What's the Impact of the 5 Biggest Year-to-Year MLB Farm System Ranking Dips Since 2011?
Cleveland Indians: -22 after 2011
The Cleveland Indians' top 10 list experienced massive turnover throughout 2011 -- only two players who were on that list were also present on it in 2012. While they lost their top four prospects that season, only two were graduated to the majors, with two others finding new homes via trade.
Top prospect Lonnie Chisenhall exceeded the rookie limit in 2011, but didn’t have a 100-game season until 2014. He was actually sent down with Jose Ramirez in the middle of 2015, his age-25 season, after hitting .209 with a .585 OPS. He’s been above replacement level, according to Baseball-Reference, in every year of his career, only breaking the two-win mark in 2015.
He figures to be the everyday starter in right field this season for the Tribe.
While Chisenhall’s production thus far hasn’t been that of a top overall prospect, the production of the team’s number-three prospect in 2011, Jason Kipnis, has been every bit of one.
The two-time All Star has had only one bad season— which came in 2014 when a nagging oblique pained him all season — and has been remarkably consistent otherwise. Ignoring his rookie call-up and that injury-plagued 2014 year, Kipnis has played in over 90 percent of Cleveland's games and posted WARs of 3.9, 5.7, 4.6, and 4.1.
The other side of the coin, however, was the second-, fourth- and ninth-ranked prospects they lost midseason.
In July of 2011, the Indians flipped pitchers Alex White, Drew Pomeranz and Joe Gardner for Ubaldo Jimenez. White and Gardner were the team’s first- and third-round picks, respectively, in 2009, while Pomeranz was their first pick (fifth overall) in the following draft.
Jimenez struggled in the second half with Cleveland, posting a 5.10 ERA and WHIP just shy of 1.500, but was worse in 2012 -- he pitched to an unsightly 5.40 ERA and 1.613 WHIP while leading the majors with 17 losses.
His only good season with the Indians was his last in 2013. He was nearly a three-win pitcher and registered the highest strikeout rate of his career to pair with a 3.30 ERA. He declined a qualifying offer that offseason, landing the Indians with a compensation round pick in 2014 that they used on Mike Papi.
Jimenez didn’t further the Indians' playoff dreams. In the three seasons he spent in Cleveland, the team won 80, 68 and 92 games. The 92-win season ended in a one-game wild card playoff loss to the Rays, and Jimenez didn't even pitch.
Summary:
Cleveland graduated two viable MLB starters in Kipnis and Chisenhall, but traded three of their top 10 for what would eventually become a sandwich round pick who, according to MLB.com, is the team’s current 25th ranked prospect. Not great returns on that front.
In every year since the organization's farm system dropped from 7th to 29th, it has ranked as below average, never higher than 16th and averaging 21st.
Impact on 2017/Beyond:
Despite shedding so much top pitching depth in that one failed trade for Jimenez, the team still managed to build one of the best starting rotations in baseball.
In 2010, they had traded a 32-year-old Jake Westbrook in a three-team deal that netted them 2014 AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber. They acquired Trevor Bauer in another three-team deal, and despite being signed as an amateur free agent in 2006 and not shedding his rookie status until 2013, stuck by Danny Salazar until he became a rotation stalwart.
