It often amazes me how certian teams use their farm system. o­n o­ne hand you have the softly, softly approach of a team like Tampa who have the two best hitters anywhere in their system (including the major league team) down in AAA Durham (although BJ Upton is down there as an experiment to see just how many errors o­ne man can make). Then you have teams that collect and cultivate prospects and aren't afraid to deal more established players to make room for some young stud who is abusing opposition in the minors.

You o­nly have to look at teams like Oakland, Minnesota and Atlanta to see this. People like to make a lot about statistical models and bang for the buck a la Moneyball, but the real secret to the A's success o­n a shoe-string in recent years has been more a result of focussed and dedicated player development. You can draft guys with funky deliveries or good raw tools but its all pointless if you can't smooth over the rough edges and make them into big league players with great coaching.

The real benefit of a strong farm system comes from bringing up players who are developed to function in your clubs system. The reason that a team like Atlanta can bring up a guy from Mississippi is that they play the same ball there that they do in Richmond, Danville or Atlanta and the role a player was filling at o­ne level can instantly be assumed at the next.

I love the notion that a club like Oakland will pay bonuses to their farmhands who see a certain amount of pitches or get a certain amount of walks as it encourages their guys to play the way the big club wants their players to play. From the moment they are drafted they are plugged into a system which has everyone pulling in the same direction with success in the Majors being the ultimate goal.

A lot of the big market clubs appear to forget the importance and the benfits that come from developing from within and many have seen that attitude as being a primary factor in the diminished returns for the Yankees. When you look at the key players in the teams that were winning titles in the late 90's, they were all guys who came up through the Yankee farm. Guys like Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite and Mo Rivera all went through Columbus o­n the way to Yankee town and while those teams were certainly helped by some free agents, the people they developed themselves were still the o­nes that stayed around all the way through the success and were at the core of all the good things that happened for New York. Since then The Yankees have used their prospects as commodities to be traded away for short term gains and as a result many have questioned the make-up of the team.

Perhaps the clearest example of a big budget team maybe not valuing the benefits of bringing in a player from their farm and deciding to opt for a more short term benefit would be the Kazmir deal The Mets made at the deadline last year. They traded away o­ne of the most highly regarded prospects in baseball for a more established player who was having a career year and Tampa, I'm sure, are very grateful.

It seems that the depth of talent is just growing and growing, as exemplified by the record amount of number one draft picks scheduled to play in Arizona this autumn, and the number of great players hovering just under the radar is amazing (check out Pittsburgh and Milwaukee) but how teams use these players is what awaits to be seen but when Boston starts bringing guys in from the farm (albeit due to a number of injuries and ineffective free agent pick ups) you know that the value of the farm is being reassessed and guys like Hanley Ramirez, Yusmeiro Petit and Eric Duncan might actually get wear the uniform of the parent club that has developed their skills...or they might still be dealt for some journeyman during a stretch run. We shall see.