Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
This is Baseball America’s 20th annual Top 100 Prospects list, our definitive annual list of the absolute best young talent in the game and the culmination of months of prospect rankings that preceded it.
This year we had six people who contributed to the voting that determines the list: editors in chief Will Lingo and John Manuel and executive editor Jim Callis, who have helped shape these lists for years; as well as Ben Badler, Kary Booher and Matt Eddy, who contribute significantly to our prospect coverage both in print and on the Web. Each person voted on a personal top 150 list, and after those results were tabulated, the six voters got together to go over the raw numbers and make adjustments before settling on a final list.
The list follows our standard prospect guidelines, which means any player who has not exceeded the rookie limits of 130 at-bats or 50 innings in the major leagues (without regard to service time) is eligible for the list. Voters put together their ballots after talking with general managers, scouting directors, farm directors, scouts, managers, coaches and other people in the game, as well as many discussions with each other.
As always, our view is not to what a player may contribute this season, but what his ultimate major league ceiling might be, weighed against the probability that he will reach that ceiling. The capsules focus on numbers that make each prospect significant.
Tripon
Posted: February 24, 2009 at 04:06 PM | 136 comment(s)
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20: Beckham
61: Viciedo
63: Poreda
99: Flowers
9: Brett Anderson
11: Trevor Cahill
54: Michael Inoa
55: Aaron Cunningham
74: Adrian Cardenas
76: Chris Carter
97: Gio Gonzalez
Now, I like these guys at BA and they've helped me a lot in the past and I'm admittedly far from a minor league expert or scout.
ATL: 5
ARI: 2
BAL: 4
BOS: 3
CHC: 2
CHW: 4
CLE: 4
CIN: 2
COL: 3
DET: 1
FLA: 6
HOU: 1
KCR: 3
LAA: 2
LAD: 2
MIL: 4
MIN: 3
NYM: 4
NYY: 3
OAK: 7
PHI: 5
PIT: 3
SDP: 1
SFG: 4
SEA: 4
STL: 3
TBD: 5
TEX: 7
TOR: 3
WAS: 1
22. Chris Tillman
25. Brian Matusz
67. Jake Arrieta
Not bad. Except for their overoptimistic ETAs wrt the Orioles.
I'd have preferred a more informative write-up of each player than a single-stat synopsis. I guess I can find those anywhere...
Fukkking stupid idiots. I trying to think if this was Huntington's first draft or if he was hired after the draft. Again, fukkking stupid idiots!
I least they are consistant since they drafted other pitchers in the first round-Bullington, Van Benschot (whatever), and other horrible picks.
Pretty sure it was after.
9: Brett Anderson
29: Jarrod Parker
55: Aaron Cunningham
76: Chris Carter
88: Gerardo Parra
And they would've still had Carlos Quentin, Carlos Gonzalez and Greg Smith
Haren is a damn good pitcher--but the Dbacks paid through their noses for him
What's your ETA for Wieters? 2009 sounds about right.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?year_ID=2007&round=1&draft_type=junreg
Don't know how you can whiff on Wieters if you're the Pirates.
Haren is a damn good pitcher--but the Dbacks paid through their noses for him
No takesies-backsies.
Only Cardinals fans are allowed to say this.
That's probably the most opitmistic project I've ever seen for Jason Heyward. I mean, do we really think he breaks into the bigs as a 20 year old in 2010? Not that Atlanta won't have a place for him in the OF, to be sure, but do we really think he's going to be impactful that early? Hanson and Schafer will be in Atlanta this year. The only question is if it's out of spring training or later in the season. I had not seen Schafer's second half OPS so that sort of makes me happier about his chances out of Orlando.
And yeah, Neftali hurts there at #9, but who amoung us were bemoaning the loss of Perez instead of Saltalamacchia when that trade went down? Good job by the Rangers of identifying young talent early.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Wow. They whiffed on a lot of good talent in that draft.
All of the ETA's seem absurdly optimistic. Hosmer breaking in the big leagues in 2010? He got 11 ABs last year in his first pro season.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Wow. They whiffed on a lot of good talent in that draft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Wieters
That's even more damming, with the amount of money spent on Alverez last year.
Totally agree. At least a year optimistic on almost everyone.
Sorry to be that guy, but this word should be outlawed: impactful. Ugh.
Matt Wieters was on the orginal Team USA WBC roster, but was taken off when a group of Canadian pitchers, in their own self-interest, pointed out that the Obama administration does not allow torture
Major League Baseball consists of 29 Major League teams, 1 Washington Nationals team and 1 Matt Wieters.
Randy Johnson once killed a bird with a ball. Matt Wieters can kill two birds with one ball.
Opposing pitchers are so afraid of Matt Wieters that when they "Balk" they are actually stopping mid-pitch to say "bawk!"
Matt Wieters once threw out a runner trying to steal from the on-deck circle.
Matt Wieters can divide by zero. This will come in handy on the Orioles.
I might be blind but I only see 4 Phillies: Carrasco, Brown, Marson and Donald. With 5, I assumed that Taylor would be on list and Happ had too many innings but I see neither.
I read a profile of him and found this statement from a Plain-Dealer writer:
If it weren't for that damn trade, Matt LaPorta could have snuck up everybody. I have to stop reading sportswriters and listening to the radio. The complete lack of logic in these places is stunning.
An opposing batter once stepped into the box, took one look at Matt Wieters, and went insane. The umpire had no choice but to call catcher's interference and award the batter first base.
Matt Wieters uses the Shroud of Turin as his chest protector.
*raises hand*
Obviously no one expected him to get this good, this fast, but he was already a fine prospect. His inclusion seemed like overkill since we were already giving up Salty, Elvis, and Harrison.
Matt Wieters' sweat can be used to detect any performance enhancing drug in any player. MLB would like to begin using this to test, but you will never, ever, ever see Matt Wieters sweat.
Carl Pavano has actually been a model of health, but everytime someone mentions the name "Matt Wieters", his shoulder separates on its own in abject fear.
Matt Wieters once ate 48 hot dogs in a single setting. He had enormous stomach pains all night, and in the morning he experienced a large bowel movement. That bowel movement became Brad Aumsus.
Huntington's first draft was the 2008 one. Littlefield was still in charge when Moskos was taken.
My friend Steve Moyer of Baseball Info Solutions maintains a guy's name has some impact on his perceived future value. We shrug at the Wade Davis's of the world but like the idea of a Shooter Hunt.
Meh. It's just some list.
Hell, Spivey, we all are!
"[Chico] Walker was trying to tie this game up with one swing of the bat, which isn't easy when your team's leading 7-0."
I'm confident Wieters could do it. It would be to the detriment of his team, of course, but he could do it.
Why? I'd rather see a mix of high upside, high risk and low upside, low risk players. Every team needs both to be successful IMO.
Oriole Magic is, in reality, just Matt Wieters' using a form of telekinesis.
Had Baseball America been truthful, their top 100 prospects would have gone 1: Matt Wieters, 2: Matt Wieters, 3: Matt Wieters... etc. etc.
Matt Wieters can take the fork in the road.
Baltimore is not a democracy, it is a Mattriarchy.
Matt Wieters doesn't need to swing the bat to get a HR. The ball simply reverses direction and hides behind the wall out of FEAR of being stuck by his bat.
Matt Wieters clogs the toilet when he pisses.
This one...it's maybe not so good.
Matt Wieters doesn't use a catcher's glove, just some duct tape and a few Cool Ranch Doritos.
Matt Wieters once hit a ball so hard it screamed in pain.
Sometimes the rain has a Matt Wieters delay.
Matt Wieters is worth +76 wins. To the Nationals, due to proximity.
The day Matt Wieters was born, Dave Dravecky's arm snapped out of fear.
Matt Wieters would steal more bases, but he plays in a wheelchair to make it fair, and allows the opposing team to hide second base.
When he's catching, you don't pitch to Matt Wieters, he just decides where he wants to catch the ball and it materializes in his glove.
Matt Wieters hit an infield fly 500 feet. If that sounds like a contradiction, that's because it is.
When Matt Wieters is behind the plate, the pitcher has to wear a catcher's mitt.
Matt Wieters can throw out baserunners without the help of the infield. He merely hurls the ball directly at the base, and the impact launches it into the stands.
Matt Wieters beat Bugs Bunny.
Matt Wieters called a one-hitter with Jeff Weaver on the mound. yes, he's that good.
Matt Wieters once tried to skip a stone on the Atlantic Ocean. It will arrive somewhere in Northern Africa right... about.... NOW.
He is expected to sweep the tournament.
When the Orioles face the Giants in interleague play this year scientists worry that a Lincecum / Wieters matchup might melt all the ice in Greenland. Wieters would of course just blow on Greenland and refreeze all of the ice.
When Matt Wieters faces DiceK for the first time he will hit a gyroball through the green monster and it will be the first time anybody has hit a Godzilla homerun.
A usable cutter and about 5 mph of fastball. The general description for one is a #2 ceiling with a most likely scenario as a #3/4, the other a #3 ceiling with a likely scenario as a #3/4.
There's a much greater similarity between Bowden and Jeremy Hellickson than there is between Bowden and Davis, and Hellickson wasn't ranked at all. I still agree Bowden's a hair low, as is Hellickson IMO.
There are a lot of strange placements on this list, in my opinion.
Weiters' $10 million signing bonus demand might have had a little something to do with it.
Still, there's something to be said for consistently picking guys who are deemed to be reaches even at the time they're drafted, or drafting no-brainer power-hitting outfielders as pitchers.
Weiters' $10 million signing bonus demand might have had a little something to do with it.
Sure, but the Orioles were also dealing with that demand, and they signed him for $6 mill.
The back of Matt Wieters' baseball card contains a proof of the Riemann hypothesis.
Lou Gehrig's original speech was "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth, except for Matt Wieters." Wieters read through a draft of the speech, told Gehrig he thought it was running long, and took out the reference to himself.
And do you really think Littlefield had the aptitude to do the same? Plus, wasn't there an edict from ownership not to pay over slot at the time?
Moskos was a horrible pick, don't get me wrong, as was just about everyone else in the 8 or so years preceding Moskos (I did like Lincoln as a pick, but then he blew out his arm, go figure), but Weiters wasn't a reasonable choice given the circumstances. They still could have taken someone like Parker, Heyward or LaPorta, who SOMEONE else besides Dave Littlefield and his team of incompetent scouts thought was worthy of being drafted in the top 5.
If that were true, then they wouldn't be high risk, and comparing low-risk high-upside prospects to low-risk "low-upside" prospects isn't great fodder for debate.
And, of course, "upside" isn't really a cap on what a player might do, more of a 95th percentile outcome. Nobody thought Brandon Webb's "upside" was as a staff ace and perennial Cy Young candidate (which is why he never even cracked BA's Top 100 list), but that's exactly what he turned into. One of the "low upside" players on this list might well do the same thing.
Also they could have drafted, oh, Jason Heyward instead, who was supposed to be a top 10 pick and ended up signing for slot at 14 (IIRC).
Bowden is too low -- what's the difference between him and Wade Davis, who is 50 spots higher?
Stuff. I haven't seen Bowden pitch but it sounds like his stuff is more solid than good/great. Davis, on the other hand, has legitimately very good/great stuff. His fastball is 91-94 or better sometimes and his curve can be filthy.
If it took that draft to finally rid the Pirates of Littlefield, so be it. If DL had drafted and signed Wieters, it might have saved his job. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can start back up.
The second point is pretty irrelevant as it is basically saying "player projections are not always right".
I happen to think that people do overvalue the "safe" bets - IMO too many people assume these raw players that flash 5 tools are higher risk than they are - there are options other than "not developing the skills" and "all star". Many fall short but can still be serviceable.
Why settle for incompetence or malice, when you can have both?
None of which reflects in any way on the current regime, of course. Huntington was still chillin' in Cleveland when it all went down.
I do (I wanted him instead of Moskos OR Wieters, FWIW). I don't know that he'll be successful right away, but he's got the skills to do it.
Danny pretty much nails it WRT Bowden. Davis is one of the few minor league pitchers that I have seen who can get guys out even when he doesn't have his A game working. I saw him pitch at Five County on a night when his fastball was the only thing he could throw for strikes. He allowed one hit in five innings, and the only run he allowed was unearned.
I found this comment amusing:
There were some people who thought Hicks would be better as a pitcher. I've always been a believer that it's a lot easier to try a two-way guy as a hitter first, with pitching as a fallback. I wonder what would have happened if Pittsburgh had done that with VanBenschoten or Clint Johnston.
I think so. LaPorta's the kind of guy who could have two or three good years and then fade quickly.
-- MWE
Agreed on LaPorta (overrated). And w/ Mike on JVB (no opinion on Johnston, though I agree w/ you on hitter v. pitcher as a general rule).
Always enjoy your comments, Mike. Deric McKamey (Minor League Baseball Analyst) has Davis peaking at 94 and Bowden at 92, but Davis has a straighter fastball. I know that Davis allegedly throws 97, but those peak readings are outliers that Deric discounts completely. My bigger question is why Bowden had better success getting AA and AAA hitters out at a younger age than Davis if Davis's stuff is so much better
American League- 55 prospects
NFL 1st round draft picks: 1998-2002
Miami Hurricanes 17 (memory)
AFC East 14
I have the exact numbers somewhere deep in my e-mail archives, I'm too lazy to check numbers now, but amazing. College football has such uneven distribution of talent.......while the NFL has nearly even distribution.....I argue an occasional college team could beat, if not hammer the bottom handful of NFL teams. The gap is not as big as people imagine it to be. The (college v pro) gap between top college football and the NFL is probably the smallest in major team sports.
*more Canes football, the 1994 Hurricanes D had both Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis on it, both won NFL defensive player of the year awards (Lewis 2), the last NFL team to have 2 former NFL D players of the year on the roster? The Baltimore Ravens, Ray Lewis and Ed Reed (Miami of course).
Completely absurd. Be grateful you can't put your money where your mouth is on that one because you'd lose your shirt.
I'm sticking by my guns on this one. Wieters wouldn't rank #1 if he weren't a catcher - and I don't think that he's going to BE a catcher for more than a few years. He's a big guy, and the bigger a catcher is, the more strain he tends to put on his knees and back. I just don't see him being able to handle catching 130-140 games a year for more than a few years without negative side effects. Heyward's got everything you could want; the only question at this point is when the power will come.
I've always felt that low-revenue teams like Pittsburgh need to focus on high-upside talent in the draft, even at the risk of having that talent take longer to get to the majors. I like what Dayton Moore has done in KC; I wanted to see Neal Huntington do the same thing. I agitated for Hosmer over Alvarez, and I thought the Pirates should have taken a shot at someone like Kentrail Davis in the middle rounds, the way the Royals did with Tim Melville.
-- MWE
It's an interesting hypothetical, and I'm not sure I agree.
Wieters is the most complete hitter in the minors, irrespective of position. Very few minor league hitters even have the upside to match the combination of average, discipline, and power that Wieters already has.
It's also worth noting that the wear-and-tear of the catcher position is probably holding his bat back somewhat, so he might be an even better hitter if he moved to a less physically demanding position.
Assuming that Wieters isn't athletic enough to play 3B (which I'm not sure is the case), how much would moving to 1B hurt his value? He loses 25 runs of defensive value, but if his bat improves by 10 runs and he gets an additional 15% playing time, he gets a lot of that value back. Plus, his long-term health prognosis instantly improves.
I think Wieters would have a very strong case for #1 offensive prospect if he was a 1B, he just wouldn't be heads-and-shoulders above the competition like he is now.
I've gotta agree. Even the Lions would kick the crap out of the best college team.
That's crazy. First, there's no evidence that he'll have to move off the position anytime soon -- he doesn't have a history of nagging injuries. Second, even if he spends 4-5 years at catcher and then moves to 1b or DH, he'd still be more valuable than an elite RF (assuming both hit their offensive projections).
No offense, Sam, but I'm thinking that I don't even want to know. :)
EDIT: I suppose it must have something to do with peckers.
I was nerding it up the other night, digging up my collection of BPro annuals to see who they'd named the #1 prospect in each year. Going back to '99:
09--Matt Wieters
08--Jay Bruce
07--Alex Gordon
06--Delmon Young
05--Andy Marte
04--Joe Mauer
03--Mark Teixeira
02--Hank Blalock
01--Ryan Anderson
00--Nick Johnson
99--Eric Chavez
Kind of a mixed bag. Only 2 (Mauer and Tex) who could be credibly called superstars (I suppose you could argue Chavez was at that level for a while), 2 who've done absolutely nothing (Anderson, Marte), some others who the jury's still out on (Young, Gordon) but who've been disappointing. Blalock hasn't been worthless, but he definitely peaked early and briefly. Bruce could still become a monster.
Wieters does seem to be at least as impressive as any of this bunch at this stage of his career, if not more so.
I did, too. I'd probably defect to Wieters at this point, knowing what I know now, but Heyward is still a damn fine player.
Well, I don't think you can blame them for not predicting that Chavez would #### up his back AND shoulder.
OTOH, Johnson's injury track record was probably a bit more predictable. And Johnson's power was never that great to begin with, especially for a first baseman; methinks BPro was just a bit too hung up on his gaudy OBPs.
I think that Canadian junior hockey team from 2005 World Juniors would have been the closest we've seen to a "feeder league" team being better than a handful of "pro" teams.
That was the year of the lockout, and the 2005 Team Canada roster included:
Defence:
Dion Phaneuf
Brent Seabrook
Shea Weber
Cam Barker
Forwards:
Patrice Bergeron
Jeff Carter
Sidney Crosby
Ryan Getzlaf
Corey Perry
Michael Richards
Nigel Dawes
Their goaltending was their weakest position (Rejean Beauchemin).
This team would have given the bottom 2 or 3 teams in the NHL a real run for their money.
This used to happen not all that long ago, the NFL/Super Bowl champ would play a college all-star team in an exhibition and the college all stars won a few.
The level of offense NFL fans take to my claim is amusing. Very defensive on this subject. I don't understand why either. If the Durham Bulls played the Yankees 10 times, the Bulls would win 2-3 games. If the Montgomery Biscuits played the Yankees they would win 1-3.
The gap between college football and the NFL is much, much smaller than the gap between triple-A and MLB, and certainly double-A and MLB. In fact, 20 of the best 100 football players in the world play college football at all times. Your football prime for most positions (outside of QB) is 20-25. College players are aged 17-22 or 23.
Every season there is an NFL rookie that is either the best player at his position or several among the very best. It happens every year. More important, the number of rookie starters in the NFL is close to 50 on opening day, and nears 100 by year end, youth is king in this sport. The turnover of player rosters is massive, it is very unlikely a football player will be playing after 28, let alone 30.
Well I didn't know this ever happened, so it's a nice bit of trivia, but I think this is a misrepresentation. The last time the college team won was 1963; the pros then won 12 in a row and the game was canceled. The last game ended after the 3rd quarter because of rain with the Steelers winning 24-0; the MVP (which always came from the college team) was their punter (Ray Guy). And this was a college all-star team, not just the top team of the year.
There are plenty of great RB in college, and a few other positions, but you'd almost certainly be giving up a lot at QB. What fraction players on the best D-I teams is ever drafted? Put me down for someone who thinks no college team would stand a chance.
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