FanPost

Ranked prospect lists

I was going through the Keith Law rankings earlier today and then the fanpost on the topic on BD. Then, I went over to Minor League Ball, where Sickels has a review of his top 50 hitting prospects from 2005. Looking at that list now, it seems like an awful list. And it struck me that most prospect lists would probably look bad when reconsidered a few years later. Especially when we have bloggers publishing the list, who rely on scout opinions/people around the league to develop their opinions (because naturally, people can't follow everyone.

I don't know what the other lists looked like in 2005 (although the comments section in Sickels' post has snippets of BA's list), especially since in 2005, I did not care about the existence of baseball. I would be curious to know if others have access to lists that did better, or in the context of Sickels' list, players who were omitted who turned it around big-time.

Also, since we spend so much time obsessing over prospect lists, this should be a reminder about the inexactness of such lists, and why we shouldn't be on (what Mike Tomlin calls) an emotional rollercoaster with prospects. Of Sickels' top 10 hitting prospects, Zimmermann and Fielder should be right up there (Fielder was 9th), Drew and Kendrick deserve a spot, the rest I m not sure. The next set of picks who belong in the discussion with Zimm and Fielder are Braun (No 22) and Tulo (No 26). There's McCutchen at 41, Pedroia at 42, Rasmus at 45, and Upton at 14.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editors or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.