:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/29890331/20140303_jla_db1_084.0.jpg)
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
-Proverbs 11:14
Prospect lists are a tricky animal. Every prospect guru has his or her own biases, favorite prospects, sources, and philosophy, leading to quite a variety in the placement of specific players on his or her list. I like making lists and I like prospects, but I'm no scout and I have no inside connections, so my list wouldn't hold any particular weight. Instead of spending loads of time ranking the players with my own biases, I decided a few years ago to instead assemble a consensus list for each team. You can view all of the previous lists here. Hopefully this will bring safety from a multitude of counselors.
How do I do this? Each time a prospect appears on a list, he gets a number of points (51 minus his ranking). The prospect with the largest amount of points is ranked first.
This year, I made a few changes to the list. First off, I included as many lists as I could possibly find. This includes list from team-specific sites, not just from sites that post a list for every team. Second, I created a separate list for fantasy rankings. Fantasy baseball sites rank their prospects with a different flavor and so there are two rankings: one for real baseball and one for fantasy.
Travis d'Arnaud, Wilmer Flores, and Jeurys Familia were not eligible for the MetsMinors.net list. I gave them a two, six, and 19 ranking respectively, to match up their ratings with the other lists.
You can also view the 2013 New York Mets top prospect list.
Sources
Regular Lists
Minor League Ball (John Sickels)
Fantasy Lists
The List
The "Change" column describes how the prospect’s status changed from 2013. A positive number means the prospect moved up in the list, while a negative number means he moved down.
Here is a spreadsheet that contains all of the 2014 New York Mets top prospect rankings in one place. I have removed Keith Law's as his lists require a subscription, though his list is included in the final tally.
| Rank | FRank | Player | Total | FTo | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Noah Syndergaard | 799 | 250 | 2 |
| 2 | 2 | Travis d'Arnaud | 781 | 245 | 0 |
| 3 | 3 | Rafael Montero | 765 | 239 | 7 |
| 4 | 4 | Dominic Smith | 751 | 232 | 1st Round |
| 5 | 5 | Wilmer Flores | 671 | 223 | -1 |
| 6 | 6 | Brandon Nimmo | 663 | 210 | -1 |
| 7 | 7 | Kevin Plawecki | 618 | 178 | 8 |
| 8 | 8 | Amed Rosario | 608 | 172 | 21 |
| 9 | 9 | Cesar Puello | 556 | 138 | 3 |
| 10 | 12 | Gavin Cecchini | 537 | 85 | -4 |
| 11 | 10 | Dilson Herrera | 536 | 133 | Marlon Byrd Trade, Pirates |
| 12 | 13 | Steve Matz | 453 | 43 | 15 |
| 13 | 11 | Michael Fulmer | 438 | 86 | -6 |
| 14 | NA | Gabriel Ynoa | 371 | 10 | |
| 15 | 14 | Jake DeGrom | 352 | 41 | -1 |
| 16 | NA | Cory Mazzoni | 282 | -4 | |
| 17 | NA | Domingo Tapia | 273 | -8 | |
| 18 | NA | Victor Black | 247 | Marlon Byrd Trade, Pirates | |
| 19 | NA | Jeurys Familia | 159 | -11 | |
| 20 | NA | Jack Leathersich | 135 | -2 | |
| 21 | NA | Luis Cessa | 129 | Unranked last year | |
| 21 | NA | Jayce Boyd | 129 | Unranked last year | |
| 23 | NA | Luis Mateo | 119 | -12 | |
| 24 | NA | Chris Flexen | 108 | Unranked last year | |
| 24 | NA | Wilfredo Tovar | 108 | 8 | |
| 26 | NA | Matt Den Dekker | 102 | -10 | |
| 27 | NA | Robert Whalen | 96 | Unranked last year | |
| 28 | NA | Matt Bowman | 89 | Unranked last year | |
| 29 | NA | Dustin Lawley | 78 | Unranked last year | |
| 30 | NA | Jeff Walters | 60 | Unranked last year | |
| 31 | NA | Cory Vaughn | 59 | 0 | |
| 32 | NA | Juan Centeno | 54 | Unranked last year | |
| 32 | NA | John Gant | 54 | Unranked last year | |
| 34 | NA | Wuilmer Becerra | 52 | -14 | |
| 35 | NA | Rainy Lara | 50 | Unranked last year | |
| 36 | NA | Casey Meisner | 48 | 3rd Round | |
| 37 | NA | Robert Gsellman | 44 | Unranked last year | |
| 38 | NA | Andrew Church | 42 | Unranked last year | |
| 39 | NA | Darin Gorski | 41 | Unranked last year | |
| 39 | NA | Marcus Molina | 41 | Unranked last year | |
| 39 | NA | Hansel Robles | 41 | -22 | |
| 42 | NA | Travis Taijeron | 34 | Unranked last year | |
| 43 | NA | Logan Verrett | 31 | -21 | |
| 44 | NA | Gonzalez Germen | 30 | Unranked last year | |
| 44 | NA | Ivan Wilson | 30 | Unranked last year | |
| 44 | NA | Matt Reynolds | 30 | -11 | |
| 47 | NA | Aderlin Rodriguez | 28 | -28 | |
| 48 | NA | Matt Koch | 27 | Unranked last year | |
| 49 | NA | Akeel Morris | 25 | -20 | |
| 50 | NA | L.J. Mazzilli | 22 | Unranked last year | |
| 51 | NA | Erik Goeddel | 18 | Unranked last year | |
| 51 | NA | Allan Dykstra | 18 | Unranked last year | |
| 51 | NA | Miller Diaz | 18 | Unranked last year | |
| 54 | NA | Darrell Ceciliani | 16 | -21 | |
| 55 | NA | Tomas Nido | 15 | Unranked last year | |
| 56 | NA | Danny Muno | 14 | -34 | |
| 57 | NA | Patrick Biondi | 12 | Unranked last year | |
| 58 | NA | Champ Stuart | 11 | 6th Round | |
| 58 | NA | Jhoan Urena | 11 | Unranked last year | |
| 60 | NA | Phillip Evans | 4 | -36 | |
| 61 | NA | Brett Mitchell | 2 | Unranked last year | |
| 62 | NA | Jared King | 1 | 5th Round |
2013 prospects not on 2014 list
Graduated:
Zack Wheeler, #1
Juan Lagares, #24
Traded:
Collin McHugh, #38 - To the Rockies for Eric Young Jr.
Dropped Off:
Cam Maron, #20
Vincente Lupo, #20
Alonzo Harris, #36
Tyler Pill, #37
Visual Representation
Here is a chart of the Mets' top prospects. The error bars represent the minimum and maximum ranking for each prospect.
It appears that clicking the above graphic makes it slightly larger
. . .
Chris St. John is a writer at Beyond The Box Score. You can follow him on Twitter at @stealofhome.