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Bobby the Witt leads a crew of young bangers simmering in Kansas City. Ace Lacey, Nicky Pratto, Vinnie P, Frank the Maserati and MJ Melendez give us a glimpse at the ghost of Christmas future in KC.

Full disclosure here. I slipped up and wrote Bibbt Wutt Jr. at one point. Bibbt–wutt? Then my phone wrote Bobby Whipit. Like when a problem comes along, Bobby Whip it! In this case, the problem is several losing seasons in a row. Typos, amiright? I’m getting light-headed over here, but that’s probably just the Royals’ sunflare future vibing in my blood. Let’s check the system. 

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I think public perception sees this system as strong–a club on the rise–and it is, especially at the top, but if you squint at this snapshot, gaze into its depths like a magic-eye poster, it morphs into a donut. It’s tasty, so you don’t think much about the big hole in the middle. By which I mean there appears to be a half-decade gap between it’s top group and the next little wave of potential impact. No need to linger on that today though. This team has the best one-two punch of top prospects in baseball, so it’s all rainbows, Rileys, and Tork-talk in Tiger-land, and it should be. We’re a bit starved for positrons on the planet today, and there’s plenty of talent here to discuss, so let’s get started.

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Youth is power among the low-payroll clubs, and no team exemplifies that more than Cleveland, who has been mostly successful in terms of wins and losses despite constantly feeling the creep of (air quotes) market forces. After an eventful 40-man roster deadline day that saw the club turn over 20+ percent of its personnel, Cleveland is on the verge of something new in more ways than one (cue the Starlord memes). This system is loaded, is what I’m saying, and though they’ve faced a recent downturn in on-field talent, that should be short-lived, especially on the pitching side.    

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This is not a strong system, but you could probably guess as much given their recent run of rated rookies and deadline deals. Something about the weak systems invites me to dig, and I probably spent too much time doing that here, where I think I found ten players who legitimately matter for our game. As is often the case, the more I dug, the less I found, so I kept going and wound up liking a few of these players more than consensus. 

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It’s tough to see how things get better than they were in 2021. Robbie Ray and Marcus Semien were grand slam one-year signings. Vladimir Guerrero chased a triple crown. Alek Manoah dominated as a rookie. Jose Berrios pitched well down the stretch after the club swapped two top prospects to get him. And therein lies the upside. The club was able to sign Berrios to a long-term deal, and I have a hard time imagining Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson outproducing him over the next few seasons. Another plus: this organization knows what it’s doing. This system remains solid despite the recent graduations and trades with another couple potential-star-level prospects in the pipeline and several interesting upside and depth pieces behind them. All the team’s best players are young, and the ownership group is rich enough to push anytime it wants. Perhaps Kevin Gausman will adequately replicate Robbie Ray. Perhaps Teoscar Hernandez and Vladimir Guerrero will hold serve at the levels they established in 2021. And perhaps the top guy on this list will inject enough life into the lineup that they’ll rarely miss Marcus Semien. 

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Witchcraft. That’s the plainest explanation. We need to get some ducks and a big old scale and sort this out once and for all. 

It’s no exaggeration to say the Rays have changed baseball. Has there ever been a more successful stretch by a team who didn’t win a single World Series? Perhaps, but probably not if you’re giving them bonus points for thrift, which I think we should probably stop doing at some point. We’re just really into discounts, is all, so when we see a team win as something of a walking clearance rack, we like that. It’s hard-wired. The success here is built from the ground up–a long-term developmental outlook that perennially puts Tampa in the top tier of minor league systems. 

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We’re on the Tampa Bay Rays in the Top Ten Prospects series (here’s a link to the index), which feels like a nice time to hit a quick pause after 18 straight prospect listicles, partly because the work on a team like that is a little more extensive than, say, the Phillies or Nationals, and partly because the baseball world is going bonkers right now on the free agent market. We’ll get back to the Rays’ riches on Sunday. For now, let’s take a quick look into the future of the Texas Rangers, this winter’s big spender so far after adding Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jon Gray, and Kole Calhoun. 

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Bit of a trivia question off the top: who were the last two big-time Yankees prospects who weren’t overrated. Aaron Judge is quick to mind. Who else? Our best bet is to check the trades for guys who actualized for other organizations. Let’s see. Stanton was traded for Starlin Castro, Jose Devers and Jorge Guzman, so . . . no hits there. Still a pretty good trade for the fish considering Stanton’s inability to stay on the field. But that doesn’t matter to our purpose here: harvesting fantasy value on the Yankees’ farm, where this organization is loaded. It’s possible nobody markets their prospects better than New York. Whenever you hear flowery language about a Deivi Garcia or Jasson Dominguez type, keep that in mind. This front office schools its people well on speaking only in glowing terms when it comes to their minor league system. If a prospect writer’s primary process is checking in with team sources, they’ll probably wind up overrating young Yankees. Part of this effect is born from having a huge, hungry fan base. Part of it comes down to marketing. Part of it is simply the Yankees having a lot of money to invest in player development and acquisition and doing exactly that. All the historical caveats about their prospects apply, but even after some system-trimming deadline maneuvers, they’ve got an objectively impressive group at the moment. 

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It didn’t end the way they would’ve liked, but the Red Sox had a wonderful season, channeling some Tampa Bay ways with the help of Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom and employing smart management on the field with the help of Alex Cora. When the club signed Enrique Hernandez, few would have predicted a 4 (3.9) WAR season punctuated by a monster playoff run (.408/.423/.837 with 5 HR), but I feel pretty confident this won’t be the last time the current Boston braintrust generates All-Star outcomes from mid tier free agents. The scary part is they don’t have to. With a big payroll and stocked system, the Sox appear poised for a long contention cycle. 

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These birds are in no rush, man.

They’re just getting going on the international front, so even though we might pounce on players who sign for big deals, I’m skeptical of the infrastructure in place to ease those teenagers’ transitions to professional baseball in the states. I’m skeptical of the whole plan, to be honest, given the slow-roasting, historical-losing outcomes we’ve seen so far. If Baltimore can follow the path the Astros and Cubs laid out by being truly abysmal for a half-decade just before the dawn of a successful stretch, the fans will appreciate the end point, assuming any remain. The AL East piece suggests their hands were tied to some extent–that the only path was full-tank with no on-field investments in the pitching or hitting side. I dunno. It’s just tough for me to get super hyped about the big future all these guys might have when we’ve seen what it took to acquire them. 

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My primary strategy for escaping the moneyball mindfuck that is being a baseball fan in the Manfred era is that I root mostly for individuals. I love to see it when players make it big. Get that money, if you can, while you can. I love to see it when front offices that have good processes experience enough success to fund more of that good process. Farhan Zaidi and company have good processes in place in San Francisco. One example is the Brandon Crawford contract. Guy earned it, was willing to stay, and the team accepted the risk of inking an aging player before any kind of deadline spurred action. The real examples, though–the best examples–are all the players succeeding up and down this system. If a free agent signs with the Giants, bump him up on your draft sheets. A similar rule applies to their prospects now as the organization seeks to join the top tier of baseball-development firms.

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Feels like I should say something about MacKenzie Gore here, but I don’t know what to say that might be actionable for fantasy purposes. You probably can’t trade for him, nor should you want to, probably. If you have him already, you may have tried to trade him away. I hope you hit the timing just right on that if so. He’s not a spent asset by any means, but he’s been managing multiple deliveries for so long now it’ll be inconveniently tough for him to repeat any of them like an MLB starter. He’s still young though, and this system is about more than Gore. Even as it’s been strip-mined so AJ Preller could chase the playoffs (and the headlines), this Padres minor league group offers potential impact in both the short and long term. 

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