Prospects and Scouting

Personal Top 15 Prospect Lists: Dodgers, Padres, Giants

By Satchel Price Feb 28, 2011, 1:30pm EST

We're finishing up our top-15 lists for the NL teams today, and then we have ten AL clubs to get through. Yes, there are more than ten teams in the AL, but that's because we're leaving the best for last. Dave and I will be doing side-by-side lists for the Royals, Braves, Rays, Blue Jays and Yankees, as well as our own personal top-100 lists, but we'll be getting to those later this week. Links to the other top-15 lists are available at the bottom of the page.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS

1) SS Dee Gordon

2) RHP Zach Lee

3) RHP Rubby de la Rosa

4) OF Trayvon Robinson

5) RHP Kenley Jansen

6) RHP Allen Webster

7) RHP Chris Withrow

8) 1B/OF Jerry Sands

9) LHP Aaron Miller

10) OF Leon Landry

11) RHP Ethan Martin

12) LHP Scott Elbert

13) RHP Garrett Gould

14) OF Kyle Russell

15) SS Jake Lemmerman

This is a very interesting system. Some people don't like Gordon that much because of the underwhelming numbers and the fact that he's almost 23, but scouts continue to rave about his tools and few shortstops can match his skill set. Beyond him, there's been a shift among the team's top pitching prospects. Coming into last season, Withrow, Miller and Martin were three of the top prospects in the system, but now the club's top four pitching prospects are an entirely different bunch. That might be a good thing, though, because all three of them have the ability to bounce back, which could give LA an even more impressive stable of young pitching. Some people might consider Sands to be low at No. 8, but I'm just not convinced that he has much star potential as a first baseman.

SAN DIEGO PADRES

1) RHP Casey Kelly

2) OF Jaff Decker

3) 1B Anthony Rizzo

4) RHP Simon Castro

5) OF Reymond Fuentes

6) SS Drew Cumberland

7) OF Donovan Tate

8) RHP Matt Lollis

9) 3B Jedd Gyorko

10) C Jason Hagerty

11) LHP Cory Luebke

12) 3B Edinson Rincon

13) RHP Keyvius Sampson

14) SS Jonathan Galvez

15) RHP Adys Portillo

This system looks way stronger after the Adrian Gonzalez trade, which brought in three of the team's top five prospects. Kelly didn't have great numbers in 2010 but the scouting reports continue to be really strong, and Decker continued to bring power and patience to the table after moving up to High Single-A. They have a nice mix of pitchers and position players, and the team's efforts to acquire more high-upside players have begun to bear fruit, even with Donovan Tate being utterly disappointing thus far. This system would look a lot better if they got better returns on their last two first-round picks: Tate's been essentially a non-factor over the past two years, while the club failed to sign 2010 first-rounder Karsten Whitson.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

1) 1B Brandon Belt

2) RHP Zack Wheeler

3) OF Gary Brown

4) SS Ehire Adrianza

5) OF Francisco Peguero

6) 2B Charlie Culberson

7) OF Thomas Neal

8) LHP Eric Surkamp

9) OF Jarret Parker

10) C Tommy Joseph

11) LHP Michael Kickham

12) RHP Heath Hembree

13) OF Chuckie Jones

14) RHP Jose Casilla

15) SS Brandon Crawford

Remember when this system was all about pitching? Those days are pretty much gone for the moment, although the Giants are doing pretty okay in terms of pitching on the MLB level. Most of us know about Belt's emergence over the past year, and he's now generally regarded as one of the very best prospects in the game. He brings a potential impact bat with a plus glove at first base, and should make for a really nice Robin to Buster Posey's Batman. Their top-shelf pitching talent essentially consists of one player, Wheeler, and there's not really another young pitcher in the system that's close to him. He brings elite velocity and a big-time slider; most scouts feel comfortable giving him No. 1 starter upside, even if there's disagreement about how close he is to reaching it. They have some interesting up-the-middle prospects as well, namely Brown, Adrianza, Peguero, Culberson and Joseph. It's not a particularly good system, but they have a couple of really strong prospects, and they graduated two potential stars to San Francisco last year in Posey and Bumgarner. You'd like to see better depth after the top three guys, though.