David Luciani

Top Prospects Pre-2009: The Hitters
March 5, 2009

Likely no work I've ever done in baseball writing has been more contentious than my top prospect lists.  I never intended to stir things up nor to be a contrarian but that's the way my lists have often been viewed.  In fact, it got to a point in 2006 or 2007 where I found the process to be unrewarding in some respects.  An incredible amount of work and research has always gone into producing the lists and yet the publication of them always seemed to lead to unnecessary questions that were answered in the piece itself.  For example, if I left someone's favorite prospect off, people would write to tell me that I must not be aware of his great stuff or that he was drafted in the first round or that he rates as a five tool player.  Just as frequently, a player wouldn't have the required amount of minor league playing time for me to make a proper assessment, criteria that is always explained here clearly, and yet people would write to say that I forgot about someone.

If anything, the most frustrating aspect of publishing my version of a top prospect list is that its intent has never really been the same as other justifiably popular ones like the one Baseball America produces every year.  That is, I'm not intending to say "here's a list of every player who still qualifies as a rookie ranked in the exact order of how good a career I think they'll have" - If I were to do that, then it would be a mystery to me why I would include players in the Southern League but not players in college or high school.  So, once a publication even draws the line at being a professional versus a non-professional, well then, a line has indeed been drawn at some level and the scope of potential players who appear has been reduced, rightfully so.

So, my list narrows things even more.  That's because it is based on statistical analysis and a rough forecast of the future.  Contrary to what some readers think, I don't ignore so-called tools in forecasting the future.  However, my rating of a player's tools still usually comes down to statistical analysis.  I can't remember if it was Bill James who pointed out that a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter may very well look like the same player to a scout who watches them for an entire week or even a month but it's true.  Statistics reveal tools and they are never ignored.  For example, the percentage of time a player homers per ball in play can reveal his power potential even if he's not making good contact yet.  A pitcher's rate of strikeouts per batter that he doesn't walk can reveal potential even if he's walking more than he's striking out.  Maybe that pitcher only needs to gain control to graduate to the next level.  Moreover, if a player's so-called tools don't translate to statistical success (that is statistical success when you examine the game from a different angle than more obvious surface stats might not initially reveal), then we have to wonder whether those highly-rated tools really do offer the potential so many expect of the player.

I essentially stopped producing an official top prospect list after our post-2006 list was published.  That list has already had some prospects move to the majors and has held up decently, including our having listed Jay Bruce at #1 that year.  One problem I always had was trying to balance where to rank the hitters against the pitchers and unlike most prospect lists out there, I've decided to stop doing that and return to what I was doing in our list back in 2003 (by the way, that list had a lengthy explanation at the top about how our prospect lists are created - an introduction I felt needed to be added because the 2003 list was appearing in a book that year as well).  That is, I'm going to separate hitters and pitchers.  This may not satisfy those who want to answer whether my top pitcher would have been ranked ahead of my top hitter or vice versa but unlike what some think, appearing on a top prospect list is not a competition and the highest-rated pitcher may very well be just as important as the highest-rated hitter.  They are two completely different aspects of the game and I'm not going to get sidetracked with trying to merge what has always been essentially two separate lists of hitters and pitchers.

Keeping the lists shorter affords me the ability to do something I've never done and this is an exciting announcement that we hope and believe will significantly improve our site.  While I plan to reduce the number of prospects we focus on in these pages (going from our old-style top 100 to a top 25 hitters / top 25 pitchers approach with a large number of notable others mentioned), there's good reason I'm doing this.  For the first time ever, we are about to create dynamic prospect lists.  That is, we're going to publish these two lists for hitters and pitchers and then, beginning with the publication of our first minor league translations in the first week of May, we're going to begin producing a truly dynamic top 25 hitters and top 25 pitchers list that actually moves as the minor league performances move.  This means that readers will never have to wait during the off-season for a top prospect list because the list at the beginning of September will likely mirror the list the following April, barring unusual events such as a player's true age being discovered contrary to a previous report, a career-threatening injury and so on.  This will also allow us to introduce new players to the lists during the season in progress as they newly qualify as per our required criteria.  With the reduction to a top fifty, one thing I am doing in this initial edition is that I also will highlight a number of other players also worthy of attention, this to satisfy readers who can't get enough names from the top part of the list because they want to add a catching prospect to their fantasy farm system and their favorite is already taken, for example. This way, there are more than enough names to choose from if the top twenty-five hitters and pitchers don't completely satisfy readers' needs.  When we get beyond the top 25, it's not a sorted list.  These are the rest of the best, the second tier of players who were candidates but who just didn't make the top twenty-five yet, even though they all may have good careers.

So, let's get to the criteria to even qualify, today being all about the hitters - the second part of this series will continue next Wednesday with the pitchers and will also explain the pitching criteria.  We've now expanded our range somewhat compared to old years.  We're now requiring that a hitter have 100 "translated" at bats in the past year at a full-season Single-A league or higher.  The reason we require full-season leagues is that we haven't historically produced translations to include short-season leagues like the New York-Penn League and we need those to build the analysis.  By the way, translated at bats do roughly equate to real at bats but they're not precisely the same.  For example, Jay Bruce had 184 at bats at Triple-A Louisville which translated to 185 neutral big league at bats.  Of course, as we started doing a few years ago, a player must be a rookie to be considered meaning he has to have <=130 at bats in the majors in his career (e.g. San Francisco's Pablo Sandoval doesn't qualify).  It's important to understand the criteria so that you know that we haven't ignored a prospect like Pittsburgh's Pedro Alvarez, who didn't even sign until after the 2008 season was done or San Francisco catching prospect Buster Posey, who didn't have the required number of at bats at the necessary level.  In old years, we often heard from readers to tell us we missed someone and many times, it was because the player didn't qualify for the list.

In 2005, we also dropped the age requirements we used to set, this in the year that we wanted to include then twenty-eight year old Marcus Thames at #57 on that year's list.  The age requirement is still dropped, though it's quite hard for an older player to make it on to our lists because no matter what he does, his career is severely shortened by not having broken through earlier so he has to be that much better in his remaining years to offset the projected performance of potentially inferior players who could still have longer careers.  There is one such exceptional player on this year's list and even though he's a relative unknown, his skills lit up our system even more than some other big name prospects.

Please take the list in the spirit it's intended.  My hope is that the list is fun and gets you thinking about a few players you might not have otherwise.  As I say, these lists will be dynamic and we'll begin revisiting the rankings in early May and it will then move throughout the season until the first week of September.

Finally, on the issue of players who may be ranked lower than you might expect or not even mentioned...  I often hear from readers who tell me "this guy is a unanimous top prospect" and then go on to tell me all sorts of things I've already heard such as a scout rated him an 80 player or that many other publications have him as a #1.  While, as I said I never intend to be a contrarian, I am producing these lists with original thought and analysis.  What someone else says about a player is not the deciding factor in where someone gets ranked and I am greatly humbled by the prospect-ranking exercise as it is challenging.  Certainly, if most publications have a player as a #1, it's going to get my attention, enough so that the player in question is likely to get an even closer look and potentially even a deeper analysis than I might normally give.  However, as I've said in previous years, people who decide a player should be a top prospect are often using other opinions to form their own.  That is, they're looking at where the player was drafted or how much his signing bonus was (i.e. how much his real team thinks of him), where he is ranked on another prospect list (i.e. what Baseball America's staff thinks of him), what awards he's already won (i.e. what the writers/voters think of him) and so on... It is the rarest case indeed where a reader not only tells me that he has seen a player play but has seen him play extensively and even at that, the question then is this: How often has he seen all these others play?  Should the statistics that capture every official at bat be trumped by frequent but still more limited observation?  Has he ranked the players year after year and revisited to see how many of his previous top prospects panned out and which ones didn't?  Has he revisited his methods to account for these errors (we all have errors) to attempt future correction?  In general, the answer is no to at least one of these questions and, if it isn't, then I can say this - The reader who really is better qualified to rank players, and certainly I know there must be readers like that, really don't need a prospect list such as mine.  If they absolutely know that a player deserves to be ranked higher than my methods might rank him, then obviously they must put him up there as such and disregard my opinion.  After all, opinion is all this piece is, even if it's rooted in statistics.

So, let's get to the fun part.  In the first section, I'll give you the top twenty-five hitting prospects with some brief discussion about each.  Then, we'll mention some notable others you need to know about who didn't make the top twenty-five but who you absolutely must consider in your prospect-hunting!  On Wednesday next week, we'll continue with the pitchers.

Top Twenty-Five Hitting Prospects

1. Matt Wieters, c, Baltimore: The first round pick of the Orioles in 2007, Wieters is ready for the majors right now and projects to have a long and productive career, not only hitting for immediate power but for average as well.  Wieters will be at or near the top of everyone's prospect list heading into 2009 and rightfully so.  Not only does he project to have a huge career but unlike many others, little or no learning curve is going to be required, meaning he'll likely help from the moment he arrives in the majors.

2. Mat Gamel, 3b, Milwaukee: A player most readers will be surprised to see appear here (he's not even on some other top prospect lists), he's only played 21 games above Double-A ball but he is moving up the ladder now with two straight .300+ seasons in the minors, including a 19 HR / 96 RBI effort at Double-A Huntsville last year.  He went into spring training with a shoulder injury that was likely to keep him out of action for most or all of March.  With Ryan Braun now in the outfield, there's a potential opening for Gamels in the majors soon.  Our long-term projection model projects big things for him.

3. Darin Holcomb, 3b, Colorado: A lot further from the majors than the two who are ranked above him, Holcomb hit .318 with 14 home runs, 46 doubles and 102 RBI in 137 games at Single-A Asheville last year.  Like Gamel, he's likely a bit of a surprise on this list.  He could hold his own in the majors right now but is unlikely to get that chance soon.

4. Jonathan Lucroy, c, Milwaukee: That the Brewers have so many prospects that we're ranking here speaks to how well they've built their farm system and like Gamel, there could be an opening soon in the majors for Lucroy, this as the Brewers go with Jason Kendall for another season, at least for now.  Lucroy hasn't played above Single-A ball so will likely need a lot more time to develop but he projects very well.  Combined last year between two Single-A teams, he hit .301 with 20 home runs and 77 RBI and he projects as a good future power-hitting catcher in the majors.

5. Jason Heyward, of, Atlanta: The Braves' first round pick from 2007, Heyward hit .323 with 11 home runs, 15 steals and 52 RBI in 449 at bats for Single-A Rome last year, an excellent performance for a player who won't even turn twenty until late this summer.

6. Evan Frey, of, Arizona: He should move up quickly and while he doesn't project to hit for power, he forecasts out as a real threat in the batting average department, having hit .313 in 784 professional at bats so far with 50 stolen bases over that span as well.

7. Ben Revere, of, Minnesota: Taken late in the first round of the 2007 draft, his minor league career to date has been outstanding, now with 531 professional at bats, a .360 average and 65 stolen bases with 20 triples.  He's a long way from the majors still.

8. Yamaico Navarro, ss, Boston: He's improving quickly now and it showed once he got promoted to high Single-A, where he hit .348 in 181 at bats for high Single-A Lancaster.

9. J.P. Arencibia, c, Toronto: Toronto's first round pick in the 2007 draft, the Blue Jays need him to be ready by 2010 or 2011 at the latest and he should be.  In fact, the Blue Jays had him already playing at Double-A last year, where he held his own to the tune of a .282 average, 14 home runs and 43 RBI in just 67 games.

10. Cale Iorg, ss, Detroit: Originally, there had been talk that he would be moved to the majors as soon as this year but once the Tigers added Adam Everett, it bought more time for Iorg to gain minor league experience.  That's probably best because he still hasn't played above Single-A ball, but he projects nicely for the future with a good power/speed combination, especially for this position.

11. Renny Osuna, 2b, Texas: A late pick by the Rangers way back in 2005 (32nd round), he's a bit older than you might want to see for a player who hasn't played above Single-A but we think that's because he hasn't been adequately challenged and could easily hit at a higher level and move up rapidly.  He hit .360 in 267 at bats at Single-A Clinton in 2008 and looked good at higher Single-A Bakersfield as well, where he batted .317 in 259 at bats.  He projects to one day hit for a big average in the majors.

12. Sean Doolittle, 1b, Oakland: Oakland's first rounder in 2007, he moved up to Double-A in July, where he wasn't as dominant a hitter as he had been in the Single-A portion of his season.  He likely needs more time but projects as a good long-term power hitter in the majors.

13. Ian Gac, 1b, Texas: Some are critical of Gac because he strikes out so much but unlike other prospects who have the same problem, his other skills seem to more than compensate for it as he projects to hit for a decent average and excellent power.

14. Mike Moustakas, ss, Kansas City: Kansas City's first round pick in 2007, he hit .272 with 22 home runs and 71 RBI in 126 games for Single-A Burlington last year.  Though he played more at shortstop than third base in 2008, his shortstop days are likely behind him as he heads into 2009 looking like a future third baseman.

15. Matt LaPorta, of, Cleveland: Traded to the Indians in the CC Sabathia deal, his late-season struggles likely moved him down a few lists but you shouldn't forget about him.  He still projects as a future power hitter who just needs more experience.

16. Brandon Hicks, ss, Atlanta: Still a long way from the majors, he forecasts out as the kind of guy who could one day be a very good power hitter with some occasional speed thrown in as a bonus.

17. Bill Rhinehart, 1b, Washington: He's an example of where the more obvious statistics don't tell the whole story as he hit only .233 in his first taste of Double-A last year.  Consideration beyond the Double-A portion of his career reveals a hitter who should hit for a higher average in the long run with good doubles ability and some power. 

18. Peter Kozma, ss, St. Louis: St. Louis' first round pick in 2007, Kozma projects as the type of player whom fantasy leaguers may not get excited about but who projects to have a very long and productive career as an excellent defensive player, the kind who stays in the lineup for many years for his glove alone, regardless of what he ends up doing offensively.  We can't leave him off this list even though his single-best season may be less exciting than others.  If he plays as much in the majors as we expect, his final career totals will be quite good.

19. David Cook, of, Chicago White Sox: What we said in the introductory comments about older players being eligible to make it on to these lists applies here as Cook is that rarest of player for whom we're going to make an exception, this as he'll already turn twenty-eight in July.  He hasn't even made a big league debut yet but we're ranking him because his translations from last year offer an extremely interesting player, one who should right now be capable of holding his own in the majors average-wise with big-time power and 10+ stolen base ability thrown in, this if he would get a chance to play.  He's moved up the minor league ladder slowly and only got his first taste of Triple-A in 2008.  We want him included on this list as you need to know about him if he ever gets the call.

20. Daniel Lyons, ss, Washington: His speed hasn't really been revealed by his minor league stolen base totals but more importantly, he's so good at taking a walk that one day, he'll likely be a big run-producer in the majors, no matter how his average or stolen base skill develops.  He's a little older than you might want to see from a player who hasn't yet played at Double-A (twenty-four) but he should move through the system quickly at this stage and we expect within a few years, he'll be a valuable major league player.

21. Todd Frazier, ss, Cincinnati: It's not clear whether his eventual position will be shortstop by the time he hits the majors but no matter where he ends up, he projects to be a good power hitter whose average won't hurt either.  He has yet to even play at the highest Single-A level but his translations are quite good and they project nicely along our age model.

22. Matt Dominguez, 3b, Florida: Injuries sidetracked him late last year but he's extremely young still (nineteen) and hit quite well at Single-A Greensboro, where he batted .296 with 18 home runs and 70 RBI in just 88 games.

23. Marquez Smith, 3b, Chicago Cubs: He has nice power potential and he played at both third base and second base last year.

24. Michael Stanton, of, Florida: Now only eighteen years old, he hit .293 with an amazing 39 home runs and 97 RBI in just 125 games at Single-A Greensboro last year.  He strikes out a lot but unlike others who might miss the cut for that reason, his power is so good that he should more than make up for it as he rises through the ranks.  He's young enough that we expect his contact rate to improve significantly by the time he's in his prime.

25. Michael Burgess, of, Washington: Like Stanton above, he should be able to improve on his contact rate because he's so young (twenty) and even with his power, he needs a lot more development time.

Others You Absolutely Need to Know About

Lars Anderson, 1b, Boston
Elvis Andrus, ss, Texas
Luis Bautista, 1b, Chicago Cubs
Kyle Blanks, 1b, San Diego
Michael Brantley, of, Cleveland
Reid Brignac, ss, Tampa Bay
Dominic Brown, of, Philadelphia
Everth Cabrera, 2b, San Diego (Rule 5 selection from Colorado)
Adrian Cardenas, 2b, Philadelphia
Chris Carter, dh, Oakland
Kevin Clark, of, Colorado
Edilio Colina, 2b, Seattle
Sean Coughlin, c, Arizona
Aaron Cunningham, of, Oakland
Jason Donald, ss, Philadelphia
Alcides Escobar, ss, Milwaukee
Tyler Flowers, c, Chicago White Sox
Dexter Fowler, of, Colorado
Frederick Freeman, 1b, Atlanta
Brian Friday, ss, Pittsburgh
Chris Gimenez, c, Cleveland
Greg Halman, of, Seattle
Taylor Harbin, 2b, Arizona
Gorkys Hernandez, of, Atlanta
Josh Horton, ss, Oakland
Austin Jackson, of, New York Yankees
Justin Jackson, ss, Toronto
Eric Fryer, of, New York Yankees
Andrew Lambo, of, Los Angeles Dodgers
Lou Marson, c, Philadelphia
Fernando Martinez, of, New York Mets
Cameron Maybin, of, Florida
Andrew McCutchen, of, Pittsburgh
Jesus Montero, c, New York Yankees
Mitchell Moreland, 1b, Texas
Logan Morrison, 1b, Florida
Nick Noonan, 2b, San Francisco
Gerardo Parra, of, Arizona
Bryan Petersen, of, Florida
Max Ramirez, c, Texas
Wilson Ramos, c, Minnesota
Colby Rasmus, of, St. Louis
Angel Salome, c, Milwaukee
Carlos Santana, c, Cleveland
Michael Saunders, of, Seattle
Jordan Schafer, of, Atlanta
Travis Snider, of, Toronto
Jose Tabata, of, Pittsburgh
Michael Taylor, of, Philadelphia
Taylor Teagarden, c, Texas
Carlos Triunfel, ss, Seattle
Angel Villalona, 1b, San Francisco
Brandon Waring, 3b, Baltimore
Nicholas Weglarz, of, Cleveland
Zelous Wheeler, 3b, Milwaukee