Updated top prospects

[Benihana]

Following the draft and with 1/2 a season of minor league ball under the belt, here's my updated Top Prospects list for the Reds organization in a BA-format, that is factoring all considerations, including ceiling, distance from the majors, projectability, etc.

1. Homer Bailey, RHP AA will make his ML debut at some point in 2007
2. Jay Bruce, OF Low A a slicker fielding Austin Kearns
3. Joey Votto, 1B/OF AA but should be promoted to AAA any day
4. Johnny Cueto, RHP Low Athe next three are all very close
5. Travis Wood, LHP Low Aahead of Ward because he's a lefty
6. Zach Ward, RHP Low A but should be promoted to High A any day
7. Chris Denoforia, OF AAA very good numbers, but is 26 years old
8. Drew Stubbs, OF Rookie in a BA move, has yet to play a minor league game
9. Phil Dumatrait, LHP, AAA should be called up by September at the latest
10. David Shafer, AA should be in AAA or on the Reds any day

Thoughts?

[cincyinco]

Stubbs should be much higher IMO, simply based on my belief that our system is that weak. He's certainly a better prospect than Joey Votto IMO. Not trying to knock on Joey, but I don't think he's deserving of the 3 spot, even though he's having a nice bounce back year. But, overall, I think you did a solid job.

Hopefully with this influx of talent from the draft, you'll see the Reds minor league stock improve. I am not sure how big a fan I am of this draft, but I'm def. willing to give it a chance. Some of the picks are intriguing.

[Benihana]

Stubbs should be much higher IMO, simply based on my belief that our system is that weak. He's certainly a better prospect than Joey Votto IMO. Not trying to knock on Joey, but I don't think he's deserving of the 3 spot, even though he's having a nice bounce back year. But, overall, I think you did a solid job.

Hopefully with this influx of talent from the draft, you'll see the Reds minor league stock improve. I am not sure how big a fan I am of this draft, but I'm def. willing to give it a chance. Some of the picks are intriguing.

I agree that Stubbs should be higher on the list factoring in ceiling/projectability, but until he does something with a wood bat, I would err to the cautious side in getting over excited. I would expect him to crack the top three by the end of the year, assuming he can have a similar debut to Jay Bruce.

[medford]

Stubbs should be much higher IMO, simply based on my belief that our system is that weak. He's certainly a better prospect than Joey Votto IMO. Not trying to knock on Joey, but I don't think he's deserving of the 3 spot, even though he's having a nice bounce back year. But, overall, I think you did a solid job.

Hopefully with this influx of talent from the draft, you'll see the Reds minor league stock improve. I am not sure how big a fan I am of this draft, but I'm def. willing to give it a chance. Some of the picks are intriguing.

I'm guessing he's changed his tune

Of course there's the whole hindsight...20/20 thing, but its amazing how much the perception of the farm system has changed in the last 5 years. I wonder how many teams we could look back on their 2006 system and find a better current combination of Votto, Bruce, Wood, Cueto, Bailey & Stubbs, not to mention a guy like Hannigan who wasn't projected for much of anything, and probably a few I'm not thinking of at the moment.

thanks for bumping, always fun to look back and see how things develop over time.

[dabvu2498]

2. Jay Bruce, OF Low A a slicker fielding Austin Kearns
Thoughts?

I may be way off... but I have higher hopes even than this.

[chicoruiz]

Oddly, I was just thinking about this...my list looked a lot like yours; I didn't include Deno because he's been to the show already; I tacked on Loo at the #10 spot instead. And I like Guevara a tad bit better than Shaffer.

Either way, it's a whole lot better than what we're used to: Sardinha or Perez in the middle of the list. Or the Reds farm system's Hall Of Shame moment: when Terry Lee made BA's top ten list at age 29.

[Benihana]

Given the Travis Wood discussion in the ORG, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at where we were projecting our top prospects 5 years ago. Pretty interesting stuff...

[Pony Boy]

Thanks for finding this old thread. This is a pretty unbelievable list. 6 out of 10 of these guys became good or great players for the Reds. And Denorfia is sort of a solid major leaguer. I bet there arent many teams that have gotten as much production out of their top-10 prospects from 5 years ago.

[bucksfan2]

Whats more impressive with that list is 6 players have made an impact with the Reds. I would imagine that if you went back to that date and compared all the minor league systems in baseball there wasn't one that produced better. I think you can say that a core of Votto-Bruce-Stubbs-Bailey-Cueto-Wood is one heck of a core.

[cincyinco]

Haha.. Certainly have.. Votto is a great player who I vastly underrated even up until last year. He's made me eat some crow.

That said, I still maintain I wasn't entirely wrong, especially given the context of this post. I've always been in the camp that projections are more important than results at the minor league level, and I've always been a believer in Stubbs - hence why I felt he should have been ranked higher.

You have to remember, this is a farm system in Mid 2006 that was ranked very poorly for a variety of reasons. We hadn't produced a home grown pitcher since Rob Bell, and he wasn't very good. Homer Bailey was the bread and butter of the system, but even he was a big question mark. I can recall myself and Doug getting in some rather spirited debates with some of Redzone's finest posters about Bailey - keep in mind that there were some calling Adam Rosales a better proespect than Homer. That will give you an idea of how well thought of our #1 prospect on this list was.

Cueto was a relative unknown and a lottery ticket. Ward and Phil Dumatrait.. well.. I dont need to say much about either of them. Wood however, was still far far away, and if Im not mistaken was battling injuries. And up until last year still had his share of doubters. Still probably does.

As for Votto himself.. Lets recall at the time of this post, this is a prospect who was coming off a bad year in the tandem starter/take a strike level and didn't show particularly impressive results. This was his first good year and it was only what, 2 months of it so far. He was also a prospect who was switched from the C position, to 1B, to possible OF. He was a prospect without a defenite position. In my eyes, that hurt his overall value some. Reports on his defense at 1b were not great. Nor the outfield.

My stance on ranking Stubbs higher still stands. He played a premium position, providing premium defense, and had the chance to bring a special bat. I also believed, and still do, that its much easier to find a prospect who can play 1b or the corner OF.. and that its harder to find a special CF talent. So in my eyes, given Vottos question marks at the time - and Stubbs potential, the relative strength of the farm overall, the many weaknesses and historical ineptitude in producing a homegrown pitching prospect, I was really trying NOT to knock on Votto's status as a prospect, but simply to state I felt Stubbs was ranked too low.

I'm certainly happy to have all the guys on this list who have made a major contribution.

[Mario-Rijo]

As for Votto himself.. Lets recall at the time of this post, this is a prospect who was coming off a bad year in the tandem starter/take a strike level and didn't show particularly impressive results. This was his first good year and it was only what, 2 months of it so far. He was also a prospect who was switched from the C position, to 1B, to possible OF. He was a prospect without a defenite position. In my eyes, that hurt his overall value some. Reports on his defense at 1b were not great. Nor the outfield.

Let that be a lesson to us all. Guys with top of the line work ethic often get close or all the way to their ceilings. Just because one doesn't have a definite position doesn't mean he isn't capable of being good at one.

[redsmetz]

Cincyinco, well done on your post giving the background for the time period. I concur about Stubbs and it was interesting to hear the reported context on Votto. Overall, most of those on that list have produced at this point with just a couple of exceptions. And I'm liking where we are now, a good bit of depth still coming.