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Ranking the best farm systems in MLB going into 2019
With the minor league season just completing the first weekend of play, it’s a good time to look at the minor league systems in the game. Who is good, who is not? The first grouping in rankings really is the bottom 4, which includes three teams who have seen a lot of success in the 2010s, along with one that has worked into recent competitiveness: 30. Boston Red Sox Top prospect: #119 Michael Chavis, 3B Prospect to watch in 2019: Antoni Flores, SS The Red Sox saw Dave Dombrowski do what he’s known for doing – build a winner at the major league level at the expense of the farm…
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Where MLB top prospects are starting the 2019 season
The 2019 season has now started both at the Major League Baseball level and the full-season Minor League Baseball Level. Back in February, I released my top 150 prospects on Call to the Pen. This is a look at where the top 100 in that list opened the season (some have already moved up or down, so this is just a note of where they made their first roster). For tracking purposes, of the top 100, 18 started in MLB, 27 in AAA, 22 in AA, 20 in high-A, 9 in low-A, 2 will be out all season with Tommy John, and 2 are yet unassigned. Let’s take a look!…
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Atlanta Braves organizational depth chart
I will be keeping the Braves depth chart active as much as I can day-by-day! Players will be listed alphabetically at the position where they have played the most innings on the season. If you notice anyone missing, please let me know!! Catcher MLB: Tyler FlowersMLB: Brian McCannAAA: Sal Giardina (IL)AAA: Alex Jackson (40-man)AAA: Raffy Lopez (IL)AAA: Jonathan MoralesAA: William ContrerasAA: Carlos Martinezhigh-A: Logan Brownhigh-A: Rusber Estrada (IL)high-A: Zack Sorialow-A: Shea Langelierslow-A: Hagen Owenby (IL)low-A: Ricardo RodriguezAdvanced rookie: Mitch CalandraAdvanced rookie: Brandon ChapmanAdvanced rookie: Victor De HoyosAdvanced rookie: Ray SodermanGCL: Wiston CerratoGCL: Enmanuel GuitianGCL: Javier ValdesDSL: Gianfranco PenaDSL: Kelvin PenaDSL: Randy Ruiz First Base MLB: Freddie FreemanAAA: Pedro FlorimonAAA: Sean…
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MLB Mock Draft Monday, version 1.0
The 2019 MLB draft will take place June 3-5. This is the first of the mock drafts that I will put out, looking to put out one per week from here on to the draft. Before we get into the picks, let’s start with a quick look at the bonus pools for each team: Arizona $16.09M Baltimore $13.82M Kansas City $13.11M Miami $13.05M Chicago (A) $11.57M Atlanta $11.53M Texas $11.02M San Diego $10.76M Detroit $10.40M Tampa Bay $10.33 M Pittsburgh $9.94M Minnesota $9.91M Cincinnati $9.53M San Francisco $8.71M Toronto $8.46M New York (N) $8.22M Los Angeles (N) $8.07M Los Angeles (A) $7.61M Seattle $7.56M New York (A) $7.46M Colorado $7.09M…
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Welcome to the Grand Opening!
Like many places, the doors opened already, but today is finally the moment you’ve been waiting for, the grand opening – when this site begins to look like the type of site that you not only want to bookmark, but to hopefully make a daily visit. In today’s writing to be released, I will have my first MLB mock draft of the year. My mock drafts always go through the first set of competitive balance selections (commonly abbreviated as the CBA round). This year, that covers 41 selections and includes 5 picks for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but not one single pick for the Boston Red Sox. Another item to be…
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Previewing the 2019 Atlanta Braves
The 2019 Atlanta Braves season opens today, and fans have a mixed reaction to seeing the team begin the season with the current roster. Many fans were hoping to see more moves from the front office while many are excited to see the reliance on young players that has been a feature of the Opening Day makeup of the Braves for 2019. Let’s take a look at the club by position and preview what fans can expect from the team in 2019: Catcher One of the notable moves of the Atlanta Braves offseason was bringing back veteran catcher Brian McCann to pair with Tyler Flowers, who the team had signed…
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Minnesota Twins top 10 prospects for 2019
One of the sites that I edited for 7 months, 4 of which were record pageview months, was a Minnesota Twins blog site, and having grown up in the upper Midwest, the Twins have been part of my family’s life for many years. Certainly, many of my followers over the years have been from the Twins fan base. System Overview When the Minnesota Twins hired Thad Levine and Derek Falvey before the 2017 season, they inherited a farm system that had just graduated some very exciting young talent to the major leagues and had the #1 pick in the upcoming draft, but there was some significant concern about the long-term…
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Minor league baseball pay large issue
This week, Major League Baseball begins its 2019 season with the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics traveling to Tokyo to play a pair of games. With the major league season this close to starting and the minor league season just 17 days away from beginning, two articles from Emily Waldon at The Athletic (subscription required) and former player Dirk Hayhurst on his personal blog are a bit in danger in being missed in the excitement for the upcoming season. They shouldn’t be. They should be required reading – not just for fans of the game, but also for those who sit in New York in league offices along with those…
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New York Mets top 10 prospects for 2019
The first top 10 prospect list on the new site happens to be the New York Mets, so bear with me with the new format! System Overview Typically known for having 1-2 quality players and pushing them much too hard to the point that the players fizzled out quickly, the New York Mets had seen their farm system fall to one of the worst in the game just 2-3 years ago. While new General Manager Brody Van Wagenen has traded a few players already, former GM Sandy Alderson helped to build up the farm system over the last few seasons with quality drafts of college arms and high-upside high school…
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General Baseball Writing
I’ve had the pleasure of writing nearly 2,000 articles over the last six years, and not all of them were rankings, mock drafts, or scouting reports. Heck, some of them weren’t even about prospects at all. You’ll find a host of articles here from the past and continued going forward on the game I love! I do have a separate page altogether for my writing on my favorite team, the Atlanta Braves. We’re going to attempt to sort this page into general subject areas that I tend to cover most often, but note that in all categories, the most recent article will be at the top: Fantasy Baseball 2018 second…
