OK, so maybe he’s Seattle-bound, but that didn’t work as well alliteration-wise.

After previous comments saying they would not call up their 2011 first-round pick, the Orioles did just that today. Dylan Bundy is headed to the big leagues. The teenager, who was taken No. 4 overall in the 2011 Draft, last pitched on Sept. 5, a victory in Game 1 of the Eastern League playoffs.

If only someone, back at the time rosters expanded, say… Aug. 31, had encouraged the Orioles to bring Bundy up, thinking he could help out of the bullpen down the stretch, at the very least. A prospect expert of some sort maybe… hmmmm

Just sayin…

Slowing down, obviously, but a few good names getting promoted for the first time:

 

Edwar Cabrera (COL, No. 10): Called up for the third time this year.

Wilmer Font (TEX, No. 6): Called up for the first time.

Justin Grimm (TEX, No. 10): Called up for the second time this year.

Jhan Marinez (CWS, No. 13): Called up for the second time this year.

Jake Odorizzi (KC, No. 3): Called up for the first time.

Zach Putnam (COL, No. 15): Called up for the third time this year.

L.J. Hoes (BAL, No. 13): Called up to the Majors for the first time.

At the start of the week, I posted something here that went into more detail about the Prospect Points standings that appeared with the story breaking down the new Top 100 list on Prospect Watch. Someone asked me (thank you  Jayne from the Astros blog, What the Heck, Bobby?  and on Twitter at @whattheheck57, not to mention a contributor to the MLBlog, The Futurists) how these end-of-season standings compared to what they looked like when the 2012 season began.

A fine question indeed. Obviously, Jayne wanted to see how the Astros had fared following all their wheelings and dealings. Fans of other teams might be interested for the same reason, as well as to see how graduations and, of course, performance in 2012, changed their standing. The Prospect Points, remember, don’t measure overall organizational strength, but rather how a team is doing in terms of elite, impact type prospects in their system by using a weighted scoring (100 points for the No. 1 prospect in the Top 100 and on down.)

Here’s the comparison:

2012 Preseason					2012 Re-ranked
Rank	Team	#	Points		Rank	Team	#	Points
5	ARI	3	253		3	ARI	4	321
4	ATL	5	267		15	ATL	3	183
12	BAL	2	186		8	BAL	3	234
21	BOS	4	115		9	BOS	5	225
15	CHC	3	171		13	CHC	5	202
19	CIN	2	154		16	CIN	4	182
27	CLE	1	69		23	CLE	1	87
8	COL	4	229		22	COL	2	87
30	CWS	1	1		30	CWS	0	0
18	DET	3	155		21	DET	1	90
22	HOU	3	114		12	HOU	5	216
2	KC	4	290		6	KC	4	277
14	LAA	3	178		27	LAA	1	48
23	LAD	3	109		25	LAD	1	52
26	MIA	2	80		10	MIA	3	222
28	MIL	2	56		26	MIL	2	51
24	MIN	2	107		14	MIN	4	198
20	NYM	3	147		17	NYM	2	170
9	NYY	4	225		18	NYY	4	152
13	OAK	6	179		24	OAK	4	56
25	PHI	3	91		29	PHI	1	18
3	PIT	4	276		2	PIT	6	326
6	SD	6	237		11	SD	6	221
1	SEA	5	329		1	SEA	5	327
29	SF	2	56		28	SF	2	22
17	STL	2	167		4	STL	5	320
11	TB	6	198		20	TB	3	108
7	TEX	4	236		7	TEX	4	240
16	TOR	4	169		5	TOR	7	281
10	WAS	4	206		19	WAS	3	134

And here’s the breakdown of the differential, in alphabetical order:

Team	Diff.
ARI	68
ATL	-84
BAL	48
BOS	110
CHC	31
CIN	28
CLE	18
COL	-142
CWS	-1
DET	-65
HOU	102
KC	-13
LAA	-130
LAD	-57
MIA	142
MIL	-5
MIN	91
NYM	23
NYY	-73
OAK	-123
PHI	-73
PIT	50
SD	-16
SEA	-2
SF	-34
STL	153
TB	-90
TEX	4
TOR	112
WAS	-72

 

 

September callups aplenty…..

 

Adam Eaton, (ARI, No. 6) Made his Major League debut on September 4.

Andrelton Simmons, (ATL, No. 2) He returned to action in the big leagues on September 10.

Julio Teheran, (ATL, No. 1) Called up again for the first time this season.

Xavier Avery, (BAL, No. 6): Called up for the fourth time this year.

Chris Carpenter, (BOS, No. 20): Called up, after returning from elbow surgery in July and dominating hitters in Triple-A.

J.C. Linares, (BOS, No 18) Returned after missing some time with a finger injury.

Tony Cingrani, (CIN, No. 3) Called up to join the Reds bullpen.

DiDi Gregorius, (CIN, No. 5) Called up to the Majors when rosters expanded in September.”

Henry Rodriguez, (CIN, No. 16) Called up in September when rosters expanded.

Scott Barnes, (CLE, No. 4) Called up for the fourth time this year.

Kyle Parker, (COL, No. 7) Was set to play in the Arizona Fall League until a thumb injury knocked him out for the rest of the year.

Avisail Garcia, (DET, No. 4) Made his Major League debut on August 31.”

Luke Putkonen, (DET, No. 20) Called up for the third time this year.

Jonathan Villar, (HOU, No. 16) Returned to action on September 6 after a broken hand sidelined him in mid-July.

David Lough, (KC, No. 20) Made his Major League debut on September 1.

Nick Maronde, (LAA, No. 4) Called to the Majors in September, after starting the year with Class A Advanced Inland Empire.

Andrew Romine, (LAA, No. 8) Called up for the fourth time this year.

Alex Castellanos, (LAD, No. 10) Called up for the second time this year.

Tim Federowicz, (LAD, No. 11) Called up for his second straight September in the big leagues.

Josh Wall, (LAD, No. 13) Called up for the second time this year.

Chris Withrow, (LAD, No. 6) A shoulder injury ended his season early.

Wily Peralta, (MIL, No. 5) Called up for the second time this year.

Logan Schafer, (MIL, No. 9) Called up for the first time.

Tyler Thornburg, (MIL, No. 2) Called up for the third time this year.

Jeurys Familia, (NYM, No. 3) Made his debut on September 4.

Adam Warren, (NYY, No. 11) Called up for the second time this year.

Brad Peacock, (OAK, No. 6) Returned to action after taking a line drive off the elbow.

Justin De Fratus, (PHI, No. 13) Called up for his second September stint in the big leagues.

Darin Ruf, (PHI, No. 20) Called up for the first time.

Brock Holt, (PIT, No. 19) Called up for the first time.

Jeff Locke, (PIT, No. 8) Called up for the second time.

Starling Marte, (PIT, No. 3) Returned to the Pirates on September 7 after missing time with a strained oblique.

Kyle McPherson, (PIT, No. 10) Called up for the second time this year.

Bryan Morris, (PIT, No. 13) Called up for the second time this year (although he didn’t make an appearance in his first stint in the Majors).

Justin Wilson, (PIT, No. 9) Called up again, after briefly returning to Triple-A

Johermyn Chavez, (SEA, NO. 19) Outrighted to Double-A Jackson on September 7.

Chris Archer, (TB, No. 3) Called up for the second time this year.

Martin Perez, (TEX, No. 3) Called up for the third time this year.

Anthony Gose, (TOR, No. 3) Called up for the second time this year.

Sandy Leon, (WSH, No. 15) Called up for the third time this year.

Eury Perez, (WSH, No. 7) Called up for the first time, mainly to be a pinch runner.

By now, most of you have digested, debated and disputed (the “Three D’s of Prospect Rankings) the newly re-ranked Top 100 Prospects list. You’ve also likely taken a look at your team’s Top 20. But I’m writing today mostly because there does seem to be interest in part of the breakdown story I wrote regarding the “team competition.”

We realized a while ago that just noting who had the most number of players in the Top 100 wasn’t really a robust measure. So we tried to come up with a weighted measurement. As I wrote in the story:

“Does having the most prospects give you the best system? Not necessarily. Presence on a Top 100 list doesn’t speak to depth in a system or where talent is on the organizational ladder. But what if a weighted score was devised so as to look at which system had the most impact or elite talent?

Giving 100 points to the team with the No. 1 prospect, 99 to the team with No. 2 and on down, it turned out it wasn’t the teams with the six or seven names on the list that ranked at the top.”

With that section was a box of the top 10 teams according to these Prospect Points. While the Blue Jays lead all organizations with seven players currently on the list, they actually came in fifth. Here’s the box from the story.

This has led to two things: 1) People thinking that this was an overall strength of organization ranking. And 2) People wanting to know about all 30 organizations and where they stood.

Let’s start with the first one. While this weighted system is better than just a count of which teams have how many, it’s not really meant to be an organizational strength ranking. It’s a ranking of which teams have the most impact/elite talent in their system currently. Getting more points for having players high up in the top 100 accomplishes that. But there are teams who would argue, rightfully perhaps, that just because they don’t have many players on the list, or many players at the top, that their farm systems are plenty strong.

The extreme example of this is the Chicago White Sox, the only team without a player on the Top 100 currently. The White Sox’s system has been much maligned in recent years for the lack of impact talent, but it’s hard to argue with success. Sure, they’ve made some free agent acquisitions and trades, but their current roster has a lot of homegrown talent on it. And they currently sit atop the AL Central.

So, when perusing the standings for all 30 teams below (answering No. 2), keep in mind that it doesn’t automatically mean that the Mariners have the best farm system in baseball and the White Sox have the worst. It’s just that as of this writing, the Mariners have more impact talent on the farm than others.

Feel free to digest, debate and dispute. (Many thanks to chart and excel spreadsheet guru Jason Ratliff for help with these).