A Different Type of Prospect List: Pre-2007
published March 15, 2007
by David Luciani

Last year at the beginning of March, we published a prospect list that endeavored to be a so-called "different type" of list.  There are plenty of prospect lists on the Internet and in print and we shared our own official list with newsletter subscribers back in January.  This other new list concept came about because of the obvious need to be able to draft prospects only with the relative short-term in mind, not necessarily a single year but no more than three or four years out at most.  That is, readers didn't want to wait ten years for a player to achieve some sort of value but wanted to focus on prospects who would be ready enough to contribute within just two or three years of reaching the majors, at most.

The list was also at least slightly motivated because of the propensity for a handful of readers to be too quick to rate prospect lists, sometimes only a year or two after they've been published.  As I said in this same space exactly a year ago, if you absolutely cannot wait more than a couple of years to rate a prospect list, I strongly suspect that this list will look much better only a year or two down the line than our official prospect list, which can require ten or fifteen years to begin to have a shot at matching up with the actual achievements of some of the projected players.  It doesn't mean that we can't identify specific misses within a year or two but it does mean that there are players rated high on everyone's regular prospect lists that might not be significant contributors in the majors for another five or ten years.  Moreover, it also means that there are prospects who may have been excluded from regular rankings because they will contribute quickly but perhaps for not as long as others and thus, may actually have more forgettable careers when their achievements are re-examined in, say, the year 2030.  Of course, none of us want to wait more than twenty years to rate a prospect list but essentially, that's what would be required to do an adequate and fair job of fairly evaluating one.

In that respect, I said last year that if you revisited the list I published then, that it would probably look better than other types of prospect lists we published because it was focusing on short-term value.  Of course, it wasn't an effort to project 2006 value (our regular published projections already took a stab at that) but it was trying to look no more than a few years into the future.  The list published last year on March 9, 2006 had only fifty names and of those names, all of Delmon Young, Howie Kendrick, Ben Zobrist, Nick Markakis, Prince Fielder, Ian Kinsler, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Conor Jackson, Andy Marte, Kelly Johnson, Ryan Shealy, Michael Aubrey and Corey Hart have either secured or about to secure full-time positions in the majors.  Also included on the list before last season were names like Andy LaRoche, Wes Bankston, Adam Lind, Michael Bourn, Nate McLouth, Josh Wilson, Matt Kemp, Jeremy Hermida, Brad Eldred, Hunter Pence, Melky Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez, Mitch Maier, Brendan Ryan and Jeff Salazar, all of whom have either begun to break through to the majors or are knocking at the door.  Thus, I'm not displeased with last year's effort and have taken a similar approach to compiling this year's list.

I need to remind readers that, again, this is not a true top prospect list.  Because this list focuses only on short-term value, as we said last year, older players can make the list.  In fact, we singled out Kevin Kouzmanoff last year as being able to crack this list despite his age because of its emphasis on short-term value.  Kevin Thompson this year is another example of such a player as he turned twenty-seven in September.

Last year's list had fifty hitters only but this year, we've worked in a few pitchers.  The order is, admittedly, somewhat arbitrary but we hope readers find some names here that they hadn't previously considered.  In many cases, players listed may not have value until 2008 or 2009 but rarely do we extend beyond that as otherwise the list wouldn't be serving its purpose.  The presence of so many shortstops near the top of this year's list is entirely coincidental.  Enjoy!

1. Delmon Young, OF (TB)

2. Andy LaRoche, 3B (LAD)

3. Sean Rodriguez, SS (LAA)

4. Alexi Casilla, SS/2B (MIN)

5. Reid Brignac, SS (TB)

6. Philip Hughes, P (NYY)

7. Brandon Wood, SS (LAA)

8. Dustin Pedroia, SS/2B (BOS)

9. Yovani Gallardo, P (MIL)

10. Erick Aybar, SS (LAA)

11. Chris Young, OF (ARI)

12. Adam Lind, OF (TOR)

13. Kevin Thompson, OF (NYY)

14. Alberto Callaspo, 2B (ARI)

15. Jason Windsor, P (OAK)

16. Hunter Pence OF (HOU)

17. Kevin Kouzmanoff, 3B (SD)

18. Eric Patterson, 2B (CHC)

19. Chin-Lung Hui, SS (LAD)

20. Brian Barton, OF (CLE)

21. Matt Garza, P (MIN)

22. Robert Valido, SS (CHW)

23. Justin Christian, OF (NYY)

24. Scott Moore, 3B (CHC)

25. Billy Butler, OF (KC)

26. Miguel Montero, C (ARI)

27. Marcus Sanders, SS (SF)

28. Ryan Klosterman, SS (TOR)

29. Carlos Quentin, OF (ARI)

30. Kevin Slowey, P (MIN)

31. Joey Votto, 1B (CIN)

32. Scott Lewis P (CLE)

33. Irving Falu, SS (KC)

34. Michael Bourn, OF (PHI)

35. Tyler Clippard, P (NYY)

36. Paul Janish, SS (CIN)

37. Elijah Dukes, OF (TB)

38. Matthew Miller, OF (COL)

39. Reggie Willits, OF (LAA)

40. Ryan Braun, 3B (MIL)

41. Jonathan Herrera, SS (COL)

42. Dana Eveland, P (ARI)

43. Jacob Fox, C (CHC)

44. Carlos Ruiz, C (PHI)

45. J.A. Happ P (PHI)

46. Cody Ehlers 1B (NYY)

47. Elliot Johnson 2B (TB)

48. David Winfree 3B (MIN)

49. Lastings Milledge OF (NYM)

50. Grant Psomas 3B (FLO)

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