I've mentioned on several occassions that we could be more precise in ranking our prospects. However it seems most people are satisfied with the way we rate our prospects. Don't get me wrong I think even if we did manage to take some of our own personal bias out of the equation it wouldn't change things much. But I don't think it would hurt to try to a smidge more bias out of it so here goes.
I recently decided to try this out on myself 1st to see if it changed my rankings of any players. Prior to this I ranked my top 10 prospects off the top of my head, here is that list.
Alonso
Frazier
Heisey
Leake
Soto
Yorman
Wood
Cozart
Valaika
Francisco
I then took those 10 names and ranked each name (bye initials BTW) from 1-10 in 5 different categories that I think generally composes a prospects value. Needless to say I ended up with a different order so I succeeded in taking some of my own bias out of the equation. These categories are as follows.
Ceiling - How valuable the player would be if he reached his ultimate ceiling.
Floor - How valuable he would be if he only reached his floor.
Proximity - How close to the majors is he. I did this in approximate seasons based on their current level and most likely ETA given their current circumstances. For example Matt Maloney might be given a 1 in the next tier because he's in essence already in the bigs, whereas Juan Duran may get the 10th ranking in that group due to age, level and likelihood of progression.
Production - Pretty self explanatory who outperformed who in order over the span of their minor league career thus far.
Position - I think we all have an idea on what we think is the most valuable positions in order of value. I would presume everyones idea is the same but I rank them like so...
LHSP
RHSP
SS
C
CF
3B
RF
2B
1B
LF
LHRP
RHRP
DH
I may be wrong but this is how I view it, in order of toughest to find (which ultimately determines value). Use your own subjectivity on this but if it's different please show why you feel that way if you feel the need. But more importantly than this is where do you realistically see this prospect ending up playing their career. It's important to note that this is strictly from a defensive standpoint, Danny Dorn might have enough bat to play LF or 1st base but if you believe he can only play LF in the majors defensively you should rate him as such.
Now we have finished our RZ top 5 so I thought we might try this exercise after every 5 (or 10 if you prefer) prospects to see how if at all our rankings change. I will do it 1st in my next post and I would ask as many to participate as possible as to help make this a truer ranking. In the end after we reach our next 5 prospects I'll tally the numbers and show the rankings.
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