Bianchi too high, Maier too low, everyone else about right.

-- MWE

Braves top 20 are up:

http://www.minorleagueball.com/story/2006/11/15/172646/64

Eric Campbell #1

Probably nothing highlights the difference between Sickels and other prospect analysts like these two sets of ratings:

Goldstein: Neftali Feliz #3, Yunel Escobar and Jamie Richmond not in top 10
Sickels: Escobar #7, Richmond #8, Feliz #13

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C, Grade B (I am more worried about reports of excess weight gain and defensive problems in the Arizona Fall League more than his erratic regular season)

I hadn't heard about this - any Braves fans have details?

-- MWE

Emeigh, do you agree with Sickels that Gordon is the best prospect in baseball right now? Just curious

Emeigh, do you agree with Sickels that Gordon is the best prospect in baseball right now?

Yep.

-- MWE

Mike,

What do you think accounts for the big disparity b/w Sickels & say Goldstein or BA. Do you find yourself leaning one way or the other more often?

I hadn't heard about the weight problems, but Sickels clarifies further in his thread up there..
I have no problem with Campbell as #1, esp if he is moving to 2B.
Thats one mediocre looking farm, but then more than 50% of the 25 man roster are under control or in early years of arbitration. But the lack of pitching has to be worrisome.
Surprise Kris Medlen got a look in..but he is supposed to have a real live arm too.

Pity the dugout went away, so we can't post rumours anymore. This is an interesting one posted at Sickels' site

Braves - Padres swap

summarising, Peavy-Linebrink for Salty/Giles/HoRam

I say zero chance of that happening. Why the hell would the padres do that?

I say zero chance of that happening. Why the hell would the padres do that?

The mysterious ways of GMs. I don't think it is going to happen either, but it is real gloomy here in Atlanta, and it kinda lights up the day, and certainly would put a burr in the seat of any Padres/NL East fan.
Actually the strange thing is, the rumour comes with the footnote that Jerry Crasnick reported it on ESPN Radio..I spent last winter pooh-poohing reports that we would trade Marte for Lugo and it almost happened. So I don't know anymore.

Seems strange that the Pads would trade Kottaras, then turn around and deal for a young catcher in the offseason. Particularly with Bard playing as well as he did last year.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2006/11/jake_peavy_to_t.html

how trustworthy is this site?!
this is an update, no linebrink now..buy DAMNNN..i am loving this

The Twins top 20 is up too. Garza getting the pole.
Their system looks fairly solid, no real hitters of note but Parmelee ( too early ).
Lot of their pitching prospects seem to have lost steam, but given Baker, Durbin. Garza are going to be with the ML club, they should be in good shape

Sickels's schedule:

Nationals later tonight. Yankees Monday, Giants Tuesday.

-- MWE

Nationals later tonight

Its going to need some impressive imagination and rose tinted glasses to put up 20 "prospects" in that organization

Uh oh. From Matt Meyers's BA chat on the Hawaiian Winter League: Eric Campbell "looked disinterested when he played" and was sent home.

Meyers (who did BA's SAL Top 20) mentioned that opinions on Campbell were quite divergent, with some people really liking him and others thinking that he'd have to be moved out of the infield and that his approach at the plate was too much "all or nothing".

-- MWE

Wow. That's terrible news. You'd think he'd be excited that the Braves were giving him a chance to climb the ladder more quickly, and enjoy a chance to get paid to play baseball in Hawaii over the wintertime. What does Bill Shanks have to say about this? :)

sweet, and he is the braves #1 prospect huh.
this is going to be a long decade.

Its going to need some impressive imagination and rose tinted glasses to put up 20 "prospects" in that organization

That's probably why it's taking Sickels so long :)

-- MWE

I'd guess that Marrero has to be #1, or close to it, for the Nationals at this stage.

-- MWE

How about Ryan Zimmerman again for old times' sake?

Well, here were last year's top 10:

1) Ryan Zimmerman, 3B
2) Kory Casto, 3B
3) Bill Bray, LHP
4) Larry Broadway, 1B
5) Brendan Harris, 2B
6) Collin Balester, RHP
7) Mike Hinckley, LHP
8) Justin Maxwell, OF
9) Clint Everts, RHP
10) Daryl Thompson, RHP

Casto and Bray were B- prospects; everyone else was C+ or below. None of that group except Casto did much of anything to help themselves a year ago, and Bray and Harris are gone; I find it hard to imagine that the stock of any of the leftovers has improved significantly (Casto's AFL season should help boost him, too). Marrero has to be at least a B.

My guess is Marrero, Casto, Broadway, Zech Zinicola, and Balester. Marco Estrada, who was hurt and pitched poorly early but who had an outstanding HWB season (making BA's top 10 in that league) could make the top 10 and maybe the top 5.

-- MWE

Poor clint everts. Will he ever even make the bigs at this point?

What do you think accounts for the big disparity b/w Sickels & say Goldstein or BA. Do you find yourself leaning one way or the other more often?

The main difference, I think, is that Sickels weighs track record more heavily than either of the other two.

I think you need to weigh everything. With hitters, as I've said before, I tend to weigh contact rate and in-play ISO power heavily, BB rate less so; with pitchers, I tend to weigh K rate, BB rate, and hit prevention heavily when looking at the stats.

Most of the time, I think you'll find broad agreement among prospect mavens on the very top players. No one's going to look at Alex Gordon or Phil Hughes and think anything but *stud*. Where you find disagreement is further down the list, players like Richmond or Andy Sonnanstine. It's hard not to like what those guys have done in their careers so far, but their lack of tools works against them in most analyses - thus Goldstein puts Feliz, who has terrific stuff, behind only Salty and Campbell in the entire organization, while Sickels has him behind Richmond and Reyes, both of whom have better track records so far.

-- MWE

Oh yeah:

Nothing *really* beats observation, IMO. I think that most people who have watched a significant amount of baseball pick up things that they don't even realizing that they are picking up - and that the main difference between the professional scout and the serious baseball fan is that the scout knows what he picked up.

-- MWE

Sickels just released a new Twins list - downgrading Garza to an A- most notably. That's reasonable, since A prospects status is really supposed for the guys who you expect to come up and be above average more or less immediately, and as good as Garza is, he's probably not there yet.

The main difference, I think, is that Sickels weighs track record more heavily than either of the other two.

re: Sickels vs BA

I recently looked at the pre-2006 scouting reports from JS and BA for some 06 breakout prospects. One thing I noticed is that it seems like JS may be quicker to jump off a bandwagon when a prospect that he already likes has a stagnant performance. He liked Ried Brignac and Joey Votto quite a bit heading into 2005. Both had disappointing years and he was fairly down on both heading into 2006.

In comparison, BA remained very high on Brignac (still had tools and youth), but also jumped ship on Votto (older with fewer tools). How talent evaluators deal with stagnant years is really a critical issue because prospects don't have smooth point A to point B to the majors progressions.

I'm definitely going to pay more attention to those kinds of players next year and see how different evalautors handle them.

Sickels posted the Nats top 20

http://www.minorleagueball.com/story/2006/11/17/213136/56

Mike Rizzo has got a lot of work to do in Washington...

¿que hora son la vida entera?
¿que hora son en el japón?
¿que hora son en mozambique?
¿que hora son en washington?

Can't disagree with Gordon being the #1 prospect in baseball. Who else fills out the top 10?

Maybin, Hughes, Bailey and Delmon Young... other for consideration: McCuthchen, Chris Young, Andrew Miller, Justin Upton, Brandon Wood, Reid Brignac, Tulowitzki, Longoria, Butler, Elbert, Hochevar, Bruce...

What do you think?

I'd agree with Gordon... even if some of the other guys JCross listed may end up having better careers than Alex. I probably wouldn't trade JUpton for Gordon, but I'd love to have Gordon on my team any day of the week...

Also, I'd submit AZ's Carlos Gonzalez for top 10 consideration... He's even learning plate discipline in winter ball...

Gordon, Delmon, Bailey, and Hughes are my top 4 at this point, in that order - for the moment, Bailey's above Hughes largely because he's shown the ability to go deep into games consistently, although I realize that's largely a function of how the Yankees have handled Hughes, nonetheless I think that's still an open question. After that, it's tough - Longoria, Tulowitzki, Brignac, Wood, Pelfrey, Yovani Gallardo, Elbert, Butler, McCutchen, Chris Young, Adam Miller, and Ryan Braun (the 3B) are in the next tier just among guys who have had success above A-ball (as did Hochevar in postseason), and that's not even getting down to Gonzalez, Maybin, Andrew Miller, Bruce, and Upton, who haven't had success in the minors above A-ball yet. Forced to choose, I'd probably take Longoria, Tulowitzki, Wood, and Brignac as the next four, and then pick two from McCutchen, Bruce, and Maybin.

-- MWE

This differs some from my own perspective, but in a community poll on Minorleagueball (see Hall of Merit if you want an explanation of why a community ranking might be meritorious), with about 300 votes per position (albeit with some flaws), here's the top 10:

1. Alex Gordon 3B-KC
2. Delmon Young OF-TB
3. Philip Hughes RHP-NYY
4. Brandon Wood SS-ANA
5. Homer Bailey RHP-CIN
6. Billy Butler OF-KC
7. Cameron Maybin OF-DET
8. Chris Young OF-ARI
9. Justin Upton OF-ARI
10. Matt Garza - RHP-MIN

If Garza doesn't qualify for some reason, then Andy Laroche pops into his spot. Also, not that he qualifies quite yet, but Matsuzaka would have fit between Delmon and Hughes.

Either way, I feel like the top 6 is really the first tier. Barring injury or complete meltdown, it's difficult for me to envision any of the guys in the top 6 not turning into at least an above-average regular. After that, there's about 15 guys or so who are all relatively interchangeable, depending on what you look at.

Butler is probably the one guy who I'm least sure about. He can hit, no question, but if he doesn't play the field, he's going to have to be David Ortiz to be valuable in the long run, and I don't see that.

Wood, too, comes with questions. How much of Wood's performance is real talent, how much is inflated performance due to the environments in which he's hit, and will the strikeouts eat him alive like they have McPherson (so far)?

Garza does qualify; he had exactly 50 IP, and the rookie qualifications are "does not exceed".

I just opened up a thread for top 100 discussions.

-- MWE

Yankees are up

Big surprise: Hughes #1

There's not a whole lot of difference between Sickels's list and BA's actually; Sickels moves Melancon down because of health, but he indicates that he'd be in the Chamberlain/Clippard/Cox/Betances knot if healthy, and BA's not that much different. The major differences are Kennedy and Norton. Manuel put Norton behind Kontos, Corona, Hilligoss, and Curtis in the chat (in roughly that order, I guess from the comment). I'm not inclined to put Norton as high as Sickels did, primarily because he's 23 in short-season ball and *should* be dominating at that level, but he's got a lot going for him. Weird comment from On Deck Baseball earlier this year:

George Kontos and Tim Norton project to be short relievers in the bigs.

Sickels isn't going to put Montero in the book, for lack of data. I can understand that; anything on him would very likely be a guess. I'm expecting him to go to extended spring and then to Staten Island, although the GCL is also a possibility. Charleston is a longshot, at least initially.

Sanchez and Whelan would both be top-20.

-- MWE

Giants are up.

Sickels comments that "the only guy I'm really certain about at all is Lincecum, which is a no-brainer" and I'm in total agreement with that. Everybody after Lincecum could go either way.

-- MWE

Re: Royals List

I don't get why some are so enthralled by Bianchi. He still has less than 150 professional at bats and he was drafted in 2005. Yea, he's been great in the little playing time he's gotten, but until I see him in a full season of him, I'm not that impressed.

I guess you could say the same about Hochevar, but at least Luke pitched college ball.

I want Lumsden to do really well (to redeem the MacDougal trade) but for some reason I have my doubts on him. Missing a whole season scares me.

I think Ryan Braun is a real sleeper. I see him as a future 30 save kind of guy.

I like Mitch Maier, but don't think he'll ever progress beyond a 4th OF type. He reminds me of Reed Johnson.

I like a lot of our pitchers at Burlington last year (Rosa, de la Vara, Oliveros, Knighyzyhy, Nicoll), but have to wonder how much that league helps pitching stats.

I like a lot of our pitchers at Burlington last year (Rosa, de la Vara, Oliveros, Knighyzyhy, Nicoll), but have to wonder how much that league helps pitching stats.

A lot. Most of the parks are tough hitting environments, they play a lot of games in cold weather early in the season, and maybe 20% of the hitters in the league are real prospects.

-- MWE

Orioles are up.

Top 9 are identical to BA and in essentially the same order - not terribly surprising, since it's pretty clear who are the real prospects in this organization. Johnson just missed BA's top 10.

-- MWE

Levski, shoewizard, et. al. alert:

Sickels is doing the Diamondbacks next.

-- MWE

Diamondbacks are up.

Justin Upton, OF, Grade A- (He was coasting this year but should improve)

That quote from Sickels raises a BIG red flag to me - why on earth should a prospect with that talent be coasting?

Scherzer (if he ever signs) would slot in at #5, ahead of Callaspo and Owings. I have heard nothing to indicate that a Scherzer signing is imminent, and I would not be at all surprised if it didn't happen until January.

-- MWE

Mike, I wrote this on John's site, but I think that the accounts of "coasting" were exaggerated. I think that Justin did struggle a bit, adjusting to a new position and facing much tougher competition (both in age and experience) than he was used to; the fact that he didn't dominate like he was expected to was atttibuted to lack of hustle and "coasting", imho.

I'd like to hear why exactly Sickels thinks Upton was coasting...

Rockies, Blue Jays, and Red Sox are up.

I can't see how Lind grades A- and Ellsbury grades B+. And while I like Snider, I think we need to be cautious about projecting him that far ahead.

-- MWE

I can't see how Lind grades A- and Ellsbury grades B+.

Could you elaborate on this?

Could you elaborate on this?

Prospect evaluation IMO is a balance of evaluating established performance against the likelihood of improvement. When you look at a player, you're always trying to figure out where his performance fits - does this represent the best that he can do, or is there reason to think he is still going to get better?

Lind had an impressive season, without question. But in assessing that performance, we have to figure out whether it represents the best that he can do, or whether there's still room for growth. Lind has some negatives - he's not quick, he's not good defensively, his contact rate is a bit on the low side, he has a tendency to struggle some against LHP - and when reports are that he might wind up as a 1B/DH, that's a reason for me to temper my reactions a bit. Ellsbury, on the other hand, is a good athlete, solid defensively in CF, handled LHP well, makes contact at a high rate, and is showing some signs of developing at least gap power - all indicators which suggest a player with room for significant growth.

I think both players are going to be very good major leaguers, and I suspect Lind will probably have the better major league career when all is said and done, but I think they are a lot closer than the grade difference suggests.

-- MWE

Reds and Tigers are up. No particular surprises in either list.

-- MWE

Cubs and Angels are up.

Wood's strikeouts should be a concern; 1 K per 3 AB is far too many.

-- MWE

Phillies, Mariners, and Astros are up. Three weak systems.

-- MWE

Indians are up.

Brad Snyder, OF, B (Jeromy Burnitz Part Two)

.

I'm sure the Indians are hoping for more than that :)

-- MWE

A's and Mets are up.

For some reason, Mets fans tend to get very defensive about their farm system, likely a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from trades over the last few years. Face it guys: this system has three strong prospects at the top, four or five more who are interesting but have question marks, then a whole bunch of guys who are only marginal right now. This isn't an insult; there are lots of systems like this around, and the Mets are not the worst. I just don't understand why people get so upset about it.

I think the fans of every team get defensive about their farm system; this isn't just limited to Met fans. It's important to recognize not only the good things that prospects have done so far but the things that said prospects need to develop going forward as well. Gomez is a good example; one could justify a higher grade for him based on his success at high levels at a relatively young age, but the question about his power is a legitimate one to ask.

Lansford probably should be on the A's list somewhere. Dallas Braden, too (if he's healthy).

-- MWE

NYY Can Kiss My Big Unit Good-Bye (IksveL) Posted: November 19, 2006 at 01:10 AM (#2241419)

Also, I'd submit AZ's Carlos Gonzalez for top 10 consideration... He's even learning plate discipline in winter ball...

From todays AZ Central article

Promising development

Outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, one of the club's best prospects, had a strong season in the Venezuela Winter League, hitting .318 with nine home runs, tied for second in the league.

But here's the numbers that have A.J. Hinch, director of player development, most excited: 25/33 - Gonzalez's walk/strikeout ratio.
"I think he's growing up and maturing, hopefully," Hinch said. "A lot of times you learn that stuff from having success. You just walk a couple of times in critical situations, and then it kind of clicks for you."

Gonzalez split time between Class A and Double-A last year.

shoewiz, wait your turn to jump on the fan-wagon.

heh...gotta get up early in the afternoon to outfox you

A.J. Hinch, director of player development

Is it weird to have someone who never developed into anything close to the player he was projected to be in charge of player development, or is that just me?