Top Red Sox Prospects - Compiled List

by The Laser Show on Feb 14, 2012 12:38 PM EST

With all the organizational top prospect lists being published lately, I thought it would be helpful to make a compiled Red Sox top prospect list using average rankings from the various prospect lists out there. After a bit of research, I found 7 lists to use, as follows:

-Minor League Ball (John Sickels, Top 22, updated 1/20/12)

-MLB.com (Jonathan Mayo, Top 20, published early February 2012)

-Baseball America (Jim Callis, Top 10, 1/6/12)

-Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein, Top 20, 2/14/12)

-ESPN (Keith Law, Top 10, 2/9/12)

-SoxProspects.com (updated 2/10/12)

-Fangraphs (Marc Hulet, Top 15, 12/23/11)

The oddball of the group is probably the Fangraphs list, but I wanted to use as many lists as possible, and I think their prospect coverage is pretty decent.

Without further adieu, here is the list (as well as my notes below it):

		Average Ranking	Appears on how many lists?
1	Xander Bogaerts	1.7	7
2	Will Middlebrooks	2.0	7

3	Ryan Lavarnway	5.4	7
4	Blake Swihart	5.9	7
5	Anthony Ranaudo	6.0	7
6	Matt Barnes	6.4	7
7	Brandon Jacobs	6.6	7
8	Bryce Brentz	7.0	7
9	Garin Cecchini	7.4	7

10	Jose Iglesias	10.0	5
11	Jackie Bradley	11.1	6
12	Sean Coyle	11.3	4
13	Felix Doubront	11.3	3

14	Henry Owens	13.3	4
15	Drake Britton	13.5	4
16	Alex Wilson	13.7	3
17	Kolbrin Vitek	14.0	4

18	Stolmy Pimentel	16.5	4
19	Junichi Tazawa	18.7	3
20	Brandon Workman	18.8	4
21	Jose Vinicio	18.8	5

22	Cody Kukuk	21.0	3
23	Oscar Tejada		2
24	Williams Jerez		2
25	Christian Vazquez		2
26	Juan Carlos Linares		2

To make the compiled list, I just calculated the mean ranking position for each prospect among the 7 lists (or as many lists as each player appeared on). As you can see on the list, the Top 9 were included on all 7 lists. After the Top 9, things got a little trickier since it's difficult to figure out how to order two prospects if one appears on 5 lists and the other appears on 6 lists. After reviewing each specific example though, I thought it was fairly clean to leave the order based on the average ranking positions, even when the number of lists appeared on isn't identical. For example, one could argue that Wilson and Vitek should be switched, since their average ranking is so close, and Vitek appeared on 4 lists and Wilson on 3.

My other notes and thoughts:

-I added spaces between sets of rankings to delineate where "tiers" of prospects seemed to differentiate, based on the clustering of average ranking position for each "tier". I think the tiers do a really nice job of giving a quick and simple picture of the different levels of prospects in this deep system.

-I included every prospect that appeared on at least one of the 6 lists (not counting SoxProspects, since their list goes to 60). I didnt list the average ranking for the last 4 prospects since they each appeared on just 1 list besides SoxProspects.

-Bogaerts and Middlebrooks obviously stand out as the consensus top prospects in the system. Bogaerts was #1 on 4 of the 7 lists, and Middlebrooks was #1 on the other 3 lists.

-I was a little surprised how high Swihart ended up. Jim Callis and Keith Law were the highest on Swihart, ranking him #3 and #2 on their lists, respectively.

-I thought Barnes would end up ahead of Ranaudo, and indeed he was ranked higher on 4 of the 7 lists. Mayo had Ranaudo #5 and Barnes #12, which hurt Barnes's position (and which I strongly disagree with).

What are your thoughts? Any big surprises here? Feel free to question anything that isnt clear on the list or in my methodology.

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Comments

Thanks for doing this, Laser Show.

I agree with you on Barnes > Ranaudo (though I’m not super high on either). And I think it’s insane how high some of those guys have Blake Swihart. I like his upside, too, but ranking him #2 or #3 puts a lot of faith in his ability to stay at catcher before we’ve seen him play a single professional season.

by Jake_W on Feb 14, 2012 3:21 PM EST reply actions

The Swihart ranking does seem quite bullish

By all accounts his upside is unreal, but I haven’t read one report that confidently says he will stay at catcher. I don’t really see how you can have a guy who just signed out of HS and hasn’t even played a game yet that high.

by ritz on Feb 14, 2012 6:25 PM EST reply actions

quick impression

Cecchini is too low, I expect him to have a ‘breakout’ year, and people will have him as a top 5 or higher prospect next year, I have him #3 on my list, I obviously expect a huge year.

Lavarnway at 3 is a surprise in a good way, alot of people crap on him as a prospect, I think BA had him #9 which is a joke. I have him #1 on my list, people talk about what he can’t do and ignore the fact that what he can do is hit. He won’t be a superstar but he will be a very solid major league bat.

Swihart is about right IMO, I have him #5. I’m not too worried about him catching, I didn’t see him as a C coming out of the draft. I would rather stick him in LF and let him focus on the bat which could be very special.

Owens is WAY too low. He is so projectable, if I’m going to bet on someone making an impact I take Owens over the guys right in front of him like Coyle, JBJ, and Doubront. I had him #6 just ahead of Barnes and Ranaudo. That may be optimistic I should probably have him just behind those two. Barnes and Ranaudo should be solid #3/4 starter types, I just think Owens will at least be a 3/4 and possibly more.

by GoldenSpikes24 on Feb 19, 2012 7:13 PM EST reply actions