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the overwhelming majority of our highly rated prospects will amount to nothing..... a few will be average by MLB standards... and a very small amount will live up to expectations.

Prospects are meant to either graduate to the MLB level some day and help ur team.... or be trade bait in the future. Thats why I think JAYS fans are too attached to their prospects.

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If u remember, we once made a trade for Lyle Overbay and JAYS paid heavily in terms of young talent. Dave Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson were rite at the top of the depth chart. All can be considered busts now.......... Bush ateast became a borderline reliever. Gross looked like a future star and he became a bench warmer at best. Jackson was the stud of the deal, he never cracked roster, even as a reliever.

theres still an issue of valuing prospects properly. if the chargers had traded ryan leaf for the rights to jeff garcia, that would have been a terrible trade - no matter how good it would have turned out for them. prospects rarely live up to expectations - but thats not necessarily their value.

BRILLIANT!

Lol.

You have to be kidding me.

Jackson had a fastball that topped out at 90 mph. He ranked behind Marcum, Romero, Janssen and Purcey on the depth chart. I'd hardly say he was considered at the top of the depth chart. Stud of the deal? Not even close.

Gross never had more than 12 homers in a season while in the minors. He went bonkers one spring but that's about it. At 25 years old in AAA, he was hardly a can't miss prospect. Future star? Looking at his minor league career, he had 4th outfielder written all over him which is what he turned out to be.

Dave bush was probably the only "sure" thing the brewers got back in return and he was nothing more than a fringe 5th starter.

Paid heavily? The Blue Jays had Halladay, Burnett, Chacin, Lilly and Towers around making Bush redundant. Jackson was never going to crack that rotation with a young Mcgowan around along with the aforementioned pitchers on the depth chart above.

Gross was nowhere near the depth chart either. Wells and Rios had two spots locked up. Cattalanotto was around as well as Hinske and Lind (remember that experiment?). Just for good measure, super 4th outfielder Reed Johnson was around too. That makes Gross the 7th outfielder.

I see your point but you picked just about the worst example to illustrate your point.

Halladay for Drabek, D'arnaud, Taylor. The Blue Jays may NEVER recoup the lost WAR value by trading Halladay with these guys. This is a better example and even then it's still not over.

And while it's fresh in my head, here's a Blue Jay trade where a prospect came back to haunt them.

Michael Young to Texas for Esteban Loaiza.

Anyway, Anthopoulos has traded prospects. Molina, Woj, Perez, Musgrove were all considered in the top 20 according to Sickels rankings.

I'm glad he didn't cave and buy pitchers like Garza and Dempster like fans wanted. Garza may not pitch agains this year and Dempster is getting lit up like a Christmas tree. These guys would have cost the Jays one of Syndergaard, Sanchez, Nicolino along with a position prospect like Marisnick. Now, maybe these guys all bust but at least the Jays still have them in the system by standing pat and don't have to deal with the headache Garza and Dempster have become since the deadline.

Where was the system ranked when those players were in the system?

FrankGrimes wrote:I'm glad he didn't cave and buy pitchers like Garza and Dempster like fans wanted. Garza may not pitch agains this year and Dempster is getting lit up like a Christmas tree. These guys would have cost the Jays one of Syndergaard, Sanchez, Nicolino along with a position prospect like Marisnick. Now, maybe these guys all bust but at least the Jays still have them in the system by standing pat and don't have to deal with the headache Garza and Dempster have become since the deadline.

Very good point, however those two aren't worth the prospects given, but are overvalued based on being proven to produce at an MLB level vs prospects who have not. They are not Stars in any way, just above-average starters. Prospects aren't that big either though, we can't get a star player for our prospects.

Another option is trading for potential. Look at Bautista who was a journeyman from 5 different teams, coming off the Bench on a Pinch-hit situation or giving the starter a day off.
Now look at him given a fair chance to start on a daily basis, and all we gave up for him was a player to be named after, (Robinzon Díaz) and we've never heard of that player to be named later.

Encarnacion and Morrow(Pre-injury) both have been near all-star level this year/
Encarnacion (Josh Roeincke and Zach Steward as well) - we got for an old, declining Rolen.
Morrow - we got for reliever Brandon League.

If a great deal can be found, through scouting an MLB-level player who has potential and is cheap, then go for it even if it costs 1 or 2 prospects, just don't overpay on a player who pretty much reached his top potential (i.e. dempster, Garza).

number15 wrote:the overwhelming majority of our highly rated prospects will amount to nothing..... a few will be average by MLB standards... and a very small amount will live up to expectations.

And in having a few who are average and at least a couple living up to expectations, we'll be provided with a windfall of surplus production relative cost for their first six years that will allow the team to spend money elsewhere, something that every team (no matter their budget) relies upon.

not to derail the topic somewhat, but the Jays need to get the hell out of Vegas fast to properly evaluate our prospects. As for the topic here itself, we quickly found out what it was like not having a decent farm system in the early 2000's.