After posting the industry Top Rays Prospect lists here (this list will be updated as soon as Marc Hulet looks at the Rays) I’m going to look at the ranking of the top 10 Rays’ prospects on the Top 100 Prospect lists. I aggregate the rankings of the Rays players on 10 Industry Top 100 Prospect Lists. The sources are: Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein), Keith Law (ESPN), John Sickels (MinorLeagueBall.com), Jonathan Mayo (MLB.com), The Hardball Times, Bullpen Banter, Baseball-Intellect (Source: Prospect Spreadsheet by FantasyRundown.com ... excellent source by the way), Project Prospect, Frank Piliere (Scout.com)
Overall 11 different Rays prospects are mentioned on at least one of the 10 lists. Those 11 are the Top 10 according to the aggregated Industry Top Rays Prospect list, plus 2010 1st round pick Josh Sale. On average exactly 4 Rays players are ranked in the Top 100 (the average for an MLB team would be 3.33). Keith Law and Jonathan Mayo (MLB) have 6 Rays on their list while Baseball Prospectus only has 2.
Unsurprisingly, Matt Moore is the highest ranked player on every list. He is ranked by all of them and he nowhere is ranked lower than 3rd overall. Fellow top prospects Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and himself top every one of those lists.
The only other player ranked on every Top 100 list is Hak-Yu Lee. He was unanoumously voted as the 2nd best Rays prospect on the Rays Top Prospect Rankings. On the aggregated Top 100 lists, however, Baseball Intellect (not consistent to their top 10 which has Lee 2nd and Guerrieri 3rd) and ProjectProspect have Taylor Guerrieri ranked higher than him. Overall, Lee is ranked much higher than Guerrieri, though. With three rankings in the top 20 (!!) and no ranking lower than 70 he is one of the top SS prospects in baseball.
Like on the Rays Top Prospect lists, Taylor Guerrieri is clearly ahead of the Torres/Mahtook/Colome/Archer/Romero pack. He is ranked 7 times (and additionally he is 107th on John Sickels’ Top 120 Prospect list).
The talent evaluators don’t like Alex Torres much and Alex Colome at all for their overall top prospect lists. While being ranked as the 4th best Rays prospect according to the Rays prospect lists, only Frank Pilliere has him on his Top 100 list. Alex Colome (6th best prospect according to the Rays prospect rankings) is not mentioned at all.
(Click at the table for a larger view)
Some further impressions:
- John Sickels ranks Mikie Mahtook as the 3rd best Rays prospect on his Top 120 list while he has him 6th on his Rays Top 25 Prospect list (reversely he has Colome 4th in the Top 25 and 6th best Ray on the Top 120 list). When publishing the latter, he acknowledged that grades and rankings could change with time. In this case, Alex Colome, Taylor Guerrieri, Mikie Mahtook and Alex Torres all have a B grade in his book and thus might be pretty much interchangeable.
- Keith Law weighs a players’ upside much more than for example John Sickels does. That’s a philosophical discussion which is similar to the discussion about whether you like WAR (wins above replacement) more than WAA (wins above average … I think I just invented this one). Would you rather have two players with 3 WAR (which e.g. is 0 WAA each) or a player with 6 WAR (= 3 WAA) plus a player with 0 WAR (= -3 WAA). I know what I’d prefer.
- Baseball Intellect and ProjectProspect always bring a fresh approach to prospect evaluation. They often differ to the opinions of others. E.g.: Both have Taylor Guerrieri ahead of Hak-Yu Lee.
I know what you mean about Sickels. Prior to the '11 draft he had Guerreri above Daniel Norris and now Norris is a B+ and Guerreri is a B. Of course neither has thrown a pro pitch yet. I asked him about this and he had no new info and said that they were vere close or perhaps interchangeable as BurGi says.
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