Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Farm teams have few MLB-ready prospects
With the lights beginning to fade on a season to forget, the Marlins find themselves entrenched deep in the standings with one of the poorest records in the majors.
Beneath the surface, the picture is gloomier.
When the minor-league season ended last week, the four highest-tiered teams in the Marlins’ farm system each sat in last place in their respective leagues.
Add in the feeling among experts that the system is lacking in high-end prospects — ones who could either provide a quick lift to the parent club or be used as trade bait to acquire majorleague ready talent — and the future looks bleak.
“There’s not a whole lot,” J.J. Cooper, managing editor of Baseball America, said of the Marlins’ threadbare farm system.
Cooper said when Baseball America ranks each organization based on the talent in their farm systems, the Marlins will likely end up at or near the bottom of the list.
Said ESPN.com baseball analyst Keith Law, who also examines the developing talent within each organization: “I don’t see a lot of depth there at all. The system right now is not going to fill the short-term needs of the major league club.”
Cooper and Law point to various explanations for the dearth of talent: They’ve drafted poorly, they haven’t spent as much as others on the international market, they’ve fallen into a habit of trading away their Compensatory Draft Picks, and they’ve traded off some of their better young players (i.e. Andrew Heaney and Anthony Desclafani) to acquire bigleague talent. The list of reasons is as long as the pool of talent is thin.
“I feel bad for Marlins fans in general because they have to root for a team owned by the current owner,” Law said of Jeffrey Loria. “It is a team that is run in the worst possible way.”
The Marlins have taken steps to rectify the issue from a leadership standpoint, reassigning their vice presidents of player development and player personnel while hiring Marc DelPiano to oversee minor-league RHP Tom Koehler (9-13, 3.99) vs. RHP Jacob deGrom (13-7, 2.40): Koehler finally notched his first victory in eight starts as he set career highs with 10 strikeouts over eight innings while allowing two runs on four hits in a 5-2 win over the Brewers last Wednesday. In the start before that against the Mets he faced deGrom and received a no-decision in a 6-5 win in which he gave up two runs over six innings. The Bronx native is 1-5 with a 4.33 ERA against the Mets. DeGrom, a Florida native, will be making his fourth start against Miami (3-0, 1.80). The rookie faced Koehler and Miami on Sept. 4 only to receive a no-decision after giving up three runs and nine hits in six innings.
— LHP Adam Conley (3-1, 4.93) vs. RHP Bartolo Colon (14-11, 4.13)
Sept. 17-20, at Nationals
SunSentinel.com/Marlins operations. More staff changes could be coming.
But, for now, the Marlins have a real problem on their hands.
The only Marlins minorleaguer Baseball America has ranked in its top 50 prospects is pitcher Tyler Kolek, and that’s only because he was the second overall pick in the 2014 draft. His ranking is based more on reputation than performance so far.
as future regulars from the Marlins’ position-player prospects.”