Thursday Rockpile Bonus Edition: Keith Law's Top 100

K-Law and BA and Goldstein and Sickels are all trying to juggle the likelihood a prospect develops and their ceilings, and they all have to make some subjective decisions and trade-offs in order to do so, there’s no way around it.

Those players I mentioned each could be contender worthy major leaguers at the positions mentioned. I left out the likeliest bench/reserve types like EY2 or Daniel Mayora or several others. Some of the guys I mentioned will have a far greater likelihood of reaching that success than others, and this likelihood of reaching one’s potential is all that’s going to differentiate the prospects on the K-Law list except for in cases where you’d be comparing apples to oranges such as the Chacin/Bumgarner argument.

Dexter Fowler could be a bigger impact player than Posey. He has the better tools almost across the board at a position that’s nearly as important especially in our ballpark. Law apparently feels, subjectively, that Posey is more likely to be an impact thanks solely to a more refined swing in this case, he chooses the likelier guy over the toolsier one. Villalona could wind up being a bigger impact than Nelson they both could wind up having the same effect. Angel has the one really huge plus power tool and a swift swing. Villalona’s also fat, young and far away from the majors. Nelson is talented, athletic and just a step away but terribly inconsistent thus far in his minor league career. They’re judgment calls to put them where they are or to put Nelson on at all, but both are potential impact players still.

As far as the pitchers, it’s a little different but Chacin and Friedrich could outpitch Bumgarner and Alderson, even if they aren’t going to throw as hard. None of the four could wind up being impactful or all four could.

I think Holcomb is going to wind up AAAA, I know several qualified people that swear that his bat plays in the majors. My subjective judgment on him could turn out to be right, and it would vindicate my pride at picking out talent, but so what? If I’m wrong, I’m not going to beat myself up, so I include him in my list above because I know I could be wrong on him given the words of other trusted sources. I guarantee you that Law’s not going to change his approach if he’s only mostly right and at best that’s all he or anybody could hope for. So what I’m saying here is to take these pundits with a grain of salt and realize that the difference between prospects once you get out of the top five or so gets kind of muddy.

What’s more, you can’t use these lists as an effective system measuring stick without context, but that’s the way they are presented. Would you rather have top ranked Texas’ system or the Rays, knowing that “system” by definition would have to include the major league team? Arizona’s farm doesn’t have the impact players that the Orioles do, but Arizona’s not wanting to trade places with the O’s, I assure you. That the Rockies have several stud shortstop prospects is of no use unless they find other positions for them. So I’m saying what I’d rather see than a top 100 list is a dynamic depth chart ranking that tries to predict how the six divisions will play out over the next five or six seasons based on the talent they have. I would find that infinitely more useful. That’s what I would mean by preferring to evaluate systems by organizational depth. Impact talent’s great, let’s see what it actually means in the big picture.