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Comparing the MLB Top-100 Prospects Lists

By Bobby Mueller

Aug 22, 2016; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Boston Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi (40) on deck to bat against the Tampa Bay Rays during the fourth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Aug 22, 2016; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Boston Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi (40) on deck to bat against the Tampa Bay Rays during the fourth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /
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How do the many different MLB top 100 prospects lists compare to each other?

It’s prospect season! Over the last month, six different top 100 MLB prospects lists have come out, so now is a good time to compare the lists. Actually, some of these lists have more than 100 players, but for this analysis, I’ve only included the top 100 players on each. The six top prospects lists included are:

Baseball America

Baseball Prospectus

Call to the Pen

John Sickels

Keith Law (Insider subscription required)

MLB.com

First, some big picture data:

  • 156 players were on at least one Top 100 list
  • 57 players were on all six lists
  • 76 players were on five of the six lists
  • 34 players only appeared on one Top 100 list
    • 5 on Baseball America
    • 7 on Baseball Prospectus
    • 8 on Call to the Pen
    • 4 on John Sickels
    • 8 on Keith Law
    • 2 on MLB.com

With 76 players appearing on five of the six lists, it’s clear that there is plenty of agreement on who the top 100 prospects in baseball are, but there is also room for disagreement. Both Call to the Pen and Keith Law had eight players who only appeared on their top 100, while MLB.com had just two such players. As you’d expect, these “one list only” players are generally near the bottom of the prospect list they appear on, with many of them ranked in the 80s or 90s. Not all of them are ranked in the 80s and 90s, though. There were five players who were ranked in the top 60 on one list and did not appear on any other lists. These players were:

  • RHP Sandy Alcantara, RHP, St. Louis Cardinals—Baseball Prospectus #40 prospect, not on any other top 100 list. Alcantara was signed by the Cardinals out of the Dominican Republic as a 17-year-old in July, 2013. In three minor league seasons, he has a 3.77 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, and has struck out 259 batters in 243 2/3 innings. He throws 100 mph and spent most of last season in A ball.
  • Fernando Tatis, Jr., 3B, San Diego Padres—Keith Law #47 prospect, not on any other top 100 list. Tatis, Jr. is the son of the former major league player with the same name who famously hit two grand slams in one inning. The younger Tatis was signed by the White Sox as a 16-year-old in July, 2015. Last summer, he was traded by the White Sox to the Padres in the deal that brought the James Shield Horror Show to Chicago. Tatis played Rookie Ball and Low-A last year as a 17-year-old and hit a combined .273/.311/.432. This is an aggressive ranking for a player this young.
  • Hunter Dozier, OF, Kansas City Royals—Call to the Pen #53 prospect, not on any other top 100 list. Dozier was a first round pick (8th overall) in the 2013 amateur draft. In four minor league seasons, he’s hit .262/.344/.431. He was ranked #96 by Baseball Prospectus before the 2014 season and #95 before the 2015 season, but has since fallen off their top 100. He got into eight major league games last year.
  • Jhailyn Ortiz, OF, Philadelphia Phillies—Call to the Pen #56 prospect, not on any other top 100 list. Ortiz is similar to Tatis, Jr. in that he’s very young and projectable but far away from the big leagues. He just played his age 17 season with the Phillies Gulf Coast League team and hit .231/.325/.434 with eight homers and eight steals in 47 games.
  • Juan Soto, OF, Washington Nationals—Baseball Prospectus #57 prospect, not on any other top 100 list. Once again, we have a very young player (17 years old in 2016) who is years away from the big leauges. Soto was very productive in a combined 51 games in the Gulf Coast League and the New York—Penn League. He hit .368/.420/.553 in 207 plate appearances.

Those are the outliers—players who rank fairly high (top 60) on one list but do not appear on any other. Four of the five are very young, making them more difficult to project going forward. It’s just very hard to know what a 17-year-old baseball player will be three or four years down the road. It will be interesting to see how another year of playing time will affect the rankings of the four young players listed above.

What about the top dogs, the blue-chippers, the cream of the crop? What kind of differences do we see among the prospect lists for the highest-ranking players? Let’s take a look at the top 20. I took the average ranking for each player among all sources and ranked the entire list.

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