kozma is still at least two years away, and that’s only if he cleans up his play.
Our best talent is relatively fresh in our system. Shelby Miller, Deryk Hooker, Tommy Pham, Joe Kelly, and the rest of the recent draft picks haven’t made it past Low-A ball with the exception of Pham. Give it at least another year or two before writing off the farm system as awful. At least our’s isn’t as bad as Houston’s.
Between the fact our elite prospects(s) were traded away, and the promotion to the big leagues for some of our players, it is understandable that the “analysts” are down on our system. But to look into what Lunhow said is really worth a grain of salt. He’s going to say some answer to keep his bosses happy.
I think Luhnow believes in the system more than others in management especially TLR and Duncan. I found this thread when I read about Law picking Aubry Perez as a top Cardinal prospect when he’s not in the Top 40 on anyone elses list. We did lose alot of prospects last year but the system is still succeeding so you don’t win this many guys jus thaving organizational filler in the minors. Everyone we traded last year to get DeRosa and Holliday can and has been easily replaced in our system except for Wallace who had no place to play with us. I think the success of Freese and Garcia this year is a point in favor of Luhnows view. In the high minors we are lacking in real superstars but we have alot of players that can contribute to a MLB team.