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Top 100 prospect compilation and analysis will be posted tomorrow!

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jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Greetings, FCB nation. Tomorrow is the big day where I'll post the project I've been working on. Since reputable prospect lists have been rolling out, I took it upon myself to keep track of them via a Google Sheet. The goal was to take note of how the industry as a whole viewed players for top 100 consideration. More than that I wanted to gauge how many lists these players appeared on, and their average rankings. More so, I wanted to gauge the industry spread for each player by taking their worst ranking and subtracting it from their best to determine how many spots the industry differed on a player's status. Then, I came up with my own top 100 list and compared my analysis against the industry's. Authors note: I take every single detail into consideration when ranking a player: production, ceiling, position, instincts as well as my own personal views if I've seen that player in person before. I also included honorable mentions of players that were worthy of top 100 consideration, coupled with a special "Ones to Watch" section on players to look out for by the time 2020 lists roll out. This project was time consuming and I split more hairs than I have on my head. Hopefully this information will help fellow prospect gurus out in gauging a greater knowledge base! Stay tuned!
 
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jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Intro

The baseball off-season is a long and torturous process for any fan, especially those of us who love our prospects. The Arizona Fall League softens the blow when it begins in early October, but it's gone before you know it. Otherwise, it means seven solid months without affiliated minor league baseball. In order to help stave off madness, the baseball collective awaits the newest top prospect rankings in order to get a glimpse of how their team fares in the short and long term. Since Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Mike Trout took the baseball world by storm in the early 2010's, teams are not letting go of prospects like they used to. Young talent is coveted now more than ever before. The days of players like Randy Winn getting a multi-year deal at the end of their careers are certifiably over. Teams stockpile prospects with the hopes of developing the next GOAT (Google this if you're not up with the times!), or simply develop viable replacements at a fraction of the cost. Every team is catching on and the revolution has begun!

Explanation of Industry Master Rankings

Out of five mainstream top prospect rankings (Baseball America, MLB Pipeline. Baseball Prospectus, our very own [MENTION=1770]Jaypers[/MENTION], and Keith Law), 149 players were considered across the industry as a top 100 prospect. I listed the players in Alpha order. Fangraphs hasn't published their list and when they do, I will update the spreadsheet accordingly. For each of the five publications, I provided the numerical rankings for every player that landed on their respective top 100 lists. Players that weren't ranked are marked "N/R" = not ranked. The next category "% of lists" simply provides a percentage of lists a given player landed on. "Average rank" is just that. For a given player, all of his rankings are added and divided against the number of lists a player landed on. "Industry Spread" is simply a player's worst ranking minus their best in order to explain how many slots the industry differed on a player's top 100 status. Players highlighted in blue, indicate they've made the cut for my top 100 list.

What is my top 100 list all about?

Once these rankings and calculations were performed, it was time for my own flavor. Put simply, I took everything under the sun into consideration in order to compile my top 100 list: ceiling, current production, park factors, developmental hurdles, past injuries, likelihood of helping the big club in short order, likelihood of switching positions over the long term, and lastly, if I've seen the player live in-person my own observations were taken into account. Separate tabs have been created to show a breakdown of my top 100 by position and team.

But wait...there's more!

Lastly, I've provided honorable mentions of players that were close, but no cigar along with subsequent explanations. Included thereafter is a "Ones to Watch" section of players that should make it to top 100 lists near you!

Spreadsheet Link

At last, our featured presentation!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rd9GcsJEjWO6pUrtNYuH7fMoKljiNm7e1SBsU4JFN4M/edit#gid=0

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
 
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AnthonyCorona

Well-known member
Oct 6, 2014
9,600
68
Modesto, CA
Very cool and I appreciate the effort and time it took. Interesting to seeing the rankings next to each other, really gives you the idea of how differently rankers view these guys.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Very cool and I appreciate the effort and time it took. Interesting to seeing the rankings next to each other, really gives you the idea of how differently rankers view these guys.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks man! Absolutely. It became evident that once you got past the top 25, opinions varied greatly across the industry, especially the bottom quarter. It was a time consuming project, but well worth the research. I'm really excited for the next wave of talent. There's so many ceiling-laden prospects on the horizon.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Freedom Card Board mobile app
 

WCTYSON

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2014
7,364
171
[MENTION=2601]jbone17[/MENTION] ........... Nicely done good sir, great resource. I don't care what Tony Corona says about you, I like you.
 

tpeichel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2008
15,639
119
Great stuff! I did something similar to prep for my fantasy minor league draft, but I'll definitely be incorporating some of this data. I struggled with how to handle an average ranking because so many players only appear in one or two lists. I finally decided to give unranked players a score of 110. I only need a list of the top 20 since we only draft two rounds,so that seemed to give me a decent ranked list. As you said though, once you get down to the bottom, opinions really vary.
 

jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Great stuff! I did something similar to prep for my fantasy minor league draft, but I'll definitely be incorporating some of this data. I struggled with how to handle an average ranking because so many players only appear in one or two lists. I finally decided to give unranked players a score of 110. I only need a list of the top 20 since we only draft two rounds,so that seemed to give me a decent ranked list. As you said though, once you get down to the bottom, opinions really vary.

That was definitely the most difficult part, considering not all of these players appear on every list. My way around that was to only add the rankings above N/R and divide that by the number of lists a player placed on. I gave it weight by considering the percentage of lists a player appeared on. That gave me a better indication of how the industry felt about a player, but I also took every factor imaginable into consideration. It's possible a given publication skews heavily toward ceiling, one sabermetrics, scout's word, etc.

Opinions really varied toward the end, given how the industry acquires it's information. That's the beauty of baseball. A player's worth can be debated among evaluators until the end of time. You only have 100 spots to boot, so there will be times when a given publication overthinks or they want to incorporate their own flavor in order to go against the grain. Take Keith Law for instance. Everyone and their brother picked Vlad Jr. at #1, but he took Tatis instead lol
 

mattglet

New member
Aug 14, 2017
27
2
NH
Another "One to Watch" to come back to the top 100: Riley Pint. This year will be his make or break year, but if he can find control and stay healthy he's got 3 +/++ pitches to make the Verlander comps legit.

Huge disclaimer: I have the biggest Pint collection that exists.
 

jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Another "One to Watch" to come back to the top 100: Riley Pint. This year will be his make or break year, but if he can find control and stay healthy he's got 3 +/++ pitches to make the Verlander comps legit.

Huge disclaimer: I have the biggest Pint collection that exists.

No question about it. Pint has an arm that's a product of God. The man throws smoke better than anyone you'll ever see. When the Rockies took Pint, it was a major oversight. Yes, he performed well in Area Code tournaments and his fastball alone was certainly good enough to mow down the competition in small town Kansas, but when you have subpar secondary pitches and control issues; it's a problem. Also, it's mostly mental with Pint. The guy gets down on himself way too often and simply forgets he's playing baseball. I too am hoping for a reclamation at this point, but we're already going on year three and he's yet to skirt past Low-A hitters. If he becomes a reliever at this point and reaches the majors for one hour, it will be a win for the Rockies. They need to salvage this kid.
 

adalah

New member
Feb 6, 2019
6
0
great resource,i like it
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jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Fangraphs has posted their top 100 list and I've amended the spreadsheet with new rankings.

I'm still in the process of recalculating averages, so ignore that for now!
 

jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Thanks for the exposure man! I appreciate it.

It's still incomplete with the new averages, but it has been a fun project to say the least! I'm debating on doing a full write up explaining the industry's thinking behind the rankings. That will take some time, but it might be worth it!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Freedom Card Board mobile app
 

jbone17

Active member
Sep 26, 2008
6,756
42
The Riverlands.
Average rankings and industry spread have been updated!

I've also created an "Industry Metrics" tab which breaks down all 156 players for consideration based on team and percentages.

Furthermore, I've created a mock top 100 list. This scenario attempts to predict the outcome if all 6 publications sat down together and came up with a top 100 list based on average rank. As a rule, the player must have appeared on at least 50% of the lists as well. It was pretty eye-opening to say the least!

Enjoy! Here's the link again if you need it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rd9GcsJEjWO6pUrtNYuH7fMoKljiNm7e1SBsU4JFN4M/edit#gid=0
 

onionring9

Active member
Administrator
Aug 7, 2008
3,490
12
Average rankings and industry spread have been updated!

I've also created an "Industry Metrics" tab which breaks down all 156 players for consideration based on team and percentages.

Furthermore, I've created a mock top 100 list. This scenario attempts to predict the outcome if all 6 publications sat down together and came up with a top 100 list based on average rank. As a rule, the player must have appeared on at least 50% of the lists as well. It was pretty eye-opening to say the least!

Enjoy! Here's the link again if you need it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rd9GcsJEjWO6pUrtNYuH7fMoKljiNm7e1SBsU4JFN4M/edit#gid=0

Are you doing this again? This was a fun list to watch over the course of the season!
 
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