Kiley is looking at the top prospects in baseball. (1:18) After ranking the top 100 prospects, it is time to look at each team's farm system as a whole. I have always found it hard to line up 30 lists of players and say this one is better than the other one, since the process of ranking them is already pretty subjective and over 1,000 players/ data points are too many for one brain to effectively consider. Science is entered! The rankings of all 30 organizations were the same as last year. While at FanGraphs, research by Craig Edwards revealed empirical surplus dollar values for each future value tier of prospect, so we can now make an objective ranking of farm systems derived from my individual team lists. The number of players who are better than a 40 FV and total players ranked who have trade value have been added this year. The idea is that a 40 FV is a tier of player every team has, so in any trade they are seen as common. You can't offer five of that tier of player and get a good big leaguer, but once you go above that tier you can. The number of players above the 40 FV cutoff is a good measure of quality depth of a system, or the number of players almost every team would want in a deal. The list of 40 FV players varies depending on which team you are talking to, but above that tier the takes tend to be more similar and the trade value more universal. The players in the top half of the top 100 are almost never traded these days, so if you want to be even more specific, you should include the players in the top 50. One benefit of this approach is that you can use your own judgement to disagree with a ranking if you prefer a different type of talent. The other 29 teams give you the tools to see how close every team is and what their players are like. For only $6.99/mo, you can continue reading this article and more from top writers.
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