Any ideas!

[Butnud]

I know nothing of the Yankees farm system.
Is there any book or way I can get my hands on the farm system and learn more????

[Gator]

www.baseballamerica.com is a pretty good site, but you'll have to pay to get the real inside information.

BA also produces a magazine, and John Sickels and Baseball Prospectus put out yearly books, I believe.

For general stats, www.minorleaguebaseball.com is pretty useful.

[Butnud]

thanx.
what is BA?

batting average???

[KDream]

BA stands for BaseballAmerica. This year, they had the first installment BaseballAmerica Prospects (in all major bookstores, about $20-30). In the book, they have analysis on ameteur draft and top 30 prospects - and their pro ball stats - for each organization. Among the Yankees prospects, you can read about almost every young guy that Yankees have called up this season (Brandon Knight in Twins system).
BaseballAmerica is regarded as one of the top sources for prospect evaluation.

[Michaels07]

I follow the farm system using.
1.Yankee Magazine.
2. Baseball weekly www.usatoday.com hit baseball minor leagues.
3. Baseball America as the previous poster stated.
4. Sporting News www.sportingnews.com.

At baseball america go to leagues
International AAA Columbus NY YANKEES
Eastern AA Norwich Navigators.NY YANKEES
Florida State League.Tampa Yankees
South Atlantic League Greensboro BATS NY YANKEES
New York Penn League Staten Island Yankees.
Gulf Coast League Rookie Tampa Yankees.

[RDFiato51]

Just remember that much of what you read about prospects will contain some degree of subjectivity. I'll provide some links to various sources.

TopProspectAlert.com sends out a weekly newsletter. In one of their recent editions, they wrote about their (subjective) top 10 list for the Yankees' farm system. This predated the Wohlers trade, and, hence, Rich Aramboles is still on that list. Without having seen in person any of the Yankees' farm teams, I cannot for the most part attest to or deny the accuracy of their evaulations, except that I will say that I think that they went a bit overboard with Rich Aramboles (you'll see what I mean if you read the "comparable player" part). Since the top 10 list is well into the newsletter itself, you'll have to scroll down a bit: http://www.topica.com/lists/TopProspectAlert/read/message.html?mid=900309755&sort=d&start=100

Another fairly extensive prospect site is On Deck Baseball Prospects (http://www.ondeckbaseball.com). You can find a (again, subjective) list of the top Yankees prospects and how rank compared to the rest of the minor leagues. It should be noted, though, that this site includes rookies like Soriano and Keisler. Their list for Yankees prospects is forty deep, but they have in-depth evaluations only for those within the top 150 overall. Another reason why I like this site is that they have frequent updates on how the prospects are performing. On top of that, the site contains analysis of the 2001 amateur draft.

The Sporting News also recently updated their lists of top pitching and hitting prospects throughout the high minor leagues. Not too many Yankees made the lists, and the information is not as in-depth as in other sources, but it might be worth a look: http://fantasy.sportingnews.com/baseball/prospects.html

Of course, the best way to learn about prospects would be to see them in person. But since that may not be always feasible (it certainly isn't for me), at least the Columbus Clippers provide a link to a free online radio feed of their games (go to http://www.clippersbaseball.com/ ). Although many of their games occur at the same time as the Yankees' games during the week, I believe that the Clippers often have a night game even on the weekends (whereas the Yankees usually play in the afternoon).

I know that the Norwich Navigators also have an official website at http://www.gators.com/. I don't know about the other farm teams, though.

Edit: And, yes, as Michaels wrote, you can keep up with the farm teams through Yankees Magazine, which has done a rather thorough job of covering the Yankees' minor league affiliates over the past couple years.