First, I'll admit I was pleased to read that Terry Reynolds at least gave lip service to my own bent in examining "prospects" in relation to the organization as a whole:
"For me it's, what are you doing? How did they perform this past summer? What do we think of them as an organization and where can they help us and WHEN can they help us."
Besides the fact that while creating my list I only considered last year's performance I was relieved to read this.
I think this says a lot about staying practical about players, as well as setting up a structure where scouting reports and signing bonuses are not stunting development, causing animosity, creating lazy check collectors, etc. Turns out the Reds are just about as "what have you done for me lately" as many fans.
Throughout the voting for Redszone's prospects, I favored Maloney in the early going (I think I might have started voting for him at 5 - a bull headed mistake as I was forming my ideas). I believe more in a meritocracy (results) and like to avoid the "Wily Mo" effect of clinging to what "should" happen. Bleh!
I'm not afraid of projections and scouting reports, but miserable failure is just too strong of a sign to ignore (Duran, etc.) They've got to PROVE IT.
I feel this list is a pretty good, concurrent, list of both who can help the Reds and when they can help them. If a player was no higher than Dayton last year, it almost certainly hurt them in my list. Only players like Soto or Mesoraco could fight past their stations due to overwhelming youth and / or likely high expectations not utterly ruined - yet.
Where possible, I took SP's over position players. I also tried to prize defense when comparing two close players (although this was after the more measurable offensive numbers were in place so it's not perfect).
1 Travis Wood
2 Todd Frazier
3 Michael Leake
4 Zachary Cozart
5 Yonder Alonso
6 Juan Francisco
7 Matt Maloney
8 Chris Heisey
9 Devin Mesoraco
10 Bradley Boxberger
11 Enerio Del Rosario
12 Matthew Klinker
13 Christopher Valaika
14 Daniel Tuttle
15 Neftali Soto
16 Matt Fairel
17 Josh Fellhauer
18 Logan Ondrusek
19 Samuel Lecure
20 Ezequiel Infante
21 Jordan Smith
22 Miguel Rojas
23 Tyler Cline
24 Yorman Rodriguez
25 Mariekson Gregorius
26 Mark Serrano
27 Billy Hamilton
28 David Sappelt
29 Juan Silva
30 Mace Thurman
31 Donnie Joseph
32 Wes Bankston
33 Lance Janke
34 Nathan Driessen
36 Daniel Dorn
35 Byron Wiley
37 Brian Pearl
38 Philippe-Alexandre Valiquette
39 Cody Puckett
40 Juan Duran
Wood was the statistical leader and most complete option available. He's surprisingly my #1. I wasn't that convinced, but I'm really trusting this model I came up with for the sake of the exercise.
Frazier was alone at #2.
The next 5 were lumped together and sorted out according to position (SP, SS), then defense (Alonso, Juan). It didn't bother me seeing Alonso at #5 because the world will have to continue to wait for his power to show and defense to improve.
Cozart = great d + efficient batting, and seeing him at # 4 was another delightful twist in perspective for me. I'd have thought him around 7 or 8.
Anyway, thoughts?