Prospect Insider - Top Prospects, MILB, BA

Top Prospects, MILB, BA

By Jason A. Churchill

By 12-05-2008

It's prospect season, and as I continue finishing up my own top 50 for the M's, two outlets already have their rankings published.

Baseball America has their Seattle Mariners Top 10 out now, and MILB.com has finished their Top 50.

And of course, I take issue with both lists.

First, the M's Top 10, where BA has Greg Halman No. 1. There's really only one legit star talent in the system that doesn't come with red-flag risks, and it's not Halman. That player is Carlos Triunfel.

They also rank Michael Saunders No. 2, which is a few spots too high for me. Saunders is a high-probability prospect, but he's a medium reward, too.

I'm not quite as high on Mario Martinez as Baseball America is, as they have him at No. 7, ahead of Jharmidy De Jesus.

Aumont is No. 3 on their list, which is fine, although I can't find a way to knock him from the No. 2 spot for me, since Juan Ramirez's ceiling is a full notch or two under Aumont's, burying the further risk that the Canadian brings with him.

BA ranks catcher Adam Moore at No. 6, and right now that's about where I think he's going to end up for me, too.

I think in the end I would keep their 10, re-ordering them of course, but replacing Martinez with Valbuena, who is big-league ready and can defend at second base.

Minor League Baseball dot com's list is a total joke, and I don't mean to bash Jonathan Mayo and Lisa Winston, whom I understand are the authors of the list, but Cameron Maybin No. 5, Rick Porcello No. 4 and Madison Bumgarner ranked ahead of both Neftali Perez and Chris Tillman, who are much closer to the big leagues with similar or better pure stuff?

Whatever.

MILB does have Triunfel at No. 30 and Aumont at No. 33, which I guess is fine, though Aumont would not be in my Top 50.

Other issues I have that are inexcusable:

Brett Wallace, who might have to ultimately play first and not third, at No. 42, but Mat Gamel, who does not have the ceiling or probability of Wallace and has a worse chance of sticking at third base is ranked No. 23?

Really, MILB? Really?

Alcides Escobar ahead of Elvis Andrus and Andrew McCutchen? Mike Moustakas, who will not play shortstop long term, at No. 11 overall, ahead of Tim Beckham, Buster Posey and Tommy Hanson? What?

And leaving Justin Smoak out of the Top 50 altogether is just a travesty, or at least it would be if these rankings didn't have so many other holes in them and had any credibility.

According to MILB, Kyle Blanks (No. 47) is a better prospect than Smoak, Angel Villalona and Dominick Brown.

I know Baseball America's flawed system is based heavily on talking to the player development departments of each club, but I wonder where MILB is getting their info, or if they are simply going off of statistics and regurgitated intel.

Nobody's list would be perfect, and it's all very subjective in the first place, but it's hard to justify their Top 50 as a whole.

Although David Price and Matt Wieters at 1-2 is a no-brainer, at least they got that right. Wrong order if you ask me, though.

top-prospects,-milb,-ba

Comments
The following 28 comment(s) for this article are shown below:

1. By: Lantermanc on 12-05-2008 17:50:26
Looking forward to seeing your list JAC.
Chris Tillman being number 16 on MiLB's list hurts.

2. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-05-2008 17:55:47
That No. 16 is fairly legit, too. Not sure I'd have him quite that high, maybe top 20-25, but yeah, he's among the top four or five pitching prospects in the game.

3. By: Slurve on 12-05-2008 18:59:14
Raben already at number 9? That is a lot of faith in his power bu he does look pretty promising though but no Tui or Vally in the list makes little sense...

4. By: Walrus on 12-05-2008 19:18:14
RA Dickey was taken off 40 man roster today.
Is there any chance he accepts a minor league contract from the Mariners?

5. By: Slack on 12-05-2008 19:47:53
I really take issue with BA's list as well. I don't think they are as high on Triunfel as they should be. Ranking Saunders ahead of him and Aumont is what I really disagree with.

6. By: jonbbt on 12-05-2008 19:53:39
Off topic: Jason, have you heard anything on whether or not Raul Ibanez will accept/decline arbitration?

Buster Olney: "The consensus is that Manny Ramirez will reject arbitration, and Raul Ibanez and Jason Varitek will accept."

The non-offers to Abreu, Burrell and Dunn really killed Ibanez's market value, I would think.

7. By: StandinPat on 12-05-2008 20:15:11
Why on earth would he accept? That would require him taking a 1yr deal from a team that just lost 100 games, over a 3 or 4yr deal at roughly the same amount of money a year for a contender. Don't fret about him accepting.

8. By: jonbbt on 12-05-2008 20:33:26
Just because he wants 3-4 years doesn't mean he will get it. As I already said, Abreu and Dunn are available and better hitters than Raul, and don't cost draft picks. Those surprise non-offers changed the market for Raul fairly dramatically.

9. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-05-2008 20:48:07
They are also, at least Dunn, going to cost more money. For it to be worth Ibanez accepting arbitration, the best offer will have to be worth less than about $10 million in TOTAL. That means a 2-year deal's total value...

He'll get 2+ and 7+ per. He just needs to be patient. He's a bargain versus Dunn and Teixeira and even Bradley.

10. By: Pumpkin on 12-05-2008 20:52:08
When I saw the rankings, from both places I was shocked. Who puts Triunfel behind Saunders and Halman? Despite of this, one prominent thing that struck me was in the top 50 ranking was, only three of the top 17 were players drafted out of college, while 13 of them were drafted out of high school. I had always supported drafting HS players, but I never realized that they tended to be that much better.

11. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-05-2008 21:25:30
They don't, Pumpkin, not to that degree, not even close.

Evaluating young talent involves a lot of projecting, and the younger a player is the more you can project out of him.

And college players have a short shelf life as prospects, too. After a few years, they either are or they aren't.

Raben, for example. After 2010, he's either a big-league player barely hanging onto his status as a prospect due to service time in the big leagues, or he's somewhere between fringe and a non-prospect.

12. By: jonbbt on 12-05-2008 21:27:13
I think Raul could get a deal as well, but I dunno if he'll be patient enough. He only has until Sunday to decide. Hopefully Jack told him that we don't have room for him. I want the picks!

Jason, at this point do you think one of the protected teams would be more likely to sign Ibanez, because they wouldn't have to give up the first rounder? I hope not, but it makes some sense.

13. By: littlelinny6 on 12-05-2008 21:47:51
Jason,
If Raul accepts arbitration I would hope he becomes the full time DH. Does that mean Branyan platoons at 1B with Morse??

14. By: CrustyJuggler on 12-05-2008 22:33:11
No way Ibanez wants to be a full time DH. And that's exactly what he would be with the Mariners in 2009 if he accepted arbitration. Fat chance.

15. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-05-2008 23:20:24
The M's have hinted strongly to Ibanez's agents Lozano and Maas that he will DH, at least a good portion of the time.

That might be enough for him to have truly already written off accepting arbitration.

I don't see it. Someone will guarantee him two years and six to 8 million, maybe even more.

He'll be patient.

16. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-05-2008 23:22:49
Although we should remember that if Ibanez does accept arbitration and the M's want to try and trade him, he'll have 10-5 rights to veto a deal to any team he wants.

17. By: jonbbt on 12-05-2008 23:45:16
Any chance that the Dodgers or Tigers (whoever doesn't get Jack Wilson) would be interested in Yuni? I can't wait until the day he's shipped away.

18. By: toonsterwu on 12-06-2008 00:42:11
I agree that the BA list looked pretty odd.

Really a side note, but the MiLB list is done through a poll of scouts. Thus, it wasn't Jon Mayo and Lisa Winston's list.

19. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-06-2008 01:16:51
According to MILB's chief editors, their senior writers, Winston and Mayo, dictated how the scouting and PD polls they sent out were interpreted, since they did not get enough poll responses from the personnel people.

20. By: Jerry on 12-06-2008 10:40:59
One thing that you will notice about Triunfel is that prospect pundits are all over the place on his value. Keith Law ranks him highly. Others don't. Obviously, the guy is very young, his position hasn't been determined, he has had attitude problems and inconsistent performances, and evaluating his value requires a lot of projection. Compared to guys like Tommy Hanson or Lars Anderson, he has a lot more question marks.

2009 should help clear up the ambiguity.

21. By: Slack on 12-06-2008 12:11:42
Jason,
I read the question and answer part of BA's top ten list and they seemed pretty high on Brett Lorin. Whats your take on him?

22. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-06-2008 14:26:19
Lorin is interesting and worth keeping an eye on, but he's not a future frontline starter, at least not from what I saw in Everett.

23. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-06-2008 14:32:59
This from Ken Rosenthal today:

Dodgers left fielder Manny Ramirez, Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek and Mariners outfielder Raul Ibanez are among the free agents expected to reject arbitration and remain on the open market, major-league sources say."

24. By: Slurve on 12-06-2008 15:35:45
Phew thankg god when I heard that he was gonna accpet I literally yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO You finally did it! You maniac! you blew it all up NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

25. By: slamcactus on 12-07-2008 15:49:19
I agree that ranking him #8 is crazy, but what's wrong with Escobar over Andrus? They're essentially the same profile, only Escobar plays slightly better defense and his gap power has already arrived, while Andrus's is still theoretical.

I know Andrus is younger, but it's not as if he really projects to be much better than Escobar already is. We're not talking about a kid with raw power who just needs to grow into it. If anything, another couple of years to grow brings with it the risk of knocking Andrus down from plus defender to average defender without the benefit of a whole lot more power.

26. By: slamcactus on 12-07-2008 15:52:02
Also, from what i've heard the MILB list is formed by sending out questionnaire's to between 20-30 scouts and having them each give a top-30 list, assigning points to each ranking spot (30 for #1, 1 for #30), and listing the top 50 vote-getters.

27. By: Jason A. Churchill on 12-07-2008 17:37:21
Like I said earlier, slam, the editors at MILB told me a week ago that they didn't get enoug responses to use the results purely.

Thus, their report staff made some assumptions.

re: Escobar-Andrus

There are major questions as to whether Escobar can handle the hard stuff in, even against the better minor league arms, and his power is a bigger question than anything in Andrus' case.

It's not a large difference but too many scouts fall in love with numbers with raw talents. It's the kind of scouting the Mariners were relying on much too often the past three years.

28. By: slamcactus on 12-07-2008 21:00:36
How is Escobar's power more of a question than Andrus's? Andrus has never had an .ISO over .100 outside of rookie ball.

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