So here we are again. It seems like just last week that we were watching the Yankees parade down the Canyon of Heroes, and yet pitchers and catchers have already reported to Tampa. I guess that’s one of the many perks of having your favorite team win the World Series; a shorter offseason.

Just like the big league team, both High-A Tampa and Short Season Staten Island were able to capture their league championships in 2009. For the SI Yanks, it was their fifth league title of the decade. Double-A Trenton was unable to win their third consecutive Eastern League Championship, though Triple-A Scranton returned to the International League Championship Series after winning the crown in 2008. Overall, the Yanks’ six minor league affiliates combined for a 381-309 record, good for the second best winning percentage (.552) among the thirty clubs (Giants, .590).

Even with all the winning, the Yanks system took a big hit in all sorts of ways over the last year. Five key prospects graduated to the big leagues in 2009, while attrition knocked six others off my list all together. Five others are no longer with the organization for whatever reason. As a result, this year’s list features a whopping 16 new faces, quite the turnover in just 12 months.

As always, ranking prospects is all about trying to find a balance between performance, projection, and probability. Oodles of talent and great performance is all well and good, but if the player is in A-ball, we have to be careful and remember to temper expectations. There are certainly times that the player’s upside is so great that you can’t ignore it, no matter how far down the ladder they are. Remember, a lot of  these guys are very interchangeable. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between this year’s #2 and #5 prospects, or the #15 and #30 prospects. When guys are that close, it comes down to preference.

Here’s my lists from 2007, 2008, and 2009. Hard to believe I’ve been at this for four years already, more if you count past blogging ventures. Anyway, the listed ages are as of April 1st of this year, and the fun starts after the jump.

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Every year as I put together my Top 30 Prospects list, I always pay a little extra attention to the players in the last few spots. While elite prospects like Jesus Montero get all the attention, the best way to gauge the depth and strength of a farm system is by looking at the No. 10, or No. 15, or No. 30 prospects. The better those players are, the better the system is overall. Potential superstars are nice, but having waves of young talent coming up bodes much better for future success.

Along those same lines, the players that get shut out of a top prospects list can also tell you about the quality of a system as well. Last year I presented six players that weren’t able to crack the Yanks’ top 30, and sure enough two managed to make the leap into the big boy’s list this year. Two others were among the final cuts as well. That group featured some higher upside kids in the lower levels of the minors, however given the hit the farm system has taken in the last 12 months, the pickin’s were pretty slim this year.

Here’s five players (presented alphabetically) that could work their way into next year’s Top 30 if they continue to improve this season. Ages are as of April 1st of this year.

DeAngelo Mack, OF, 23
The Yanks’ 13th round pick last year, Mack dominated younger competition in the NY-Penn League after signing. He hit .306-.372-.513 with 30 extra base hits in 66 games, good for second in the league. By no means is he a spring chicken, but Mack made major strides with his approach as a redshirt junior at South Carolina in 2009. He’s strong enough to hit balls with authority the other way, and he does a good job of being what they call “aggressively patient” (he waits for his pitch, but he’ll jump all over something he likes early in the count). Mack has good baseball skills and athleticism, though he projects best in a corner outfield spot. He could end up being a classic ‘tweener; not enough defense for center, not enough pop for a corner (despite this). He’ll jump to Low-A Charleston to start the season, but should get a bump at mid-season if he’s performing well.

Photo Credit: Rich Glickstein, AP

Melky Mesa, OF, 23
Despite sharing a name, this Melky has almost nothing in common with the departed Melky Cabrera other than his arm strength. Mesa hit .270-.338-.491 with 17 bombs in the season’s first three months last year, though he slumped so badly in the second half that he finished the year with a .225-.309-.423 batting line and 20 homers. He also struck out 168 times in 564 plate appearances, pushing his career total to 306 K in 1,020 PA. Even at his age, Mesa is raw in terms of baseball skills, though he possesses tremendous physical gifts. His insane bat speed leads to huge raw power, among the best in the system, and his top of the line speed is a weapon both on the bases and in the outfield, where he’s a passable centerfielder but an elite rightfielder defensively. Of course, the biggest question mark is Mesa’s ability to make consistent contact, which is kind of a big problem. If he ever improves his approach and learns how to get the bat on the ball with regularity, he’d vault right up the ladder and become a truly elite prospect. Mesa will patrol the outfield for High-A Tampa next season.

Photo Credit: Mike Ashmore

Jimmy Paredes, 2B, 21
The speedy Paredes has been one of the system’s bigger sleepers since signing a few years back, but it wasn’t until he received regular playing time with Short Season Staten Island in 2009 that he started to live up to some of that promise. His .302-.336-.410 batting line isn’t eye popping, but his batting average, on-base percentage, and OPS improved every month of the season, as did his slugging percentage minus a slight hiccup in August. Paredes’ best tool is his blazing speed, which allowed him to steal 23 bases in just 54 games, and he’s also versatile enough to play the three non-first base infield spots proficiently. He profiles best at second, where he’ll play every day for Low-A Charleston in 2010.

Photo Credit: Hilton Flores, Staten Island Advance

Jon Ortiz, RHRP, 24
By no means is Ortiz young, but he’s steadily climbing the ladder and will begin the 2010 season with Double-A Trenton. Once a guy reaches Double-A, you can start talking about him as a potential big league contributor. Just ask Chase Wright. Ortiz isn’t a huge stuff guy – he works in the low-90’s with a very good changeup – but he makes up for it with outstanding command and control (273-39 K/BB ratio in 201.1 career IP). The Yankees have built a steady pipeline of relievers in recent years, and Ortiz is just another product of that. Remember, you don’t have to turn into a star to be considered a success. There’s plenty of value in getting 80 or so league average innings out of a guy like Ortiz, who was basically an afterthought when he signed.

Photo Credit: Screen cap’d from here

Gary Sanchez, C, 17
The comparisons to Montero are inevitable, however they aren’t similar players at all. Sanchez can legitimately remain behind the plate long term, and his bat isn’t nearly as good. That’s not meant as a knock on Sanchez, who projects to be a better than league average hitter with very good power for a backstop. He’s raw, which is not unexpected given his age, and like Montero he struggled in his first taste of instructional league. Once he gets some innings under his belt and makes his way to the States, Sanchez will jump comfortable into the team’s top ten prospects. Until then, he’s on the outside looking in. His 2010 season will start in Extended Spring Training before officially debuting with the Rookie Level Gulf Coast League Yankees in June.

Photo Credit: Jorge Arangure, ESPN

Unlike last year, most of these guys are older prospects who project more as role players than starters on a contender, but that’s life. The Yanks’ system isn’t as deep as it was just a year ago, but with a few breakouts from players like the five mentioned above, they’ll be just fine. Remember, the Yanks’ goal isn’t to have a great system, it’s to win at the big league level, and they don’t exactly need any fixes at the moment.

Make sure you check back in tomorrow for the full fledged Top 30.

Baseball America might be a few weeks late on this one. After all, the decade’s been over for almost a month now, and we covered the the Yankees’ decade a few weeks ago. But the prospect publication just released their decade retrospective, and as you can see, the Yanks’ list is as expected. In fact, it looks awfully similar to Mike’s list.

The biggest omission in the BA list, in my opinion, is Phil Hughes. At no point in the decade would I have taken Marcus Thames over Phil Hughes, and I’d probably opt for Hughes over Melky — a BA prospect just once all decade — and Dioner Navarro who never lived up to the hype.

As Mike noted in December, after the ten guys listed here, the Yanks system didn’t produce much of lasting value this decade. Phil Coke is a useful, if average, player, and David Robertson stands to be a key cog in the bullpen in 2010. Ian Kennedy could still emerge as an adequate Major Leaguer.

The misses are nearly as compelling as the hits though. Amongst David Parrish, Jon Poterson — the comp pick for Andy Pettitte in 2004 — Drew Henson, C.J. Henry and Eric Duncan, the Yanks had some spectacularly hyped prospects and high draft picks who just didn’t come through. Such were the way of things mid-decade.

In the end, the Yanks had a pretty unbalanced decade prospect-wise. They started the 2000’s at the top of the list and stayed in the top 10 until an epic mid-decade collapse. Only recently have their rebounded, but with a few trades this winter, the system has been depleted. Right now, the Yanks have a solid Major League club, some high-ceiling young kids and Jesus Montero. If all goes according to plan, he’ll front this list when it comes around again in ten years.

Added to by Mike: I completely forgot about Westbrook, which is why he was omitted from my list. I would have placed him third, behind Soriano and Cano. As I explained in my post, Joba is far and away the team’s best draft pick of the last ten years, and frankly it’s not even close. He has more than double the WAR of the next closest player despite spending just over two years in the bigs.

As for the worst pick, yeah Henry flamed out in glorious fashion, but a guy with his athleticism and raw skills at a premium position is a legit first round pick. It didn’t work out, but that doesn’t make it a bad pick in my book. Poterson, on the other hand, was awful because he was such an overdraft. In all seriousness, they could have gotten him in the 5th or 6th round if they hadn’t taken him in the first.

As you can see from BA’s fancy little chart, the system was completely in the dumps for a good chunk of the decade. You can’t have a system that bad for one particular reason, it takes a group effort; the team forfeited so many picks over the years to sign free agents, and for quite some time they adhered to slot and drafted low-ceiling college players with their top picks. They weren’t always willing to pay for premium young talent, and it wasn’t until Brian Cashman fired scouting director Lin Garrett and put Damon Oppenheimer and his people in place in 2005 that things started to turn around.