OC Register: Farm Failures: How the Angels’ player development system broke and the plan to repair it

[Jeff Fletcher]

8 hours ago, steveuk said:

Sure, that explains 'what' happened but not really 'why'. Ok, with the power of hindsight, but it just seems such a dumbass decision?

The “Arte declined to comment” sentence is why there’s no why. 

[Second Base]

To be fair, if I was Arte, I probably wouldn't comment on this either. It's good journalism, good reporting, and not at all flattering. It's the series that needed to be written. 

[Docwaukee]

23 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

remember for a few years, starting maybe five-ish years ago, the prospect pundits here (no names will be mentioned) kept saying that there was sneaky talent in the low minors. Yet almost all of it inevitably disappointed: Adell, Marsh, Adams, Jackson, Maitan, Knowles and Deveaux, Rivera and Holmes, and all the other "pundit darlings" like Kochanowicz and Nonie Williams that, as a whole, have disappointed.

interesting way for you to phrase this as if you're not including yourself with the rest of us.  

[wopphil]

23 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:Yet almost all of it inevitably disappointed: Adell, Marsh, Adams, Jackson, Maitan, Knowles and Deveaux, Rivera and Holmes, and all the other "pundit darlings" like Kochanowicz and Nonie Williams that, as a whole, have disappointed. Some of these guys may still become good players, but what is so disheartening is how weighted they are, as a group, towards be less than even reasonably hoped.

 

This was my thought as well. I think history will judge Eppler poorly for the job he did as GM. He not only did a bad job in free agency, he whiffed massively in the drafts. Adell, Adams, Wilson - all proved to be terrible selections. And for an organization that couldn’t afford to screw up their drafts, wasting first round picks on these three was especially harmful. 

[Blarg]

2 hours ago, wopphil said:

This was my thought as well. I think history will judge Eppler poorly for the job he did as GM. He not only did a bad job in free agency, he whiffed massively in the drafts. Adell, Adams, Wilson - all proved to be terrible selections. And for an organization that couldn’t afford to screw up their drafts, wasting first round picks on these three was especially harmful. 

Take a look at the 2017 draft and tell me what position player from the 11th pick down that you would have chosen over Adell. Let me save you the trouble, none of them have had any success at the MLB level and all are 2 to 3 years older than Adell. If you look at all the position players picked before Adell, only the #1 pick, Royce Lewis shows any promise and he only logged 12 games at the majors so far. Huira picked 9th finally got his OPS+ above 100 last season at the age of 25.

 

 

[Warfarin]

7 hours ago, wopphil said:

This was my thought as well. I think history will judge Eppler poorly for the job he did as GM. He not only did a bad job in free agency, he whiffed massively in the drafts. Adell, Adams, Wilson - all proved to be terrible selections. And for an organization that couldn’t afford to screw up their drafts, wasting first round picks on these three was especially harmful. 

I don't quite know enough in terms of scouting and drafting strategy to know this, but it seemed like Eppler prioritized highly skilled athletes that could, over time, be worked with to generate fantastic results.  It seemed part of the issue, as outlined by these articles, is a lack of cohesion throughout the farm system, which makes player development rather difficult.  Supremely talented but somewhat raw athletes, a la Jordyn Adams, likely need an incredibly well-built development system in place to help harness that athleticism as much as possible.

Minasian's focus, at least from my POV, seems a little different in terms of the players he drafts.  It is possible (probable?) that Minasian has done a considerably better job of instituting a minor league development process that helps maximize the results of the players in the minor league system.  Even the best farm systems draft busts, and even have bad drafts overall, including the Dodgers.  

Again, it's too early to judge results, but it's possible that Minasian did a great job of building a development infrastructure that helps our minor leaguers considerably more than previous regimens, a lot of which can be attributed to Arte (though not all of it).

[Angelsjunky]

8 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

interesting way for you to phrase this as if you're not including yourself with the rest of us.  

Actually, I am.

[Angelsjunky]

7 hours ago, wopphil said:

This was my thought as well. I think history will judge Eppler poorly for the job he did as GM. He not only did a bad job in free agency, he whiffed massively in the drafts. Adell, Adams, Wilson - all proved to be terrible selections. And for an organization that couldn’t afford to screw up their drafts, wasting first round picks on these three was especially harmful. 

I think Adell is mainly due to poor development...he wasn't a bad draft, but he was handled poorly. Adams was a lottery pick, and it hasn't worked out well so far. On the other hand, even most 1st rounders don't become stars....I think the expectation is that they become quality major leaguers, but a lot end up flaming out, so if he ends up being a good 4th outfielder, it is sort of break-even. Wilson...talk about low ceiling. It was straight out of the Dipoto play book.