Reflecting on Top 100 Lists, Part 1
By Aaron Somers
Obviously, I try to know my stuff as well as possible when I present it to you, my readers. But there’s no question that I can always improve, as can really anyone. Baseball is a funny, unpredictable game, especially when it comes to career paths, and even the greatest of experts will misfire on many occasions.
I started writing about baseball right before Opening Day of the 2008 season, and while I already knew a lot back then, I was wildly underqualified to try to do a top 100 prospect list. In retrospect, my first attempt was so bad that I don’t even want to discuss it. My second was a marked improvement (namely, I didn’t list a dozen prospects from my favorite team), but I still slapped it together too quickly and wasn’t working from a solid enough perspective to do more than occasionally luck into a good prediction.
I’m always reflecting on my past viewpoints and how they’ve evolved, so I thought I’d lay out some thoughts about the (slightly) better prospect lists I’ve done here at FanSided, first the post-2010/pre-2011 list at Call to the Pen, and then the list I made earlier this offseason. Here in Part 1, I’ll look at some of the aspects from the pre-2011 list; that’ll continue in Part 2, and then Parts 3 and 4 will look at my most recent list.
The biggest problem the list has from a holistic viewpoint is that I was way too crazy with short-season prospects. Dylan Unsworth, Juan Castillo, Brandol Perez, Ronald Torreyes, Ji-Man Choi, Jonathan Garcia, and Felix Sterling all found themselves on the list, and all but Torreyes took significant steps backward in 2011. Yorman Rodriguez and Oswaldo Arcia were defensible top-100 choices, but I had them in the top 25, which was too crazy as well. I’ve learned from this mistake–the Appalachian League’s best hitter in 2011, Eddie Rosario, found himself just off the top 100 cut. If anything, I’ve overcorrected too hard the other way after getting burned with the pre-’11 approach, but I’ll be evaluating that this season.
Even with that, it’s an unconventional list. I included a lot of guys who weren’t considered big prospects, like Chun-Hsiu Chen, Deryk Hooker, Joel Carreno, Austin Hyatt, Joe Wieland, and Brandon Beachy. I also dropped several guys well below where others had them.
Here in Part 1, I want to focus on the players that I ranked well higher than most. The back-of-the-list short-season types I mentioned above are excluded here, just because I didn’t want to repeat myself eight times and make a 1600-word post even longer.
Jordan Lyles, #3
If I had done this research before making the 2011 list, I probably wouldn’t have gone so nuts about Lyles. But extreme values are often the toughest to evaluate, and the fact that Lyles was a 19-year-old who had already pitched decently in Triple-A clouded my judgment. I still really like him, perhaps more than most, because he had a 4.13 major league xFIP and SIERA at age 20, and he already has a nice, broad arsenal. Still, though, this was a dumb ranking.
Martin Perez, #5, and Manny Banuelos, #6
I group these together because I think of these two guys together–small lefties who have always been super-young for their level. They ranked 25th and 26th on this year’s list, a drop of 20 spots–some of that can be attributed to poor 2011 seasons, while some is due to me putting this sort of extreme age/level in better context.
Jason Knapp, #11
I’ve always believed very, very strongly in Knapp’s three-pitch mix, and his strikeout numbers have always been off the charts. But he missed all of 2011 with shoulder problems after missing most of 2010 with shoulder problems, so he’s probably a reliever at this point if and when he does get back in good health. I’ll always wonder what could have been, but this reach clearly didn’t work out.
Gary Sanchez, #18
Well, I ranked Sanchez 17th this year, so clearly I’m still high on him. The common perception hasn’t quite caught up, though I’ve seen him in the 30s on other lists. I got a bit overanxious with him after his short-season performance in 2010 (no surprise, given the tendencies I stated above), but he made me look smart (or, at least, not insane) by posting a .229 ISO in Low-A at age 18. However, his defense seems to be worse than initially expected, and could push him away from catcher; if he can’t tighten that up soon, his stock will fall.
Yorman Rodriguez, #23, and Oswaldo Arcia, #25
I still like Rodriguez, as I put him 79th this year; Arcia would be in the early-to-mid-100s. I bought too hard into the league-inflated stats here, and both players showed significant holes in their game upon their full-season debut. Obviously, I should’ve been more cautious and forced them to prove they were worthy of such elite status.
Jaff Decker, #30
It’s hard to say whether this counts as a legitimate mistake on my part. Decker was mostly dinged for his lack of athleticism, but he slimmed down in 2011 and played solid defense in the corner outfield. However, the hitting ability that I and many others were so high on just wasn’t quite as tremendous as we thought. I feel I judged him at least reasonably well, but that he regressed in a way I couldn’t have expected myself to see coming.
Brandon Beachy, #34
Now this one worked out. Beachy took the NL by storm in 2011; one a per-inning basis, he was one of baseball’s most effective starters. Given his incredible numbers in the minors and his excellent four-pitch arsenal, I saw a future #2 starter, and Beachy looks like he might even exceed this ranking, aggressive as it was at the time.
Fabio Martinez Mesa, #36
Like Knapp, Martinez Mesa missed all of 2011 with shoulder trouble, so this didn’t work out, but there’s really no way of knowing if I would’ve been proven right or wrong.
Jake Odorizzi, #37
He moved up five spots on this year’s list following a dominant run in High-A and a few speedbumps in Double-A. His stock went up in the eyes of most, so this turned out pretty well thus far.
Robbie Erlin, #39
Another success story, as few minor league pitchers had more impressive 2011 seasons. He’s still ranked all over the place, but I’ll talk about him more in Part 3.
Adrian Salcedo, #40
I bit too hard on the short-season numbers here, and when he made it to full-season, Salcedo looked much more like a strike-throwing fourth starter than the potential dynamo I thought he was. Whoops.
Chun-Hsiu Chen, #43
A bad call, partially because the offensive ability I loved degraded while the defensive issues others lamented stayed around.
Matt Lollis, #44
Just read this. Although, admittedly, I dropped him 30 spots from ’11 to ’12.
Lucas Duda, #49
Given his .292/.370/.482 showing with the Mets, this ranking looks pretty good.
Andrew Brackman, #50
Oy.
Joel Carreno, #53
Here’s an instance where I got so distraught about everybody overlooking a player that I went too far in ignoring the legitimate concerns, which negated the actually solid viewpoint I really had. Carreno had some devastating numbers, but he wasn’t taken seriously as a prospect despite having a plus-plus breaking ball and a decent fastball. He shouldn’t have been this high, but people did overlook him, and he’ll have a pretty solid career, though it may well come in relief.
Jerry Sands, #57
As a 23-year-old rookie, he had .9 WAR in 61 games. The jury’s still out.
Liam Hendriks, #59
I dropped him to #80 this year and could easily have dropped him further, so I’m not thrilled with the results of this one.
Alex Colome, #60
Colome regressed in 2011, perhaps more than I could’ve foreseen, still, this didn’t turn out well.
Robinson Chirinos, #61
I went too nuts with the numbers here, though I do still have hope he’ll be a solid starting catcher.
Johermyn Chavez, #62
Blew up in my face, though it’s always tough to tell what these guys will do coming out of the CAL.
Rashun Dixon, #64
Not all of my reaches were stats-based; this was a tools bet. I’m still waiting for the 21-year-old to break out, though that certainly didn’t happen in 2011 and he’s not on (or close to) my 2012 list.
Joe Wieland, #65
Like Erlin, Wieland turned in a dominant season that made this ranking look very solid.
Alex Cobb, #66
Had a 3.42 ERA and 3.61 FIP as a rookie in nine starts, in addition to dominating Triple-A. Not bad, but not conclusive enough to make this look great.
Deryk Hooker, #72
Completely whiffed on this one, as Hooker struggled in Double-A.
Rich Poythress, #75
I was convinced this guy was going to make the jump from the CAL to the upper minors as well as anyone. Boy, was I wrong.
Austin Hyatt, #76
Kept up his crazy strikeout rates in Double-A, but unveiled a home run problem and extreme flyball tendency that soured me on him somewhat.
J.D. Martinez, #78
He posted a 1.5 WAR in 53 games and became the Astros’ most promising young hitter. I’m very satisfied with this call.
Miguel De Los Santos, #85
Actually upgraded him on this year’s list, though his stock fell. Another guy I’ll talk about more in Part 3.
Paul Goldschmidt, #98
I think everyone actually got a bit too crazy with the whole “Eh, it’s the Cal League” thing. I remember being surprised to see that he didn’t rank higher than I had him on most other lists; I thought I was down on him. Apparently not, but he made everyone look foolish by blasting apart Double-A and hitting well in the majors.
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A mixed bag, overall. Of these 32 players, seven really made my optimism look good, 14 made it look bad, and the other eleven fell somewhere in the middle. Since these are reaches by definition and I see definite places to improve on the past analysis, I’m actually encouraged it holds up even this well–bust rates for prospects are extraordinarily high, after all.
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