Rockies Player Reviews: Grading The 2012 Colorado
Roster

Join us as we evaluate the Colorado Rockies players during the 2012 season.

Out of all of the things that could best represent the Colorado Rockies' 2012 season, nothing quite beats the performance of the team's veteran starters over the course of the season.

The Rockies, perhaps foolishly, counted on Jeremy Guthrie and Jamie Moyer, and later, Jeff Francis and Jonathan Sanchez, to give the team a large chunk of innings at an average level of production. What the team got, instead, was 268 2/3 innings of horribly-pitched baseball; the four starters combined to post a 6.03 ERA.

Okay -- horrible might be too harsh of a word for one of these guys. Jeff Francis had pretty damn good peripherals during his few months with the team, and ended up leading the Rockies in innings pitched. He walked just 1.8 batters per nine innings while posting 6.1 strikeouts per nine. In addition, he led all Rockies starters in wins with six. So, I guess there is a reason why he'll be back, and it certainly wasn't a bad move for the Rox to re-sign him.

Jaime Moyer deserves a few nice things to be said about him, as well. One thing that speaks to how poor the Rockies' rotation was heading into the season is that Moyer was, far and away, the team's best pitcher for the first month of the season. In fact, he had a very respectable 3.14 ERA in 28 2/3 innings in April for a Rockies team that was treading water at 11-11.

Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there for the 50-year-old lefty. Moyer's ERA in May was 8.64, and he was designated for assignment by the Rockies on June 4.

Jeremy Guthrie came to the Rockies prior to the season in a deal that sent Jason Hammel, who had been one of the most valuable pitchers in baseball in 2009 and 2010, and Matt Lindstrom to the Baltimore Orioles. It's unclear if Dan O'Dowd intended on Guthrie being the savior of the Rockies rotation as some suggest, but regardless of what the expectations were for the 33-year-old righty, he fell miserably short of them.

Guthrie was simply not able to get out of his own head while with the Rockies. He was a decent road pitcher, posting a 3.73 ERA in 49 innings. However, Guthrie was an unmitigated disaster at Coors Field. In 41 2/3 innings, he allowed an eye-popping 44 earned runs, good for an ERA of 9.50. Upon exiting in the third inning of what would be his final start as a Rockie on July 18 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Guthrie mockingly tipped his cap to booing fans. That marked the end of his disastrous tenure in Denver, as Guthrie was shipped to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for Jonathan Sanchez two days later.

Of course, Guthrie went on to have a terrific second half of the season with the Royals, finishing 5-3 with a 3.16 ERA. Meanwhile, Sanchez made three starts with the Rockies, totaling 11 innings, and put up a 9.53 ERA before landing on the disabled list for the remainder of the season. Leave it to Dan O'Dowd to be the only guy who continually gets fleeced by Royals GM Dayton Moore in trades.

It's not hard to put a grade on the performance, as a whole, of the Rockies' veteran starters in 2012. The kind of numbers listed above are deserving of a huge, bold-red, F.

In fact, the only pitcher of the four who deserves a grade better than failing would be Francis. Due to his solid peripherals and innings-eating tendencies, the 31-year-old southpaw gets a C on his 2012 report cardP

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Yankees Hot Stove: Youks got to be kidding me

The New York Yankeesoff-season remains at a standstill, which isn?t so surprising when you have an ownership that refuses to offer anything more than a one-year contract. Why? - See good players, like solid bench guys can usually get two-year deals. -[...]

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Show #208: BJ Upton Talk with Roger Mooney of the
Tampa Tribune

Roger talks about BJ’s clubhouse presence, the benchings, the Longoria fight and his approach at the plate.  We also check in on the left fielder search.[...]

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e-tampa-tribune/

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Dodgers Sign Greinke In Drunken Hookup, Ryu, Too

• Over the weekend, the Dodgers signed Korean lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu for the insane figure of $62M. At least, that's the figure MLB.com's Ken Gurnick provides; the LAT claims it's only $36M to the pitcher and the balance as a posting fee to his Korean team. In addition, MSTI records that he has $1M annually in performance bonuses available. Not following Korean ball, I don't know for sure but that seems like that posting fee has to be some sort of record for anyone out of that country.

  Ryu profiles as a starter, and had a 98-52 record with a 2.80 earned-run average with Hanwha. I don't know enough about him to know how well he'll translate to the majors, but it appears that he may have been the best Asian pitcher available this offseason. A different viewpoint comes from the always-interesting Fangraphs. Eno Sarris writes

  Of course, Ryu?s changeup is his best pitch, while Wells was known for his curveball. You can scout Ryu yourself with this youtube playlist put together by Dan at MyKBO.net if you like (The video embedded below probably has the best angle). And it?s a little early to say that Ryu has a four-pitch mix like wells. He throws four pitches, yes, but by most accounts, his slider is not exciting and his curveball may just be a lefty-on-lefty type of pitch that won?t solve a platoon issue if righties like his changeup.

  Sarris doubts Ryu will survive all six years in the rotation.
• The big signing of the weekend, of course, has to be former Angel Zach Greinke, with the Dodgers opening an apparently bottomless spigot of money for a $147M/6-year deal, according to early reports in the Times. Apparently, also, he can exit the deal after three years, which the Dodgers would hope he does if he stinks (much like J.D. Drew did, to the Dodgers' relief).

  I try, as a matter of principle, to avoid getting too excited about any particular signing, one way or another. Usually with free agents, I'm skeptical, and this case is no exception. Greinke was actually pretty good for the Angels late in 2012, but not enough of a difference-maker to salvage a lost season. He at least has been healthy; MSTI was thrilled, given that the next step down was Kyle Lohse. Gah. Not a ringing endorsement, but it has its limited advantages.

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2012 Topps Career Day Subset Card #6 Joe
DiMaggio, New York Yankees

2012 Topps ?Career Day? Subset ? Card #6 – Joe DiMaggio, New York Yankees I am working on this set because I find it to be the most appealing of the subsets issued by Topps in 2012. The cards feature … Continue reading →

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e-dimaggio-new-york-yankees/

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The Pittsburgh Pirates re-sign Jason Grilli

The Pirates have re-signed 36-year old righty reliever Jason Grilli to a 2-year deal. Grilli pitched in 64 games (0 starts) for the Pirates last year and he was 1-6 with 2 saves, a 2.91 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP. He has now pitched in 92 games (0 starts) in his first two [...]

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http://www.bucslocker.com/2012/12/10/the-pittsburgh-pirates-re-sign-jason-grilli/

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Rockies Player Reviews: Grading 2012 Colorado
Roster

Join us as we evaluate the Colorado Rockies players during the 2012 season.

Out of all of the things that could best represent the Colorado Rockies' 2012 season, nothing quite beats the performance of the team's veteran starters over the course of the season.

The Rockies, perhaps foolishly, counted on Jeremy Guthrie and Jamie Moyer, and later, Jeff Francis and Jonathan Sanchez, to give the team a large chunk of innings at an average level of production. What the team got, instead, was 268 2/3 innings of horribly-pitched baseball; the four starters combined to post a 6.03 ERA.

Okay -- horrible might be too harsh of a word for one of these guys. Jeff Francis had pretty damn good peripherals during his few months with the team, and ended up leading the Rockies in innings pitched. He walked just 1.8 batters per nine innings while posting 6.1 strikeouts per nine. In addition, he led all Rockies starters in wins with six. So, I guess there is a reason why he'll be back, and it certainly wasn't a bad move for the Rox to re-sign him.

Jaime Moyer deserves a few nice things to be said about him, as well. One thing that speaks to how poor the Rockies' rotation was heading into the season is that Moyer was, far and away, the team's best pitcher for the first month of the season. In fact, he had a very respectable 3.14 ERA in 28 2/3 innings in April for a Rockies team that was treading water at 11-11.

Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there for the 50-year-old lefty. Moyer's ERA in May was 8.64, and he was designated for assignment by the Rockies on June 4.

Jeremy Guthrie came to the Rockies prior to the season in a deal that sent Jason Hammel, who had been one of the most valuable pitchers in baseball in 2009 and 2010, and Matt Lindstrom to the Baltimore Orioles. It's unclear if Dan O'Dowd intended on Guthrie being the savior of the Rockies rotation as some suggest, but regardless of what the expectations were for the 33-year-old righty, he fell miserably short of them.

Guthrie was simply not able to get out of his own head while with the Rockies. He was a decent road pitcher, posting a 3.73 ERA in 49 innings. However, Guthrie was an unmitigated disaster at Coors Field. In 41 2/3 innings, he allowed an eye-popping 44 earned runs, good for an ERA of 9.50. Upon exiting in the third inning of what would be his final start as a Rockie on July 18 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Guthrie mockingly tipped his cap to booing fans. That marked the end of his disastrous tenure in Denver, as Guthrie was shipped to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for Jonathan Sanchez two days later.

Of course, Guthrie went on to have a terrific second half of the season with the Royals, finishing 5-3 with a 3.16 ERA. Meanwhile, Sanchez made three starts with the Rockies, totaling 11 innings, and put up a 9.53 ERA before landing on the disabled list for the remainder of the season. Leave it to Dan O'Dowd to be the only guy who continually gets fleeced by Royals GM Dayton Moore in trades.

It's not hard to put a grade on the performance, as a whole, of the Rockies' veteran starters in 2012. The kind of numbers listed above are deserving of a huge, bold-red, F.

In fact, the only pitcher of the four who deserves a grade better than failing would be Francis. Due to his solid peripherals and innings-eating tendencies, the 31-year-old southpaw gets a C on his 2012 report cardP

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The James Shields Trade: Internet Reactions

Rob Neyer retracts his statement that this is the worst trade ever. But he still thinks its awful.

There's a problem with the Royals-in-the-playoffs scenario, too. Chief among them, Shields isn't exactly an ace. He's 30, and his ERA's have gone up and down, but fundamentally he's been the same pitcher for the last three seasons. And he's not great. He controls the strike zone well enough and he's durable, but he gives up a lot of home runs and he's gotten a and his ballpark.

There are other details, of course. Jake Odorizzi might be better than Wade Davis over the next five years, if not immediately. Mike Montgomery might jump-start his career, which hasn't been going well since 2010. Patrick Leonard might become a good major-league hitter by, say, 2015 or '16. If one or two of those things happen, it won't matter what Davis does; it will be a terrible trade for the Royals. Again, unless they reach the playoffs and Shields plays a big part.

Rany Jazeryli is a bit more succint.

This sucks.

Joe Posnanski thinks the trade is terrible and reeks of desperation but thinks through how the move could work for Kansas City.

So, that's how it could work. The Royals' young offense scores runs, the Royals' young bullpen shuts people down in the late innings, and the makeshift veteran rotation with James Shields, Jeremy Guthrie, Ervin Santana, Wade Davis and Luke Hochevar or Bruce Chen or somebody lead the Royals into contention in 2013 for the first time in a decade, maybe leads them into September contention for the first time in more than 20 years. It's a longshot hope, maybe, but you don't understand -- for Kansas City fans, any faint sign of hope that the Royals are trying to win now, today, this minute, is a rose in the desert. The Royals have decided that it's time -- now or never time -- and if they can finally win just a little bit, then the bulk of their fans will likely agree that this trade was worth it no matter how Will Myers and the others turn out. It's been so long, too long, since the Royals have mattered. Now, maybe, possibly, conceivably, they will matter.

But we'll know soon if the move was a failure.

The one unquestionable thing about this trade from a Royals fan perspective is this: They won't have to wait five years to find out if it was a good one. If the Royals are 15 games back and wallowing in fourth place in July, it was an absolute disaster. And jobs will be lost.

Sam Mellinger at the Star agrees its a panic move, but at least the Royals are trying.

The Royals still have a good farm system. Internally, they view Yordano Ventura and Kyle Zimmer as better pitching prospects than Odorizzi. And as several scouts around the sport have observed in recent weeks, Myers and Odorizzi will have to make multiple All-Star Games to accumulate more trade value than they have right now.

So this trade is not the unmitigated disaster some are calling it.

But it is a significant reach

Jay Jaffe doesn't see the Royals as contenders with this move.

While the trade isn’t a complete mismatch in terms of assets exchanged, it represents a fundamental misreading of the Royals’ current station. Coming off a 72-90 campaign, their 17th losing season in the past 18 years, they simply weren’t a front-of-the-rotation starter away from contention even when one factors in the other improvements they’ve made this winter, or the ones they can expect from a nucleus of young talent that itself serves as a reminder that success isn’t 100 percent guaranteed for Myers. Instead, the move expresses Moore’s desperation for positive results at the major league level.

Jeff Passan concedes it was a desperate move, but a necessary one.

If this whole thing blows up for Moore – if Perez doesn't develop into an MVP candidate and Hosmer or Moustakas don't grow and Francoeur continues to collect at-bats in right field – there's always the possibility of a talent-salvaging deal come 2014. For now, the Royals would prefer thinking about 2013 and how winning no longer seems like some far-fetched dream. The Royals believed they were one starter away from contention, and while it's easy to sneer at that – and maybe rightful – they justify the means because their vision of the end is so bright. Both on paper and in spreadsheet this trade is wrong, and yet the Royals were tired of sitting around and watching others make bold moves.

Dave Cameron at Fangraphs thinks the Royals mortgaged the farm to be mediocre.

The obvious comparison here is the Erik Bedard trade. Coming off an 88 win season, the Mariners decided to go for broke, shipping off prospects Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, and Kam Mickolio along with reliever George Sherrill to acquire Bedard from the Orioles. The Mariners weren’t as close to winning as they thought they were, and after they won 61 games in 2008, the entire front office was fired and the organization went into a full scale rebuild. Bedard spent his two years in Seattle on and off the disabled list, while Jones has blossomed into one of the game’s best center fielders and Tillman continues to flash some potential as a young starter with a big league future. That trade is generally regarded as the worst prospects-for-veteran swap in recent history. This might be worse.

Reactions from MLB execs were mixed with some liking the Royals being bold, and others feeling like Dayton overpaid.

Two other personnel people were decidedly pro-Tampa Bay. "The Royals got owned on this one," said an NL executive, who marveled at Friedman's huge haul of young talent. Another National League talent evaluator praised Moore for his chutzpah, but not so much for his baseball judgment. "My initial view was basic shock that Dayton did this," the evaluator said, "especially with so much pitching on the free-agent market. But they have a hard time getting pitching there. They gave up a lot to go all-in, so I applaud the effort. But I'm still shocked."

Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs takes a look at Wade Davis.

So Davis came to flourish as a reliever. Now it seems he’s going to be asked to go back to being a starter. Davis claims to prefer starting over relieving, so he’ll welcome this opportunity, but there’s reason for skepticism. In the past, Davis wasn’t a particularly effective starter. His success in relief seems strongly tied to velocity gains, which he’ll give back in the rotation. It’s not like he developed a better changeup in relief. It’s unlikely his fastball command is suddenly a strength. The same things that caused Davis to struggle before presumably still exist. He got good, probably, because he threw hard. Now he’s going to throw less hard. I’m not saying it isn’t worth trying, and I’m not saying it’s doomed to failure. Davis was a top prospect not long ago, and he has a broad-enough repertoire. It’s possible he gained valuable experience in the bullpen and better understands now how to put hitters away. He always struggled with that part of his game before. Maybe now he’ll be better able to reach back for something extra when he’s counting on a swing and miss. Maybe Davis won’t give back all of his strikeouts. Maybe Davis will be better.

Keith Law calls the trade a "heist" for Tampa Bay (INSIDER).

Rays fan Jonah Keri doesn't think its a terrible deal for the Royals.

Short take on KC-TB deal: I don't HATE it for KC like some do, and it's facile to vilify Moore. Just think there were better routes to take.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) December 10, 2012

Ken Rosenthal likes the the trade for the Royals because prospects sometimes fail.

People will crush the Royals. People always crush the Royals. But trust me, the Rays sure don’t feel like they won the trade.

Those bastards at Lookout Landing are mocking us.

If this backfires, or if the Royals simply underachieve, Dayton Moore will probably be out of a job as a general manager. He'd probably never get that job again, just as Bavasi won't, and just as Reagins won't. Moore, when removed, will presumably be replaced by someone smarter, and less willing to do something stupid. This might be Dayton Moore's last godawful trade. This might be baseball's last godawful trade. That's not certain, but the possibility exists.

This deal was on the table for Mets last week, per source: Niese and Wheeler to KC for Myers and similar package to what TB got for Shields.

— Andy Martino (@MartinoNYDN) December 10, 2012

Replacement Level Yankee has the early CAIRO numbers with the Shields trade factored in and has the Royals as an 84-win team, just four games out of a Wild Card spot.

And Jeremy is ready for the Plaza Parade.

6 am & just saw the news! BIG GAME James pitching for the Royals...NEEEEXT!!! I'm jacked, running sprints in 30 degree weather to celebrate!

— Jeremy Guthrie (@TheRealJGuts) December 10, 2012

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Dayton Moore's Big Book of IFs

The Kansas City fan base is certainly divided on last night's trade with Tampa. My extremely unscientific research indicates that the casual fan is predominately excited for this trade, as are those who make a fair portion of their living in some sort of association with the organization (or by at least having access to said organization). The sabremetric community and the 'internet crowd', which by the way is not one in the same are against the trade by an extremely large margin. Judging solely by blurbs, bytes and tweets, the baseball community outside of the immediate and every shrinking Royals community, also seems split.

Sometimes such a divergence of opinion is the sign of a fair trade and sometimes it is just a sign that people don't agree. My wife hates this phrase: but it is what it is.

In the confusing world of following the Royals, where just a week ago we were told that the major league payroll could not exceed $70 million and, for a short time, could not be even that much, we journey into the work week with a Royals team whose payroll now is bumping up against the $80 million mark. If you told me that was going to happen 60 days ago, I would have been really excited. However, that $80 million is not seem particularly appealing, unless you think paying one million dollars per win in 2013 is a good deal.

Without question, this was a move made by a General Manager who has become desperate to win. I speculated a few weeks back that we were headed down this road, but I have to admit I was not sure the Royals would drive at an unsafe speed down said road. Dayton Moore is now traveling somewhere north of 100 mph on the backs of James Shields, Ervin Santana, Jeremy Guthrie, Wade Davis and, brace yourself, Jeff Francoeur.

That's the bet: Moore is going to win 90 games not 80 (or 78) with this group or he's going to be working somewhere else.

That is a pretty big gamble considering just how long the list is of 'ifs' that had to fall right for this Royals team to even begin to catch the Detroit Tigers. You know, the guys with a top five in the order of Austin Jackson, Torii Hunter, Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Victor Martinez. The same group that will roll out Verlander, Scherzer and Fister to start a series and might yet return Anibal Sanchez to the mix as well.

Simply put, Dayton Moore needs the following to happen:

1. James Shields has to translate his Tampa environment (park and defense) successfully to the Midwest. He has to be 'James Shields', not the guy who used to be James Shields. Honestly, I think this is the most likely of all the 'ifs' to happen.
2. Wade Davis has to translate his 2012 bullpen success into a 2013 starting performance that makes him way better than Luke Hochevar. Right now, Dayton Moore is indicating that Hochevar is a 'solid number 4 in the Royals' rotation' and that Davis will be competing with Bruce Chen and Luis Mendoza for the number five spot. Davis has to blow those two and Hochevar away, plain and simple.
3. Jeremy Guthrie needs to be decent. Is it realistic for him to pitch like he did late last summer? I don't think so, but he could be what he was prior to his disastrous stint in Colorado last year. Let's clarify decent: that means league average and not just league average with all the crap that gets run out throughout the course of the season. I'm talking league average in relation to the pitchers who throw 150 or more innings.
4. Ervin Santana does, too. All of what I said about Guthrie, only insert 'bad first half with the Angels' for Colorado.
5. Eric Hosmer has to become the star we thought he would be. Without Wil Myers to come up and bolster the lineup, the Royals need Hosmer to be the next big thing. The Royals can live with Mike Moustakas being okay at the plate and good in the field - hell, his fWAR last year was good enough, but they absolutely positively need Hosmer to be a star.
6. Jeff Francoeur can't suck. Last year he hit poorly, ran poorly and covered almost no ground in right field. Yes, he has a great arm that makes Sports Center highlight throws, but what's the point if his range is similar to that of Juan Gonzalez's....right now.
7. Lorenzo Cain has to both stay healthy and, you know, HIT the ball. Some really like Cain, others do not and worry about his long swing. There were flashes last year of both good and bad, but the Royals need more good flashes than bad.
8. Did I say James Shields being good was the most likely of the ifs? I was wrong. The Royals need Salvador Perez to parlay the success of his first two partial seasons into 140 games of greatness. I think he will, but it is still an 'if'.
9. Gordon, Butler, Escobar and Moustakas, as a group, cannot regress. How they achieve the cumulative WAR they provided last year will likely change, but the four of them have to provide at least as much production as in 2012.
10. The bullpen cannot implode. I don't think they will, but pitchers are hard to predict (that's frankly what Dayton Moore is counting on with at least three of his starting pitchers - that the statistical predictions are flat wrong) and relief pitchers are the most volatile of them all.
11. One of Danny Duffy or Felipe Paulino has to return before July and be effective. Both would be nice and required if any of ifs 1 through 4 don't occur. Even all of the first four do happen, the Royals will need a boost by mid-season and who would not prefer seeing Danny Duffy every fifth day instead of Luke Hochevar?
12. They have to stay healthy. Wil Myers isn't waiting if an outfielder goes down and Jake Odorizzi is not in AAA if another bout of Tommy John sweeps through the clubhouse. Name a non-reliever in AA or AAA who is ready to step in on an every day basis. Yep, let's all be careful out there

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Miami Marlins Farm System Bolstered By Trades,
Development

The Miami Marlins may have messed up numerous things about their team's long-term future with the mega-trade involving the Toronto Blue Jays. The organization may have given up their chance to sign Giancarlo Stanton to a long-term extension. The club may have ruined their odds of signing free agents for the foreseeable future thanks to their immediate fire sale. One can obviously be upset about the status of the current 2013 version of the Marlins that is sure to be an NL East cellar-dweller for the third straight year.

The one thing that Marlins fans cannot argue is that, in terms of the long-term state of the team's farm system, the situation is greatly improved. Recently, both Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) and John Sickels of SB Nation's own Minor League Ball released their respective prospect lists for the 2013 season, and both lists speak significantly better about the Marlins' previously decimated farm system.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, Jason Parks had this to say about the state of the farm for the team:

A Parting Thought: It’s hard to soothe the recent wounds inflicted on the Marlins fan base by selling them on a future hope, but the seeds of this organization are still quite strong, with high-impact talent sitting atop a list featuring quality depth.

Similarly, John Sickels had this thought on the team's improved system.

The Marlins system was thin for awhile, but trades and better drafting at the top the last few years has helped and things are turning around quickly.

While it is very annoying for Marlins fans to have to rebuild again, the farm system is making clear progress rebuilding the organization's base of young talent.

Both prospect experts found the Marlins' system suddenly flush with depth that the team had not seen since before the 2006 season. While the Fish will not boast eight top-100 prospects as it did that year, the Marlins can boast a number of players who are not only quality talents, but also players who are significantly closer to major league ready than the team could previously boast.

Take a look at the raw improvement of the team's farm system in terms of Sickels's grading system.

There are two grades in which the Marlins made significant improvements. At the top, the Fish filled out the top tier, not by adding players via trade but merely by the development of two well-regarded prospects. The advancement of Christian Yelich, who dominated High-A at age 20, and Jose Fernandez, who bulldozed through two minor league levels in his first full season, really bolstered the overall status of the farm.

But had those two been the only graduates, the Marlins would merely have two great players on top of a still-floundering, thin system. The Fish managed to pull off a number of trades that really bolstered the prospects in the farm system. Among the top ten players Sickels mentioned in this year's list, five were outside acquisitions via trade. One new player listed was the team's first-round draft pick, left-hander Andrew Heaney. Only Fernandez, Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, and Adam Conley were in the Marlins organization to start 2012.

How did the players within the organization fare over the year? Have any improved their outlook in John Sickels's observation? Here are eight of the top 10 prospects on the team before 2012 (two others, Matt Dominguez and Rob Rasmussen, are now with the Houston Astros) and how their grades fared thanks to their 2012 performance.

Two players took big leaps forward, and those are the two obvious stars of the organization. Two players suffered legitimate falls, including former first-round pick Chad James and former second baseman of the future Noah Perio. The others more or less held their ground, but only Ozuna and Conley remain in the top 10 among the prospects whose statuses held steady thanks to the 2013 season.

What about the players the Marlins acquired? Here are the prospects the team acquired this season who were ranked both in last year's and this year's lists. This list does not include Jacob Turner or Nathan Eovaldi, both of whom entered last season as top 100 prospects but likely would have dropped in perception this year.

You can see that the Marlins mostly picked up prospects whose stocks were on the rise, and we already saw that the team did a decent job with selecting Rob Brantly, who is the only player on this list who has already played for the Fish in the majors. The only prospect whose stock went down was Jake Marisnick, and Marisnick was doing well as late as midseason for many prospect gurus and remains fairly high on other lists, such as the one by Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus. There is at least a decent chance that half of these players will be long-term major league contributors, with Nicolino, Hechavarria, and Brantly being fairly assured as high-floor players with certain known qualities.

Perhaps the most important part about this crop of players the Marlins now have in their farm is that a number of them should be major league ready very shortly. There is suspicion that, if Fernandez and Yelich scorch Double-A at the start of 2013, they may receive call-ups to the big league level, and this seems especially true given the status of the big league club. Hechavarria is already being counted on as the team's shortstop, as is Brantly at catcher. The remaining players, both acquired and from the roster, are likely to be ready by 2014, meaning the roster will be receiving a major infusion of talent in the near future. We already discussed the likelihood that first-round pick Andrew Heaney was picked distinctly for that purpose, and it seems the Marlins took a similar, intelligent approach in acquiring their prospects to be ready shortly rather than going for talent in the distant future in prep players. Recall that the Marlins often draft prep players and have had difficulty transitioning them into major leaguers in the past.

It is very possible that, in 2014, the Marlins may debut Conley, Dietrich, Heaney, Marisnick, and Nicolino into their starting lineups and rotations, in addition to adding guys like Flynn, Dayton, or McGough as pieces for the bullpen. This is a huge influx of well-regarded talent, and it may turn into the 2006 Marlins all over again. In addition to the obvious inclusions of Fernandez and Yelich, the team could have seven or more young, cost-controlled, talented players filling various holes on the roster starting in 2014 or at most 2015. The next few seasons may be relatively lean, and they will be especially poor if the Marlins end up trading Giancarlo Stanton, but at least the future beyond 2014 looks very bright, provided a decent number of these prospects continue their ascent.

Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but at least the concerns beyond 2014 have now been somewhat allayed. The Fish have some players coming to fill spots in the near future, and if the team ever starts spending money again, they could supplement that core with some timely additions that could make the franchise competitive in two or three years. The problem, as mentioned before, is whether ownership will be willing to supplement this core or if it will settle for the cheap product they already have. That may be the difference between contention and mediocrity, but do not blame the prospect haul the Marlins received in their trades for that problem.

In the coming weeks, Fish Stripes will begin its own top 20 prospect coverage for the Marlins, with prospect mavens Sam Evans, Eric Weston, and Conor Dorney covering all of the team's best. We have our own list coming out, so for you Fish Stripes readers who are interested in the future of the Marlins, we will have you covered! Stay tuned to Fish Stripes for all of your Marlins prospect needs!

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