Royals’ Farm System: Best of the Decade?

Even before trading away Zack Greinke, the Royals were widely considered to have the best farm system in baseball. With Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress now in the fold, some prospect analysts believe the the Royals’ farm system may be historically good. Is this a case of hyperbole, or do the royals really have one of the best farm systems ever? Ranking farm systems and prospects is always a fairly subjective task, but using Victor Wang’s research to value prospects is one of the more objective ways to compare farm systems. Wang looked at Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect lists from 1990-1999 and broke the players into five groups: players who ranked in the top 10, 11-25, 26-50, 51-75, and 76-100. Pitchers and position player’s were looked at separately. Wang then tracked the production of each player in the first six years of his career (the years under team control). Erik Manning then took Wang’s data and calculated the average surplus value derive...