LOS ANGELES, CA– How valuable are top prospects to Major League organizations? Some teams trade them away in deals that will give them a top player or someone who will possibly complete the puzzle for their quest to win a championship. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t.
Having seen my share of deals over the years I feel confident in saying that it’s like rolling the dice in Vegas on who got the most out of the trades that involved prospects. I was told by GM’s, Scouts and others involved in these trades that “They are only prospects. So if you can get a proven big league player, make the deal.”
That is the thinking in baseball organizations.
GM’s ponder trading prospects all the time. Yankees GM Brian Cashman – Image Credit: Bill Menzel/Latino Sports
Two clubs that have figured out how to have both ends of these deals work are the Dodgers and the Astros. The Dodgers have a much longer track record in this process, going back to the days of Branch Rickey in 1942. After having established “the farm system” for the Cardinals, he brought that system to Brooklyn.
The player development system he cemented into the Dodger organization has never changed. From rookie ball to AAA ball the players all use the same signals, eat the same food and everything else that the big league club does. They tend to not trade away their best prospects if they can help it and It has kept them at the top in baseball for a long time. They do have the advantage of using money to sign free agents but so do other teams.
This year will be another test to see who they will pull out of that deep, rich minor league system to help them win. With the loss of Trea Turner, Justin Turner, Cody Bellinger, Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney to free agency and now the season ending injury to Gavin Lux, who they hoped would take over at SS this year, they need the help of rookies.
Can Justin Turner be replaced by a rookie? – Image Credit: Bill Menzel/Latino Sports
My colleague Robert Rizzo at Latino Sports, wrote in his column Tuesday, What Goes With The Pitch Clock? “These new rules have been tested in the minor leagues and I believe a substantial number of young and upcoming big leaguers will make immediate impacts with their clubs because they are fully acclimated to the new rules.”
The Dodgers will be a good test to this belief and insight by Rizzo.
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