BP Top 100 Prospects

by johnnycuff on Jan 31, 2008 3:15 PM EST Comment 11 comments

Kevin Goldstein put out his top 100 prospect list over at BP today. As expected, your Pittsburgh Pirates put up their characteristic ho-hum showing with three appearances - Andrew McCutchen at 24th, Neil Walker barely cracking the list at 94th and a surprise appearance by Steve Pearce at 43rd.

McCutchen's ranking no doubt was hurt by his poor showing at AA and his position fell from last year's ranking of 15th. That's still enough to make it as a 5-star prospect on Goldstein's list but as even he admits, the talent level of prospects is down this year. Personally I think he should start back in AA and hopefully move up to Indy quickly, but management may disagree and start him in AAA.

We all know what Pearce did last year and KG's also noticed, putting him in the company of players such as Josh Vitters, Jose Tabata and Fernando Martinez. Pearce wasn't even on KG's radar last year. We've already heard (and judged the hell out of) management's plan for him this year.

Walker makes the list this year after being on the fringes last year. This may not indicate that he's taken a step forward as much as the talent level has stepped back. Goldstein even admits there's a handful of 3-star talent at the tail end of the list, which I suspect includes our third baseman of the future. My guess is he, like the rest of this trio, will take the field for Indy when the season starts.

Other notable Pirate-centric rankings have former-bucco Brent Lillibridge at 63, almost-bucco Jair Jurrjens at 86 and should've-been-a-bucco Matt Wieters at 12th. If you weren't mad about passing on Wieters before, you should be now.

Cincinnati's Jay Bruce is #1.

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It's amazing...

...how much one draft pick would completely change my perception of the Pirates farm system. Now I see we have an slipping toolsy guy, a quality hitter who plays the most replacable positions, some past and future Tommy John'ers and practically nothing else.
If the Bucs took Wieters over Moskos, I'd look at this top 100 and be fairly optimistic about our farm system. Knowing we don't have any depth in our farm system, I'd see that we have 3 impact hitter types in the top 50 and could still feel pretty good about our future. Huge difference, huh?

by Chad Bahamas on Jan 31, 2008 5:05 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

keith law top 100

Here is a link to ESPN's top 100, by Keith Law. Again, the Pirates don't fare so badly. He loves McCutcheon, has him at #12, ahead of Maybin. And then Walker (#89) and Lincoln (#97) squeeze in at the end. Wieters at #14, but no Jurrjens or Lillibridge that I saw.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story?columnist=law_keith&id=3221365&action=l ogin&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fmlb%2finsider%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist% 3dlaw_keith%26id%3d3221365

Although labelled "insider" it is a free preview for now.

by aih on Jan 31, 2008 6:04 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Cutch

Law says he should have 30-plus homer power. I sure hope he's right. And so does my roto team.

by bolton on Feb 1, 2008 4:42 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Remember This!

In 2008, McCutchen should not start out in AA or AAA. He should start out playing CF wherever the Pittsburgh Pirates play on opening day!

by thegunner on Jan 31, 2008 7:02 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

30 teams X 3 prospects each

equals 90. So the Pirates have about what they should have on a list of 100, especially considering how atrocious their drafting has been/system is.

by bucdaddy on Jan 31, 2008 9:00 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Except

Two of them barely made the list.

More importantly, if you look at anybody's top 100 list from year to year there are typically many changes, far more than can be accounted for by graduations to the majors. The Pirates' problem isn't that they don't have a few good prospects (although the group at the top of their list is below average). It's that once you get past the first five guys, there's nothing beyond a bunch of grade C relievers and a few marginal position players who'll have trouble getting past AAA. The impact talent in the system is poor and the depth is non-existent.

by WTM on Jan 31, 2008 9:42 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, I know.

All that's true. I was just sayin' mathematically there must be some teams with even fewer players on the list.

by bucdaddy on Jan 31, 2008 11:29 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Top 100 = bad way to evaluate a system

It's OK for judging players relative to other prospects, and it might not even be good for that, but it's flawed as a system evaluation tool. Saying 3 in the top 100 is mathematically average doesn't even mean we've got average top prospects. Average would mean we have the 15th best prospect of the top 30, the 45th best prospect (15th best of the 2nd 30), and 75th best (15th best of the 3rd 30).

It does not account for depth. What is the gap between #100 and the next best Pirates prospect? We may have zero prospects in the 101-200 range.

by azibuck on Feb 1, 2008 11:05 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Fixed

We may have zero prospects in the 101-2000 range.

by WTM on Feb 1, 2008 11:29 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

puts some better perspective on the santana trade

Gomez and Guerra are top 100 quantities (gomez at 35 in the espn chart). Which dropped the mets to 1 prospect and boosted the twins from 1 to three top 100s.

But mainstream media still has zero way of expressing whether prospects are good or not other than quoting "baseball" executives to say what their "feelings" are.

by vherub on Feb 1, 2008 10:41 AM EST reply actions 0 recs