Padres' "Weak" System - Really?

The Padres minor league system has taken a lot heat this offseason for, well, sucking…

Kevin Goldstein said, “The Padres system remains weak…”

Baseball America called the Padres the 29th rated system (out of 30) and their writer who compiled the Padres top 30 said, “After a tumultuous 2008 season in which the big league club sputtered, several top prospects took steps backward…”

John Sickles wrote, “There is a definite lack of sure-fire stars...”

Sickles’ comment that the system lacks sure-fire stars is especially common sentiment.

Let’s take a look at some things here (age in parenthesis):

Comparison #1

Player A:
Low-A (22): 135 G, 465 AB, .280/.367/.469 & a 66/145 BB/SO ratio
High-A (23): 130 G, 490 AB, .304/.374/.514 & a 50/151 BB/SO ratio
AA (24): 102 G, 374 AB, .297/.386/.647 & a 46/129 BB/SO ratio

Player B:
Low-A (19): 124 G, 458 AB, .288/.385/.443 & a 71/112 BB/SO ratio
High-A (19): 10 G, 35 AB, .343/.489/.486 & a 11/9 BB/SO ratio
High-A (20): 77 G, 305 AB, .317/.408/.543 & a 46/64 BB/SO ratio
AA (20): 41 G, 133 AB, .316/.436/.526 & a 29/43 BB/SO ratio

Player C:
Low-A (19): 86 G, 308 AB, .292/.382/.455, & a 36/79 BB/SO ratio
High-A (20): 119 G, 465 AB, .301/.380/.540 & a 44/98 BB/SO ratio
AA (21): 132 G, 492 AB, .325/.404/.514 & a 51/90 BB/SO ratio

Player A is already out of the minors and accumulated a career minor league .299/.387/.550 line. Now admittedly stats won’t translate perfectly but they do give a good indication of developmental progress and comparative baseline. I omitted Player A’s AAA numbers (because the Padre in the comparison has not played AAA)… I also wanted to use this player because his body-type is similar to the Padres prospect we’re looking at. Player A is Ryan Howard.

Player B is a highly rated minor league 1B (who is arguably a better than the Padre prospect in this threesome). His bat is obviously good (career line of: .304/.404/.480) – though the best evidence for this is 41 games in AA. His High-A numbers come in one of the best hitters’ parks in all the minors. Player B is Lars Anderson.

Player C is Kyle Blanks (career Minor League line of: .307/.393/.508). I’m not going to take this too far and tell you that Blanks is better than Anderson or that Blanks will become a perennial MVP candidate like Ryan Howard. In fact, I don’t think Blanks will become Ryan Howard. Now what I think Blanks will become is a guy who bats .300+ (maybe a lot “plus”) with 25-35 HR while not striking out a ton (110-125 times). Blanks does deserve to be discussed (with Lars Anderson; #25 according to MiLB.com) as one of the best 1B in the minors.

Comparison #2

Player A:
Low-A (19): 75 G, 301 AB, .279/.351/.372 & a 33/43 BB/SO ratio
High-A (20): 56 G, 225 AB, .324/.386/.467 & a 23/39 BB/SO ratio
AA (21): 138 G, 498 AB, .287/.398/.390 & a 89/61 BB/SO ratio

Player B:
Low-A (19): 134 G, 535 AB, .258/.338/.344 & a 60/152 BB/SO ratio
Low-A (20): 60 G, 235 AB, .260/.336/.374 & a 24/59 BB/SO ratio
High-A (20): 67 G, 258 AB, .345/.398/.566 & a 22/48 BB/SO ratio
AA (21): 131 G, 520 AB, .285/.354/.419 & a 56/113 BB/SO ratio

Player C:
Low-A (19): 129 G, 496 AB, .282/.344/.373 & a 47/78 BB/SO ratio
High-A (20): 134 G, 584 AB, .318/.362/.442 & a 42/47 BB/SO ratio

I’m not trying to fool anyone here. I used the same order… Player A is a former MLB CF who moved to LF/DH because he lacked range in CF, Shannon Stewart. Player B is a highly rated CF prospect for another organization, Austin Jackson. And Player C is our own Cedric Hunter.

Shannon Stewart is similar to Cedric Hunter in a lot ways but dissimilar in some pretty significant ones. Stewart is fast, but lacked the instincts to handle CF. Conversely Hunter is not quite as fast but has better instincts. Stewart had to move off CF and Hunter is rumored (because of his lack of top-end speed) to require an eventual move off CF (I don’t agree with those rumors).

Austin Jackson was rated 27 by MiLB.com. He has tremendous athletic ability. However, his bat is not as advanced as Hunter’s. While Jackson had a sublime 53 game High-A experience (.345/.398/.566) and he doesn’t have any other season with an OPS over .780. Jackson’s career numbers (.284/.355/.410) are worse than Cedric’s (.313/.374/.423).

Again, I’m not saying Hunter will have a career as good as Shannon Stewart (career MLB statistics: .294/.385/.405) but it wouldn’t surprise me at all for Cedric to post those kind of numbers year in, year out… And how is Jackson called a top 30 prospect when Hunter is completely ignored?

Lastly, I was going to compare Kellen Kulbacki to Brian Giles and a minor leaguer, but I could not find a top-rated prospect with similar numbers…

Kellen is a stud. Period. In his one “full” season of professional baseball (it was actually on 102 games due to injuries) he posted a .304/.400/.540 line (this after posting .944, 1.511, and 1.323 OPS seasons in college). Kellen will hit. Physically he is downgraded because he doesn’t resemble a Greek Adonis. However, he has shown to be better than advertised in RF (though a move to LF may be in his future).

The three above Padre hitters are each “premiere” and we didn’t even look at Jaff Decker or pitchers Mat Latos or Adys Portillo…

The only way you can call the Padres weak, is if you’re not paying attention.