As these lists are published, I expect virtual consensus on Gordon, Delmon, Hughes, and Bailey in the top 5 (probably in that order), followed by a lot of disagreements thereafter. Garza slotting in between Hughes and Bailey here is a bit of a surprise; I think Garza is very good, but I don't know about top-5 or even top-10.

Couple of random comments:

How can there be 25 slots between Tabata (#20) and Fernando Martinez (#45)?

I can't think of a universe in which Mark Rogers should be slotted above Nick Adenhart.

I also can't think of a universe in which Jed Lowrie belongs ahead of Billy Rowell.

-- MWE

Chris Young, 23? Pass.

I don't think there's anyway to justify Hochevar being ranked above Butler right now. Heresy!

my top 10:

Gordon
Delmonster
Hughes
Bailey
Longoria
Wood
Brignac
JUpton
FMartinez
Tabata

Disclaimer: I weigh upside more than likeliness to "make it" which is why Garza, Chris Young, and others aren't on my list (although they are top 20). this list is best thought of as "you'd trade anyone on it for any of the guys above him." Feel free to think I'm crazy.

Delmon Young wouldn't make my top 5, and maybe not my top 10. A world of tools, and about 25% chance of conquering his strike zone problems and adding enough power, in light of his make-up.

Gordon is the only Grade A position player prospect right now in my view. If you keep the position players and pitchers on separate lists, the distance between Gordon and whoever is #2 is huge.

Delmon Young wouldn't make my top 5, and maybe not my top 10. A world of tools, and about 25% chance of conquering his strike zone problems and adding enough power, in light of his make-up.

This is a guy I have seen play - a lot - and I couldn't disagree more with most of what Mike just wrote.

Delmon Young doesn't have strike zone problems. He struck out once every 5.66 PAs, which is *not* a high K rate (projects to just over 100 in a 600 PA season). Yes, he doesn't walk much, but that's because he can hit a lot of pitches hard someplace - and doesn't pass up very many of the ones he can drive in order to draw a walk or wait for a better pitch. He takes very few bad swings; in that respect, he's the polar opposite of Jeremy Hermida (another play that I've seen play a lot), who passes up a lot of pitches and takes more than his share of bad swings anyway.

Delmon Young has power; one of every three hits was for extra bases in Durham, and his ISO on BIP was .105 (well above the .075 that I use as my minimum for evaluating power development apart from HRs). He doesn't lift the ball (only 27% of his BIP were fly balls), which is why he doesn't hit that many home runs, but there's a huge difference between *not hitting HRs* and *not having power*.

Delmon Young's attitude is a problem, no question. He's had major on-field issues in both Montgomery and Durham, and he has been basically unrepentant and unapologetic in dealing with the fallout from them. If there's one thing that could hold him back from reaching his potential, it's that. But the talent is obvious and unmistakeable, and watching him just confirms what's in the numbers. He's definitely a legit top-5 guy.

-- MWE

Matt Maloney as the #2 prospect and in the top 100? I don't see it.

Gio Gonzalez still had an excellent K/9 ratio as a 20 year old in the Eastern League. I think his HR rate was partially the result of his home environment. It's too early to write him off.

Adrian Cardenas at #7 is jumping the gun, IMO.

Josh Fields ranked above Chris Young? That's one of the funnier things I've today.

It's nice that these guys tried, but this top 100 is has some gaping holes. The list would be a lot easier to digest if it wasn't engulfed with advertisements.

* I'll second the surprise with Garza. I was debating if Garza even deserves top 15 mention with one of my friends last night. How can you justify Garza as top 5?

* Similarly, I've debated if Josh Fields is worthy of top 40 consideration. I don't know how you can put him top 15.

* You can tell that this site has fallen into the trap of thinking that Billy Butler won't be an all-star because of his defense.

* Carlos Gomez is pretty high in my mind, too.

* Yikes, it gets really iffy as you keep reading.

What happened to Eric Duncan? I lost track of him

What happened to Eric Duncan? I lost track of him
What I mean is - is he still a prospect? He no longer appears on the Yankees' list. Although still young, is his star fading?

Seems like they have the top starters from the 2006 draft awfully high.

I've definately seen worse efforts (i.e. the recently defunct Baseball Notebook), but there are a few oddballs. That usually doesn't bother me much if there is a coherent thread as to why the oddballs are up higher or down lower than ranked elsewhere, but I can't seem to figure out this one. For example, I can't figure out what system someone would be using that puts Butler and C. Young so low, yet puts Ellsbury and Lind so high. It would seem that you would need to rank both Lind and Butler low, for example, if you rank one of them low, since they basically have the same skill sets (other than that Butler is 3.5 years younger and performed just as well at the same level, and doesn't strike out as much). Same idea has already been pointed out with Tabata and FMart.

As for Duncan, he's still around. He had a horrible first half, was sent back to AA and did pretty well there for a while before leveling off. If he comes back in a monster way next year in AAA, he can rebound some, but moving from 3B to 1B hurt his star quite a bit as well.

As an A's fan, I think Travis Buck being that high on a list is going to dissapoint in much the same way Daric Barton being that high lists dissapointed last season (sans injuries).

Power just ain't there from what I can tell.

Matt Maloney as the #2 prospect and in the top 100? I don't see it.

Somebody must be starved for news on the Phils, since Maloney is #98 on the composite list - this might have confused the heck out of someone who didn't take the link to the Phils' list :)

Cardenas, to me, is a clear top-10 guy in this organization - although that says as much about the organization as it does about Cardenas. He didn't turn 19 until October, but more than held his own in the GCL. I'd probably put him 7th or 8th myself; certainly at this stage I like his future more than I like Golson's or Bourn's, for example.

The Phillies' 2006 draft has the potential to be one of their best in years. True, Drabek struggled, but Cardenas and D'Arby Myers had solid debuts in the GCL, Brauer was excellent at Batavia, and Carpenter pitched well albeit in limited action. Couple that with getting Maloney and Outman (and maybe Costanzo, Harker, and Slayden, although the last two are old for their levels) out of the 2005 draft and the farm system looks like it's on the way back.

-- MWE

The Braves top 10 strikes me as rather silly. I can see the first three:

1. Saltalamacchia
2. Andrus
3. Harrison

But then it just gets batty:

4. Beau Jones
5. Van Pope

Pope is borderline Top 20; being at 5 strikes me as a bit odd. Beau was terrible this year in the Sally League. I can't see any justification for puttin him over any of the next three guys:

6. Eric Campbell
7. Ant'ny Lerew
8. Yuniel Escobar

The last two spots are Gustafson and Rasmus. I get the feeling that 50% of the time he is drawing names out of a hat; I would be very interested in the justifications of these placements.

For a top 5 prospect in baseball, a 5-1 K/W ratio is a problem. One that can be overcome, but a problem nonetheless.

Compare Delmon Young with Cameron Maybin. Maybin has many of the same qualities- hits the ball very hard and mostly on the ground, runs well, is obviously capable of hitting 30 homers a year by the time he reaches age 25, plus some that Young does not have- the ability to play centerfield well and a good, if not unblemished, makeup. It's true that Young succeeded in low A ball when he was 8 months younger than Maybin and hit better there, but personally I think Maybin has a much better chance of being at least a very good player than Young does. They both have work to do, but Maybin is the one who is more likely to do the work.

If one thinks of the talented, difficult players in baseball of recent times- Dick Allen, Gary Sheffield, Raul Mondesi, Ruben Sierra, Sammy Sosa, either the makeup issues were less serious (Sierra/Sosa), the hitters were much further advanced (Allen/Sheffield) or the team spent a number of years in trying to discipline the player (Mondesi). The Rays would have been much better off to send Young down to Montgomery last year rather than to call him up to Tampa. Rewarding bad behaviour and mediocre performance is not a recipe for success.

For a top 5 prospect in baseball, a 5-1 K/W ratio is a problem. One that can be overcome, but a problem nonetheless.

Nitpick: Young was 65/15, which is closer to 4:1 than 5:1.

Really, though, it depends mostly on the numerator of that ratio. If the ratio is 150/30, it's a problem; if the ratio is 50/10, it's really not a problem.

There is a tendency among statistical analysts to place a lot of value on K/BB ratio in looking at minor league hitting prospects. But BB rate doesn't translate all that well from the minors to the majors, mostly because major league pitchers throw more strikes than do minor league pitchers, and a batter whose primary value is working the strike zone looking for perfect pitches (a la Jeremy Hermida) is going to be hitting behind in the count a lot. Most for that reason, K/BB ratio - while not unimportant - is less important than raw K rate (or its inverse, contact rate) and what the hitter does when he makes contact.

-- MWE

Wait...are you really trying to make an arguement that Delmon Young isn't one of the top 5 prospects in baseball?

I agree that K rate is more than W rate for a young prospect. 150-30 would an immediate disqualification for a top 5 prospect in baseball. 100-20, as Young is roughly speaking, is a significant barrier. It needs work, and the likelihood that Young will actually accomplish the transition from hacker to hitter is not high because of his makeup.

Here's a challenge. Name a prospect with a K/W ratio of 4/1 or worse and any level of power at age 20-22 in triple A who had significant attitude concerns and who became a major league star. Mondesi is the closest that I can think of, but there are probably others.

the attitude constraint is going to really limit the sample. you should use "highly touted but attitude problem" and then consider other factors, or just use "4/1 k/w ratio at 20-22" and then discount for attitude issues. taking both into account gives you N=raul mondesi.

I think Maybin deserves consideration. His home park is horrendous for hitting, so the away split: .934 OPS -- combined with his insane tools and hard work ethic..

Er, he is top 10 in their list. I meant that as my case for him re. those that don't have him top10.

the attitude constraint is going to really limit the sample. you should use "highly touted but attitude problem" and then consider other factors, or just use "4/1 k/w ratio at 20-22" and then discount for attitude issues. taking both into account gives you N=raul mondesi.

Raul Mondesi was a terrific player while he was in Dodger Blue, FWIW (considering park context). Young's basic skills are similar to Mondesi's, except that (a) he's been younger at each level than was Mondesi and (b) he's hit better at each level, especially when you consider park/league context.

By using 20-22 as the boundary, the comparison is being set up to force Young to be comparable to Mondesi, putting Young's age at the lower boundary of that range and Mondesi's age at the upper bound. Mondesi is about 18 months in relative age older than Young during the years being compared (2006 vs 1993) - and that's a huge age difference in prospect evaluation. Even if their performances were exactly equivalent in every way, one would *still* expect Young to develop into a better player than Mondesi. It would be less misleading to compare Young to AAA players ages 19-21, to put Young at the center of the range rather than at the "young" end of it.

-- MWE

Mike, as you know, there are very few players at triple A at age 19. I doubt that there are any who had K/W ratios of 4:1 or worse with attitude issues. If you find one at age 19 (or 18 for that matter) who meets the challenge, that will work for me. I was trying to make things easier, because of the relatively small sample of players with known attitude issues, rather than to skew it.

It's true that Mondesi was a good player for 3-4 years, and that Young could be a little better, although he doesn't have Mondesi's speed. But, despite the Dodgers' efforts to discipline him, Mondesi's lack of strike zone control did hold him back. Young is an odd case- what hampers him most as a prospect is a combination of what might be perceived as sabermetric issues and the X factor-attitude.

Mondesi's lack of strike zone control did hold him back.

I don't see that. Mondesi had a pretty good career. He didn't age well, but then his decline is nothing out of the ordinary. And that's if his listed age was his real age. He did improve his walk rate quite a bit, even had 2 70+ walk seasons later on.

Incidentally, I think Andrew McCutcheon is being oversold in a lot of these lists (and escpecially by Baseball America). His performance in Low-A was decent, but nothing spectacular and while he was very good in AA, it was only 20 games. Both Jose Tabata and Fernando Martinez, who are each two years younger than McCutcheon, were at least as good if not better than McCutheon while playing in the same league. Moreover, based on scouting reports that I've read, I don't think that McCutcheon's tools are better than either Tabata's or Martinez's, so he should not be given an edge based on projection. Of course McCutcheon is a true CF while Martinez and Tabata profile as corner outfielders, but based on demonstrated performance and the two year age difference, I don't think McCutcheon's bat is in their ballpark. If McCutcheon is #7, there's no way Tabata should be #20 and Martinez in the 40s.

He ended up with a career OBP lower than park-adjusted league average. For a player who started out as a .300 hitter with power and speed, that's not great. And I can tell you from his days in Toronto, the issues that were present at the start of his career played a role in that.

From where Mondesi started, he increased his power, increased his walks, and his batting average declined. Seems like a perfectly normal aging pattern to me. He wasn't great, but he was pretty good. The expectations were probably too high for him because of the contract.

although he doesn't have Mondesi's speed.

Is this true? I've only seen Young play once but he seemed pretty fast to me. In terms of speed, not base stealing ability, I think he is faster than a young Mondesi.

Can anyone tell me how Samardzija got to be the #100 prospect? Is that just name recognition, or is there something to it?

Ha, 3 of the Pirates' top 10 are 26 years old. One never played above AA last year and the only one with any MLB experience is Sharples, who came in late as a releiver. This is why I hate my own team.

Samardzija isn't top 100 in my mind.

One Young was in the majors, there were no problems with his "makeup". That is a monstrously overblown story anyway. And while he did have a bad incident in the minors and was not considered particularly pleasant, I have never heard anyone say he does not work hard or take his job seriously. On the contrary, even in the pap interviews, what comes through clearly is his intelligence and capacity to analyze what he is doing on the field.

Incidentally, while I know it is not strictly relevant, and I am not comparing the two players, if there is a comp to Young as far as his perceived arrogance and frustration with being kept in the minors, it is Ted Williams. When Ted arrived in spring training in 1938, he was told to keep an eye on Jimmy Foxx to see what a real major league power hitter could do. Ted's response was "Wait until he sees me." Ted was sent down that year at least partly to learn his lesson. He didn't.

Scout.com's top 25 list - it's available on the front page at this link:

1 OF Delmon Young TAM
2 3B Alex Gordon KAN
3 P Phil Hughes NYY
4 2B Howie Kendrick LAA
5 OF Carlos Gonzalez ARI
6 P Jeremy Sowers CLE
7 OF Justin Upton ARI
8 OF Lastings Milledge NYM
9 SS Stephen Drew ARI
10 SS Brandon Wood LAA
11 3B Andy LaRoche LAD
12 P Mike Pelfrey NYM
13 3B Josh Fields CHW
14 SS Troy Tulowitzki COL
15 OF Billy Butler KAN
16 P Homer Bailey CIN
17 OF Jose Tabata NYY
18 P Anibal Sanchez FLA
19 OF Cameron Maybin DET
20 P John Danks TEX
21 1B Daric Barton OAK
22 OF Hunter Pence HOU
23 P Nick Adenhart LAA
24 OF Andrew McCutchen PIT
25 OF Felix Pie CHC

I don't know when this was last updated. Kendrick, Drew, and Sanchez will come off 2007 prospect lists, obviously.

-- MWE

What happened to Eric Duncan? I lost track of him
What I mean is - is he still a prospect? He no longer appears on the Yankees' list. Although still young, is his star fading?

The sun has already set there. He has shown some brief spurts of talent, but has to sustain it for a full year before anyone will take him seriously again. He's still young, but I don't think many people consider him a prospect right now, or at least he's only a prospect in the 'you never know with guys that have power' sense.