Comparing the rankings

[mth123]

Name		RZ	BA	FG	BP	JS	KL	DD
Chapman		1	NR	NR	1	1	1	NR
Alonso		2	2	1	4	3	4	1
Leake		3	3	NR	2	4	3	3
Frazier		4	1	2	3	2	2	2
'Cisco		5	5	6	8	6	7	5
Y-Rod		6	6	8	9	16	8	4
Wood		7	7	4	5	8	6	8
Heisey		8	4	3	6	5	5	6
Cozart		9	10	5	13	10	NR	9
Box'ger		10	9	NR	7	7	NR	7
Soto		11	13	9	NR	15	9	13
Maloney		12	8	7	12	9	NR	12
Hamtn		13	11	NR	10	12	NR	10
Valaika		14	12	NR	NR	14	NR	15
Klinker		15	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	11
Duran		16	18	NR	15	18	NR	33
Mes'		17	30	10	NR	NR	NR	14
Dorn		18	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	21
Silva		19	NR	NR	NR	17	NR	24
Joseph		20	21	NR	NR	11	NR	16
Fellh'r		21	26	NR	NR	13	NR	17
Sulbrn		22	25	NR	NR	19	NR	18
Rojas		23	17	NR	11	NR	NR	19
Smith		24	16	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Fairel		25	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	32
Tuttle		26	27	NR	NR	NR	NR	20
Viola		27	22	NR	NR	NR	NR	38
Ondrusek	28	14	NR	NR	NR	NR	22
Lotzkar		29	20	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Del Ros		30	19	NR	NR	20	NR	40
Lecure		31	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	25
Serrano		32	24	NR	NR	NR	NR	26
Gregorius	33	15	NR	14	NR	NR	23
H-Rod		34	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Cline		35	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Valiq		36	23	NR	NR	NR	NR	28
Arias		37	NR	NR	NR	NR	10	NR
Horst		38	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	27
Thurman		39	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Valor		40	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Olivrs		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	29
Cod'ton		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	30
Fleury		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	31
Johnson		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	34
Barn'dt		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	35
Pearl		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	36
Smit		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	37
Ravin		NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	39
Puckett		NR	28	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR
Wiley		NR	29	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR

RZ=Redszone
BA= Baseball America
FG= Fan Graphs
BP= Baseball Prospectus
JS= John Sickels
KL= Keith Law
DD= Reds Minor Leagues

The obvious difference is from the ones published pre-Chapman signing.

Please edit my typo in the thread title.

[camisadelgolf]

That's a cool resource. Thanks, mth123.

[UKFlounder]

Good work. Thanks for putting that together.

[tripleaaaron]

Nice work. Thank you.
A few observations:
Keith Law ranking Junior Arias #10. Just wow.

DD Gregorious is the player with the greatest overall difference of opinion between Redszone and the other rankings. I think we vastly underrated him.

Whoever said we needed to go get a young shortstop? While I used to be in that camp, signing Cabrera has altered my opinion. We have several young potential shortstops and one is pretty close to hitting the majors. Cabrera, Janish and Cozart should at least adequately fill the position (even if Cozart doesn't develop the bat) while Rojas, Gregorius and Hamilton begin to trickle onto the ML roster.
Aroldis Chapman solidifies our farm system tremendously. His presence makes our sytem top 10 maybe even better. On the cusp we have a few potential elite level talents in Chapman, Alonso, Leake and Frazier. Several who look to be solid to plus regulars in Francisco, Wood, Heisey, Cozart, Maloney and Valaika. These players front a very deep group of players who are in the low minors.

While the winning product Castellini has promised us hasn't been demonstrated at the ML level, he has continuosly put money into building a very solid foundation for a promising future. He has made many poor decisions at the major league level but his success will come soon and often if he continues to put money into signing and developing minor league talent.

[kpresidente]

Here's the average top-10......

1.  Chapman      1.0
2.  Frazier      2.3
3.  Alonso       2.4
4.  Leake        3.0
5.  Heisey       5.2
6.  Francisco    6.0
7.  Wood         6.4
8.  Boxberger    8.0
9.  Rodriguez    8.1
10. Cozart       9.3

[Will M]

there is a very interesting article on fangraphs right now. basically it suggests that we look at prospects in a different manner.

for example:
player A (lets call him J.Bruce): starts out pretty average in his first two years then gets it together in year 3. years 4-5-6 he is an All Star then leaves as a free agent or signs a market level contract with the Reds.
plays 20 years in the bigs and makes the Hall of Fame.

player B (lets call him J.Votto): starts out of the gate as a star player in year 1 and continues playing well for years 2-3-4-5-6. then leaves as a free agent or signs a market level contract with the Reds.
plays 15 years in the bigs as a good but not HOF caliber player.

in retropect even though player A has the better career player B is the better prospect from the Reds standpoint. why? simple: a team controls a player for ~6 years. for the first 3 they can pay him whatever they want then he gets arbitration in the next three years. after that the team has no control over him. so the ideal player springs forth like Athena fully developed and ready to produce from day one in the bigs. he produces well in years 1-2-3 when the team pays him peanuts then keeps producing in years 4-5-6 when they pay him well but likely below what he would make on the open market.

the article brings up Tim Linecum. the Giants have paid him ~$2M for $84M of production. if his 'injury waiting to happen' delivery produces a career ending injury the team could just jettison him and they would still have gotten incredible value from him.

[Will M]

sorry, the ole job got in the way.

in this line of thinking Frazier would be valued higher than Alonso as far as prospects go. Frazier's upside is limited. most project him as a solid every day 2b/3b (if he can play these positions defensively). no one is projecting him to be an all star. however he seems much more polished than Alonso, especially considering Alonso has had trouble hitting lefties and plays a position that demands more offensive production. if Frazier can be an average major league 2b/3b from day 1 in the bigs that is very valuable to the Reds. what he does after he hits free agency is of no value to the team.

i think that most followers of minor leaguers overrate the potential that players have. it seems easy to get caught up in the hype and dreams of what a guy can do. this is nothing new. this is why guys with big potential get all the hype and may never pan out (paging Willy Mo). whereas guys like Dickerson or Herrera may not ever make an all star team but both have a fair amount of value to a team like the Reds as they are somewhat productive in their cheap years.

maybe what we need is a better way to look at prospects. people talk of Leake's 'low floor'. maybe we need to look at a prospects ceiling and floor, his ability to contribute right away (call it learning curve). you could say Leake ranks a 'B' ceiling, a 'B' floor & 'B-" learning curve (i am just making this up).
Willy Mo in retrospect was an A ceiling, F floor & F learning curve.
the potential was there but he busted out because he never adjusted to the bigs and failed the learning curve because he didn't produce in his early years.