BRASSball Farm System Rankings

Fleetwood's Mike Trout

I'm a Baseball prospect junkie. I'm also a stats geek. I both love and hate Microsoft Excel. Put all of that together, and you get what I call the BRASSball Farm System Rankings (BFSR). I always ask myself if I enjoy Baseball and Strat-O-Matic more this time of year than during the actual MLB season. I think I can admit that I probably enjoy them at least equally.

While the Hot Stoves are burning this time of year, the various publications and online sources publish their prospect rankings for the upcoming year. These rankings come in various forms: by organization, position, and overall. Some of the lists include grades, while others include projected WARs, and some are based solely off production and projections. Sprinkle in some opinions and a dash of politics, and you have your lists. 

Sure, these lists are great when you're up in the draft and the clock is ticking away. You don't know what you're doing so you start scanning the top prospects by organization alphabetically until you find Billy Hamilton from Cincinnati available (D'oh! Wait, that was me). But how do you weigh one source's opinion over the other? How much "opinion" or infatuation about a player influences a player's position on a list? This is where my system comes into play.

What I did was take what I consider to be the most reputable sources and combine all of these lists into one, massive ranking system. Then, I decided to award bonus points if the player showed up with other types of ranking attributes such as grades, stars, tools, etc. I also gave additional points to players that ranked higher when compared against each other at a position or overall ranking regardless of the organization.

I also put a huge emphasis on player progression. If a player was considered a prospect of some kind in 2011, and advanced to the majors to any degree, they received a substantial number of "progression points." That's what it's all about, getting to the BIGs, right? All in all, it looks like chaos, but it makes sense to me and my whacked out brain.

Now on to the good stuff: the actual list for BRASSball. I'll admit that that this list is not 100% complete, but just about every player I consider to be eligible has been factored in one way or another. Also: no hard feelings either way as this list is automatically generated from the data.

RANK	TEAM	BFSR POINTS
1	San Jose	214.53
2	Fleetwood	200.63
3	Metropolis	196.91
4	Portsmouth	194.07
5	California	161.74
6	Fremont	148.22
7	Santa Barbara	146.33
8	Cook County	140.32
9	Brew City	132.69
10	Parkland	117.32
11	North Georgia	94.26
12	Hessville	93.92
13	Superior	90.10
14	Plaza	89.30
15	Tinley	83.09
16	Florence	82.71
17	SoCal	82.28
18	Simi Valley	78.52
19	Glen Allen	74.18
20	Lancaster	73.79
21	Springfield	64.30
22	Brooklyn	51.84
23	Palm Harbor	42.06
24	Latrobe	27.89

Why did I do this? Well, I needed to satisfy the Baseball stats nerd in me, but ideally, this list can help all of us. The goal was to provide some meaningful number that would allow each team to take stock in their amateurs, minor leaguers, and young stars. It should give each team a sense of how competitive they'll be for the long-term. The rankings are not meant to project how a team will perform during the upcoming or current season. 

In future blog posts, I'm going to provide more details team-by-team, so you can see those numbers somewhat justified. I will also post updates to the list as players are traded and more prospect information rolls in during the off-season.