| By Jason A. Churchill |  | By 01-23-2009 |
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As Baseball America continues their dragged-out Prospect Rankings that seem to carry less and less credibility every year, Keith Law's Top 100 and Organizational Rankings are out, and a great read, as always.The Seattle Mariners ranked No. 14 as an organization, which I thought was 3-5 spots too high. But you can certainly make the same argument Law made, ranking the M's ahead of the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Colorado Rockies, Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres.
San Diego at No. 19 is a little high for me, but it's difficult to think much more of the 11 teams ranked below them than Law already did in the process.
In the Top 100, Carlos Triunfel came in as the top M's prospect at No. 22 overall, ahead of Florida Marlins first baseman Logan Morrison, Oakland right-hander Trevor Cahill and Tampa Bay center fielder Desmond Jennings, and right behind Texas left-hander Derek Holland, A's southpaw Brett Anderson and St. Louis infielder Brett Wallace, a first-round selection in last June's draft.
The only other M's prospect in the Top 100 is Greg Halman at No. 93. Former M's right-hander Christ Tillman ranks at No. 40 and as the eighth best right-hander, and local product Travis Snider ranks at No. 5 overall.
The top overall prospect in Law's Top 100 is Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters, and I couldn't agree more. He was extremely impressive in the AFL after a huge season in the middle of the minors. Tampa lefty David Price ranked second, with Atlanta right fielder Jason Heyward at No. 3 and Texas right-hander Neftali Feliz at No. 4.
Keith has seen these players more than I have and is a trained eye, of course, but the only area in which I can muster up a disagreement is in his Mariners Top 5, the talents I have seen and discussed at length. Law has Triunfel, Halman, Michael Saunders, Phillippe Aumont and Juan Ramirez, in no particular order, which is also my five. But I have Saunders and Ramirez flip-flopped from where he has each player.
I won't give away any more, just go read each piece.
Top 100
Organizational Rankings (Insider Only)
By Organization
By Position
These Players Just Missed the Top 100 (Two Seattle Mariners' Prospects Here)
Chat Wrap for Thursday
Photo of Carlos Triunfel by Mike Andruski
prospect-season-continues:-keith-law
Comments
The following 18 comment(s) for this article are shown below:
| 1. By: Lantermanc on 01-23-2009 10:42:41 That's a shame that Jason Heyward is ranked 3rd. He's the one guy I really keyed in on that draft. Then again, like a lot of people, I really wanted Lincecum as well. And Troy Tulowitzki the year before that... And before that we didn't have a first round pick for 5 straight years (correct me if I'm wrong)? |
| 2. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 11:20:01 In 03 they had a supplemental first and took Adam Jones at No. 37. In 2002 they had a first and took John Mayberry and did not sign him. He went to the Rangers a few years back and was traded to ATL this winter. In 2001 they had a supplemental and took Michael Garciaparra at No. 36. In 2000 they did not have a pick until the fourth round, took lefty Sam Hays out of Waco, TX and he pitched for about 5 minutes, got hurt and that was that... and in 2004 they did not have a pick in the first two rounds, but took Tuiasosopo, Lowe and Johnson in rounds 3-4-5 and that has a chance to turn out pretty strong. In the Aumont/Heyward draft, yes, Heyward should have been the pick, and then Dominguez. |
| 3. By: junglist215 on 01-23-2009 13:19:16 Jason, Mayberry was traded to Philadelphia for outfielder Greg Golson back in November. |
| 4. By: rocketdawg31 on 01-23-2009 13:58:00 Jason- one quick thing about Baseball America...I remember you telling me I was better off not subscribing because they didn't do a great job considering all the resources they had at their disposal. IYO, is that a fairly recent advent, them going downhill? I remember back in 2004 or 2005, I was impressed with everything they had, and the quality. "Oh, BOY! Just what I want to see! Crap, but I have no money to spend on this.." But these days it DOES seem the quality's taken a downturn. I don't mean just our team, I mean the entire schmeer. And I'm not real happy with their assessment of our Top 10. Halman at number 1 over Triunfel? Gotta be kidding me. I thought Aumont was too high and Pineda and Ramirez too low, if I remember right. Will have to refresh my memory on that list, but I remember I wasn't all that pleased. |
| 5. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 14:41:38 Yes, thanks junglist. Re: BA I respect their guys a lot, Callis is good at what he does and I actually respect his personal opinion on players, but I have heard from dozens of people that they base far too much of their assessment of players on that player's own player development department. Apparently someone brought that to their attention within the last few years or so and they claim to talk to a lot of scouts, but they must either NOT be doing that at all, not doing it nearly enough, or are making major errors in their dissecting the intel they are getting from the scouts. I have not talked to one single scout that has thought more of Halman than Triunfel, with the exception of one Padres scout who is more skeptical of Triunfel's age than anyone else... that same scout thinks Tejada is 40, so, he's either 40 or this guy is just extremely skeptical. My assessment of Aumont is probably going to surprise some, and his placement in my top 10 might surprise some, too. The BA top 10 for Seattle is as follows: 1. Halman 2. Saunders 3. Aumont 4. Triunfel 5. Ramirez 6. Moore 7. Martinez 8. DeJesus 9. Raben 10.Pineda I can tell you that as of right this very second, There is only ONE of the above rankings that match my own, and it's not in the top five, and there are two in BA's list that are not in my top 10 at all, which means I have two that they don't. |
| 6. By: rocketdawg31 on 01-23-2009 15:19:04 Jason- Thanks, I remember now- I think Martinez and DeJesus are too high on the BA list. There's just no way DeJesus can be on the top 10 with his current track records, although I'm optimistic about both of them. I'd have Martinez somewhere around #10, if he makes the list at all. And Triunfel at 4- to me- is a joke. Aumont also seems a bit high considering the time he spent hurt. That scout still thought Tejada is 40, even though E60 went to Bani in the Dominican Republic and produced what was agreed to be his real birth certificate (which proved him to be two years older)? I'd hope the M's did their homework before they signed Triunfel on just how old he was, considering the scrutiny the real age of Latin players has gotten in recent times. Just for grins, I'd assemble that Top 10 Mariner prospects list as follows: 1. Triunfel 2. Halman 3. Moore 4. Ramirez 5. Saunders 6. Pineda 7. Aumont 8. Kelley 9. Tuiasasopo- (a grudging add, but I'm considering proximity to the bigs and possibly still-developing tools) 10. Martinez JUST MISSES: Raben, Adcock |
| 7. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 15:23:31 Pineda is too high, and Martinez should definitely not be ahead of DeJesus OR Raben, and Kelley is a reliever with a 90 mph fastball, making him a 6th or 7th inning guy. I think you have Tui in the higher end of the range that he belongs, I certainly don't have issues with Tui at 9. |
| 8. By: rocketdawg31 on 01-23-2009 17:14:03 But my top 5 are basically cool? I thought Mario Martinez was more of an established prospect in the system than Jharmidy DeJesus or Raben- but I'm also going on the supposition that Martinez has been stateside longer than DeJesus. Am I mistaken? DeJesus is like Lowe's Hardware in terms of the toolbox, but I thought he was mostly physical projection at this point rather than pure numbers put up. Could you see Kelley as a legit #10, or would he not be on your list at all? |
| 9. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 19:20:41 I would never put a reliever in the top 10 unless he was young and a closer prospect to boot. It doesn't matter how long De Jesus or Martinez has been in the US, look at what each player did and where, and combine that with the physical tools they displayed and you get a high-risk middle-of-the-order bat in De Jesus - who may not have a position ultimately - and in Martinez you have a kid who might be able to stick at third with far less chance to produce offensively enough to profile there long-term. At that age and stage, you take the bat and run away. De Jesus is the bat in this case. |
| 10. By: safecochatter on 01-23-2009 19:30:57 thanks for the links jason. nice to know law thinks the mariners as number 1 in international scouting. he mentions that he's gonna name one "jumper" from every ml team. he hints that boscan will be the rangers minor leaguer to make a big jump. i'll agree with that as i seen him pitch in spokane a couple of times last year. any idea who his mariner jumper for 09 will be?? my vote would be for pineda to make a big jump. |
| 11. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 21:38:23 He did name Boscan. Aumont and Ramirez are his M's jumpers. Mr. Helium in the PI Handbook is newly-acquired right-hander Maikel Cleto. |
| 12. By: CrustyJuggler on 01-23-2009 21:45:22 Do you think Cleto has a legitimate shot of staying in the starting rotation? |
| 13. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 22:00:58 Yes. |
| 14. By: rocketdawg31 on 01-23-2009 23:05:31 Cleto is a name I'm anxiously waiting to take a look at...as he came from the Mets (whom I don't follow closely at all), I only know the most basic shtuff about him. But he's one of a slew of arms at roughly that level to look at. 2009 should be fun times for prospect watching! |
| 15. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-23-2009 23:16:36 As always... and the draft will be huge fun. |
| 16. By: Jim in WI on 01-24-2009 12:44:23 "As Baseball America continues their dragged-out Prospect Rankings that seem to carry less and less credibility every year..." Granted, I don't necessarily agree with BA's Mariners' Top 10 this year, but the fact that they methodically put together a Top 10 list for each of the 30 teams, then a Top 100 prospects list, followed by an organizational rankings list each year over the course of several months tells me that they're putting a lot of time and thought into their rankings(and sure, they make some mistakes, too). But Keith Law--well, he's idiosyncratic, just as Project Prospect said. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but a few problems I have with his list this year: --Nick Hagadone is ranked higher than Jesus Montero. --He's really down on Pedro Alvarez, for some reason. Any idea why? I just don't get it. --His rankings of Josh Vitters and Mike Moustakas relative to each other. He seems to have the opinion that Moustakas should be a catcher--any reason for that,Jason? --He seems down on Cameron Maybin and Dexter Fowler, who seem extremely toolsy and full of projection to me, but neither of them are in the Top 20, IIRC. That's just a few of the things I noticed that I disagreed with--but then,I'm not a scout and he no doubt knows more than me. Just my 2 cents. :) |
| 17. By: Jason A. Churchill on 01-24-2009 13:17:22 while I can't speak for Keith, I do know the answers to some of those questions. Montero isn't going to catch, and is not likely to bring any defensive value to any position he ends up at so his value plummets. Too many people have him ranked as a catcher, and that's just about not doing the homework on his catching. Pedro Alvarez - For one, he's apparently grossly out of shape already as we speak, and has not had a single AB in the pros, so he hasn't answered of the questions that were on him at draft time, such as his defense at third and hitting versus LHP. Tough to give Alvarez more credit than a No. 38 ranking when all of his status is as a collegiate, and his conditioning remains a major question, which also pushes the question of his future defensive position. If he's not a third baseman and has to move to first, or worse yet, DH, his value drops significantly. Vitters/Moustakas - I saw Vitters in the NWL this year and his swing mechanics are terrific for such a young kid. I haven't seen Moustakas, but Law did state that he really may be a bat without a position. If he can play third, fine, he's right there with Vitters. But Vitters, while not a gold glover himself, is much more likely to stick at third. Law's words on Moustakas at catcher are about the fact that he's played there before and it would push his value way up if he was catching. He's not going to be a third baseman most likely, and doesn't quite project have the Brett Wallace type bat that would carry him there even if his glove was bad. Maybin/Fowler - Fowler I like some, but I wouldn't put him in the top 20, either. And that's not a shot at Fowler, there are just more than 20 prospects I like better than him. Maybin has issues making consistent contact and that's a serious indictment on his future in the big leagues. Fowler and Maybin are probably the third to sixth best center field prospects in baseball behind Colby Rasmus, Andrew McCutchen and MAYBE Austin Jackson and Jordan Schafer, depending on their 2009 seasons. |
| 18. By: acqb1424 on 01-24-2009 19:00:12 Went to Fan Fest today, had a good time. Got to talk to Pedro Grifol a little bit and when asked about this upcoming draft he said, "It'll be nice to have five picks in the top 40." I was going to press him on that but they wouldn't allow anymore questions. GM Jack also was asked about Fields and he mentioned that while they would like to sign him, at some point they have to go to him and say look, if you're not going to take our offer then we'll just take the pick and draft someone else. Obviously these are things talked before but Grifol's words just further even more the fact that signing Fields doesn't appear likely. Just thought I'd pass those tidbits on. |
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