So how exactly is Loney one of the Dodgers' best prospects? I know he's young but a 641 OPS in AA after a 737 one in A+ is unacceptable from a 1b.

Best Defensive Infielder Ching-Lung Hu
I’d pay money to hear Vin Scully pronounce that name…

Reminds me of Bob Uecker trying to handle "Hee-Seop Choi." It repeatedly--over months--came out "See-hop."

Okay, this is the most impressive top 10 I think I've ever seen.

Dodgers' top picks of the past decade:

1995 David Yocum, lhp
1996 Damian Rolls, 3b
1997 Glenn Davis, 1b
1998 Bubba Crosby, of
1999 Jason Repko, ss/of
2000 Ben Diggins, rhp
2001 Brian Pilkington, rhp (2nd round)
2002 James Loney, 1b
2003 Chad Billingsley, rhp
2004 Scott Elbert, lhp

It sure seems like a long time since the Dodgers' top pick made any kind of impact at the major-league level.

So how exactly is Loney one of the Dodgers' best prospects?

Because he has the shiny #1 pick glow around him!

Maybe they're thinking of moving Loney back to pitcher. A 641 OPS is a hell of a thing from a pitcher.

Okay, this is the most impressive top 10 I think I've ever seen.

Martin and LaRoche were JC guys; I think the other eight were prep/foreign signees.

There was a poster here who, when DePodesta was hired, was adamant that DePo should fire Logan White - because he didn't seem to pick college players.

Looking at the somewhat poor track record the Dodgers have had with high-round college players, and their success restocking the farm system with prep players - why fix what isn't broken?

Best Defensive Infielder Ching-Lung Hu

I didn't know he was actually any good.

Ching-Lung who?

It says he's an infielder, but it doesn't specify which position he plays.

So... Hu's on first?

With Loney's middle finger injury -- and subsequent infection, surgery, and anti-biotics regimen -- taking away all of Loney's strength in 2004, his Double A numbers are irrelevent. He gets a mulligan and will redo Double A, at the same age that college juniors get drafted and start short-A ball.

Was Loney's .737 OPS in 2003 really disappointing for a 19-year-old in the high A Florida State League? 19-year-olds as a rule don't play at that advanced a level, but rare talents are given the opportunity. Shawn Green played in the same league at the same age as Loney and had a .664 OPS for the season (hitting only 1 HR). Miguel Cabrera played in the FSL at 19 and his OPS was not much better than Loney's, .754. Eric Chavez's OPS in high A at 19 was .765, and that was in the hitter's paradise of the California League, not the hitter's Death Valley of the FSL.

Rich, Chin-Lung Hu is a shortstop. He was 20 in 2004. At low A, in 332 AB's, he hit .298/.342/.422. Promoted to high A near season's end, in 75 AB's, he hit.307/.350/.387. A Baseball America writer had this to say about Hu, in the Top 20 Prospects list for the South Atlantic League: "Managers agreed Hu had the best combination of true shortstop actions, arm strength and enough bat to make it to the big leagues as a shortstop. Signed out of Taiwan and in his first full season, Hu was above average in four tools and drew comparisons to Rafael Furcal, though he can't match Furcal's top-of-the-line arm strength."

So... Hu's on first?

One of the funnier posts on Primer in recent memory.

To add to Canuck's point, the league OPS in the FSL last year was 726. A 19-year-old with top-notch hitting tools and a better than average OPS in high-A - that's a prospect.

It really is an incredibly deep farm. This list doesn't include Scott Elbert a HS lefty who was a 1st rd pick who had a so-so year but still ranked 6th in the Pioneer League because of great mechanics and a mid-90s fastball with great movement.

It doesn't include Cory Dunlap, a 3rd rd pick from CC who was 7th in the PIO after hitting 351/492/518.

You could knock off the top 3 premium guys and judge the LA system at #4-13 against other teams full top 10s and LA would be competitive with a lot of other organizations. Crazy deep system.

"So... Hu's on first?
One of the funnier posts on Primer in recent memory."
Sure ... if you're in Winnipeg.

Edwin Jackson shows up on Dayn Perry's new list.

Prospects 41-50.

HAven't kept up with Perry's list since only the first couple were posted here, but there are some oddball choices in the 40-80 range.

On the theme of depth, last month, writing a farm report and Top 10 prospects list for the Dodgers for SportsBlurb.com, Seth Trachtman offered the opinion that "The Dodgers have nearly 20 prospects that would make almost any other organization's top 10 list." I myself wonder, now that I have seen Baseball America's top 10, just what will the Dodgers' #11 to #20 look like in the BA Prospect Handbook that will be out around the end of February? And the interesting question is, how many of those players would be Top 10 material in "almost any other organization?"

Here are my ideas for who should be in the Dodgers' "next" 10 after BA's top 10. I wrote a little about shortstop Chin-Lung Hu in a post above. Another poster mentioned LHP Scott Elbert and first baseman Cory Dunlap from the 2004 draft. Ex-Yankee catching prospect Dioner Navarro had yet to be acquired by the Dodgers when Trachtman wrote his comment. Eric Gagne's set-up man, RHP Yhency Brazoban -- a possible future closer who blew through Double A and Triple A and made Dodger fans forget about Guillermo Mota being traded away in 2004 -- still qualifies as a prospect because he has pitched only 32.2 innings in the majors. Second baseman Delwyn Young hit .281/.364/.511 in high A, leading the Florida State League in extra base hits (61 out of 132 total hits), coming in second in home runs (22), and coming in fourth in the league in slugging percentage -- all without being too old for the league (Young turned 22 on June 30) and while playing a premium defensive position. A level higher, in Double A, second baseman Willy Aybar, playing only as a 21-year-old, hit .276/.346/.425 with 15 homers, playing in a strong pitcher's league with his home park the most pitcher friendly park in the league. Rickie Weeks and Josh Barfield played the same position (2B) at the same age (21) in the same league as Aybar (Southern), and their performances were not, on the whole, better than Aybar's, though I hear Weeks and Barfield had some injury concerns this year that hampered them.
The toolsy 19-year-old outfielder that Baseball America calls the "Best Athlete" in the Dodgers' system, Matt Kemp, hit .288/.330/.499 with 17 HR's in the low A South Atlantic League in 2004. The year before, in 2003, Atlanta Braves' toolsy outfielder Jeff Francouer played in the same league at the same age as Kemp in 2004, and Francouer hit .281/.325/.445 with 14 HR's. (Methinks the virtually unknown Matt Kemp needs to hire Francouer's PR firm.) Pitching for Kemp's team last year, 18-year-old Dominican Julio Pimentel used his low 90's fastball and hard, downer curve to put up good results for such a young pitcher in the Sally League: 111.1 IP, 106 H's, 47 BB's, 102 K's, 3.84 ERA. Trying to fight through tendinitis, and pitching in the Coors Light conditions of Las Vegas in the hitterific PCL, ruined RHP Joel Hanrahan's numbers in Triple A in 2004, but he is not a bad player to round out the Dodgers Top 20 prospects, in my opinion. Hanrahan's Double A performance in 2003 in the Southern League at age 21 (133.1 IP, 117 H's, 53 BB's, 130 K's, 2.43 ERA) was not too dissimilar to Jake Peavy's performance in the same league at the same age in 2002 (80.1 IP, 65 H's, 30 BB's, 89 K's, 2.80 ERA), and Hanrahan and Peavy have the same sort of "stuff."

The toolsy 19-year-old outfielder that Baseball America calls the "Best Athlete" in the Dodgers' system, Matt Kemp, hit .288/.330/.499 with 17 HR's in the low A South Atlantic League in 2004. The year before, in 2003, Atlanta Braves' toolsy outfielder Jeff Francouer played in the same league at the same age as Kemp in 2004, and Francouer hit .281/.325/.445 with 14 HR's. (Methinks the virtually unknown Matt Kemp needs to hire Francouer's PR firm.)

FWIW, Baseball America has Columbus (Dodgers) with a 1038 park factor and Rome (Braves) at 925.

According to Baseball Prospectus 2004, in 2003, when Jeff Francouer played in Rome in the South Atlantic League, Rome's park factor was 956. In that same year, Columbus' park factor (when the Dodger affiliate there was called the South Georgia Waves), was only 981, not a HUGE difference compared to Rome's park factor. Park factors have to be looked at over time, because one year spikes in the quality of a minor league team's pitching or hitting (and the minor league team players change every year) can drastically color park factors in any ONE year. In 2004, in Columbus, Matt Kemp was one part of an absolutely outstanding offensive team, and that surely affects the park factor for that team's home park. But I will still accept the idea that Rome has a more pitcher friendly park. Compare Francouer and Kemp's Sally League numbers in that light, if you like. Nobody, and certainly not I, will try to argue that Matt Kemp is Francouer's EQUAL as a prospect. Francouer would be among the Dodgers' very best prospects if Francouer were a Dodger. Kemp is not in the Dodgers Top 10. But Kemp is the same TYPE of prospect as Francouer (a very toolsy outfielder needing better plate discipline), and Kemp's low A production, even adjusting for park factors, is still in the same ball park's as Francouer's low A production, so I do think it says a lot for the Dodgers' prospect depth that a guy like Kemp can't crack the Dodgers' top 10. In short, Kemp is a perfect example, in my mind, of a prospect who, as Seth Trachtman said, would be in the Top 10 of "almost any other organization," with the result that Kemp would be getting a lot more attention if he were NOT a Dodger. Kemp is over-shadowed in his current organization, and if Kemp does not learn to draw more walks, let's face it, DePodesta will be looking at him as trade bait down the line.

I think you do have to discount Loney's 2004 season to some extent, but I also think he's going to have to start turning some of those doubles into home runs before I'd get overly high on him (which he very well may). He didn't impress me when I saw him play last year, but I don't know how much of that was a result of the injury.

-- MWE

Loney did hit well in the AFL this offseason if memory serves. Granted the pitching isn't good, but he seems to be healthy and I think could put up good numbers. I agree he might never have big-time power, but I think he could be a Lyle Overbay 2004 hitter and supposedly he's good defensively too I think.

When Chuck Tiffany and Broxton are the bottom of your top 10, you're sitting pretty. I'd move them up, but this system is stacked and you can argue the guys above them should be there.

Also, only in the Dodgers system would a LHP who had 125 K's in 106 IP at A+ at the age of 20 not be in the top 10.

Spivey, of course you are referring to Mike Megrew (105.2 IP, 84 H's, 43 BB's, 125 K's, 3.41 ERA in high A in 2004). He had Tommy John surgery after the season and will miss all of 2005, which is why I did not mention him as a guy to put in the #11 to #20 range, but maybe Baseball America will put Megrew in that range, given his performance. Scouts don't think he projects as more than a #4 starter because his fastball is only 88 on the gun and Megrew is fooling a lot of guys now with his plus change-up.

The Dodgers could sure use some of those fireballers making it to the MLB as starters!
I don't think they have a power arm in that starting corps, while their bullpen just throws mind blowingly hard!

Having seen Loney play some Major League spring training games last year, he was extraordinarily impressive. Emphasis on "extraordinarily." As in, I've never seen a better young hitter in my life. (I guess that's why subjective impressions are not to be trusted!)

CanuckDodger has some good ideas on who the Dodgers 11-20 prospects would be. I think it's safe to say that their 11-20 is better than the 1-10 list for a few teams.

- Yhency Brazoban (still qualifies - 33 IP)
- Delwyn Young
- Ching-Lung Hu
- Antonio Perez (still qualifies - 138 AB)
- Jason Repko
- Cory Dunlap (.351/.492/.518 in Pioneer Lg)
- Scott Elbert
- Ryan Ketchner (8-7, 3.02 in AA... a little old)
- Jose Diaz (short reliever, 74 Ks in 47 IP in A-ball)

I'd take the Twins second group of 10 over the Dodgers. The top 10 I'd take the Dodgers though, depending on if you consider Mauer a prospect or not anymore. The Twins #11-20 group includes 4 1st/supplemental picks from last year Glen Perkins, Jay Rainville, Matt Fox and Trevor Plouffe. Also in the group could be Alex Romero, Adam Harben, Scott Tyler, Juan Portes, and Denard Span.

Dagnabbit, I forgot to list Dioner Navarro in the Dodgers' 11-20 group.

Eric, 130 AB's in the majors is the point at which a position player loses rookie of the year eligibility the following season. And it is definitely the point at which Baseball America no longer considers a position player eligible for prospect lists.

Yeah, brain cramp, I thought it was 150.

Put Navarro in where Perez was.

A level higher, in Double A, second baseman Willy Aybar, playing only as a 21-year-old, hit .276/.346/.425 with 15 homers, playing in a strong pitcher's league with his home park the most pitcher friendly park in the league.

I like Aybar, too. I didn't get to see him play with Guzman, though - the Suns only made one trip here after the first week in July, and the only game I had tickets for in that trip was rained out. He can handle the position defensively, no question, and his bat will be plenty good enough.

-- MWE

I guess I should load up on early Jacksonville games next year, with Young certainly there, Loney likely to be, and maybe Guzman starting there.

-- MWE

Then again, Jacksonville doesn't even get here for the first time until June. Ecch.

-- MWE

Broxton and Billingsley will both be pitching there too. BA seemed to think Miller will likely be pitching there when healthy (about mid-season).

Also, for anyone that cares, Megrew was slotted around 9-13 for the Dodger list before needing surgery, so I imagine they felt he was on border of top 100.

What's the most prospects one team has ever had make the BA top 100?

I dunno, but I like the implication (in the chat) that the Dodgers will have 10 or 11 on the list.

Last year, the Angels, Blue Jays, Brewers and Cubs had six players each on BA's Top 100. The Dodgers had four.

BTW, who did today's BPro column have as top 1B and 2B prospects?

Kotchman and Aybar (neither unanimous).

DK, off the top of my head they mentioned Kotchman and Aubrey as 1B and 2B I don't remember. All I know is that they didn't even give Robinson Cano a mention though he grades out pretty well on their projection system.

Kotchman and Aybar (neither unanimous).

The Angels are lookin' good in the infield with Aybar, Alberto Callaspo, Howie Kendrick and Brandon Wood all in the system. Which is all the more irritating to have OC signed for 4 years, and Kennedy for two.

The system's really brimming with young talent. Right now, I'd take the Angels' farm system over the A's, and it's only been recently that it's even been close.

Strikes me as odd that Brazoban isn't in the top 10. The rest of those guys must really be top notch.

Incidentally, I wish CanuckDodger had corrected me before I repeated my dumb mistake in the chat...

Right now, I'd take the Angels' farm system over the A's, and it's only been recently that it's even been close.

I think they're pretty similar in terms of depth and premier quality. But, you're right, the Angels have been far ahead for a while.

Last year, the Angels, Blue Jays, Brewers and Cubs had six players each on BA's Top 100. The Dodgers had four.

I think the A's will have 7 this year: Barton, Swisher, Herrera, Meyer, Blanton, Johnson, and Street. Garcia has a chance as well.

I wouldn't necessarily think of a 25 yr old 1B like Dan Johnson as a lock to make it.

I'd put both Johnson and Street on the bubble.

BA seems to love Street, and they have Johnson ahead of Street in the A's top 10. BA lists Johnson ahead of Freddy Guzman in the PCL top 20 prospects, and Guzman is SD's #2 prospect. He's also ahead of Terrero and Atkins.

Just a guess...

Barton, Swisher, Herrera, Meyer, Blanton, Johnson, and Street. Garcia

Yes:

Barton, Swisher, Meyer, Blanton.

Maybe:

Herrera, Street, Garcia

No:

Johnson

I say the A's end up with 5 guys.

BA seems to love Street, and they have Johnson ahead of Street in the A's top 10. BA lists Johnson ahead of Freddy Guzman in the PCL top 20 prospects, and Guzman is SD's #2 prospect. He's also ahead of Terrero and Atkins.

Just a guess...

The thing is that the people with the most weight in deciding the league top 20s are different than the ones who do the organization ones who are different from the ones who do the overall top 100.

I think they're pretty similar in terms of depth and premier quality. But, you're right, the Angels have been far ahead for a while.

Well, if you cash in two tremendous assets like Hudson and Mulder for (mostly) prospects, you sure as hell better make a big leap forward in the quality and depth of your farm. If Beane hadn't accomplished that, he'd have hurt his team's chances in the short term for nothing.

Well, if you cash in two tremendous assets like Hudson and Mulder for (mostly) prospects, you sure as hell better make a big leap forward in the quality and depth of your farm. If Beane hadn't accomplished that, he'd have hurt his team's chances in the short term for nothing.

Only 2 of the 6 players the A's acquired in those trades are considered prospects.

Only 2 of the 6 players the A's acquired in those trades are considered prospects.

OK, fair enough. I still kind of thing of Haren as a "prospect," but I guess that's a stretch. Still, of the seven you named, two were acquired in the deals, and certainly those two (Barton and Meyer) are two of their best. So even if it's only those two, it went a long way towards improving the quality depth in the A's pipeline.

So even if it's only those two, it went a long way towards improving the quality depth in the A's pipeline.

Oh, for sure. Barton is one of the better prospects in MLB and Meyer is top 50. But the A's have done a very nice job developing depth over the past few years. I remember a post you made last week (I think) where you said you wish the Mets had a stable of MLB-ready prospects to go along with their promising young guys. Well, that's what the A's have.

MLB ready: Swisher, Johnson, Blanton, Meyer, Street, Garcia

Young and Promising: Barton, Herrera, Ogando, Quintanilla, Knox, and the guys from the 2004 draft (Robnett, Suzuki, Powell).