/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/30084177/20120404_gav_sv5_016.0.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.
You can also view the 2013 Los Angeles Angels 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 Los Angeles Angels 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 | Taylor Lindsey | 785 | 199 | 3 |
2 | 2 | Kaleb Cowart | 778 | 194 | -1 |
3 | 3 | C.J. Cron | 756 | 193 | 0 |
4 | 7 | R.J. Alvarez | 712 | 130 | 2 |
5 | 4 | Mark Sappington | 688 | 190 | 4 |
5 | 8 | Hunter Green | 688 | 91 | 2nd Round |
7 | 6 | Alex Yarbrough | 653 | 131 | 4 |
8 | 5 | Jose Rondon | 526 | 136 | 9 |
9 | 10 | Mike Morin | 469 | 86 | Unranked last year |
10 | 13 | Nick Maronde | 459 | 45 | -8 |
11 | 9 | Zach Borenstein | 450 | 89 | Unranked last year |
12 | 11 | Eric Stamets | 354 | 85 | 6 |
13 | 14 | Ricardo Sanchez | 343 | 44 | Venezuelan IFA |
14 | 12 | Natanael Delgado | 300 | 83 | Dominican IFA |
15 | NA | Cam Bedrosian | 272 | -1 | |
16 | NA | Reid Scoggins | 256 | 4 | |
17 | NA | Austin Wood | 251 | -10 | |
18 | NA | Keynan Middleton | 172 | 3rd Round | |
19 | NA | Cal Towey | 143 | 17th Round | |
20 | NA | Mike Clevinger | 141 | -12 | |
21 | NA | Kyle McGowin | 130 | 5th Round | |
22 | NA | Matt Shoemaker | 124 | Unranked last year | |
23 | NA | Elliot Morris | 85 | 4th Round | |
24 | NA | Matt Long | 79 | Unranked last year | |
25 | NA | Michael Snyder | 78 | Unranked last year | |
26 | NA | Yency Almonte | 77 | -1 | |
27 | NA | Alfonso Alcantara | 72 | -3 | |
28 | NA | Ryan Chafee | 69 | Unranked last year | |
29 | NA | Jeremy Berg | 66 | Unranked last year | |
30 | NA | Tyler DeLoach | 60 | Unranked last year | |
31 | NA | Michael Fish | 54 | 32nd Round | |
32 | NA | Sherman Johnson | 47 | -5 | |
33 | NA | Kramer Sneed | 45 | Yankees, Vernon Wells trade | |
34 | NA | Zach Wright | 43 | Unranked last year | |
35 | NA | Jonah Wesely | 42 | 11th Round | |
36 | NA | Eduard Santos | 39 | Unranked last year | |
37 | NA | Mario Martinez | 33 | Unranked last year | |
37 | NA | Alex Keudell | 33 | Signed off waivers | |
37 | NA | Kevin Johnson | 33 | Unranked last year | |
40 | NA | Victor Alcantara | 31 | Unranked last year | |
40 | NA | Arjenis Fernandez | 31 | Unranked last year | |
42 | NA | Joey Krehbiel | 30 | Unranked last year | |
42 | NA | Mike Piazza | 30 | Unranked last year | |
44 | NA | Eduar Lopez | 29 | Unranked last year | |
45 | NA | Brian Moran | 28 | Blue Jays, International Draft cap space | |
46 | NA | Ismael Dionicio | 27 | Dominican IFA | |
47 | NA | Abel Baker | 26 | Unranked last year | |
48 | NA | Cory Rasmus | 24 | Braves, Scott Downs | |
48 | NA | Jett Bandy | 24 | Unranked last year | |
50 | NA | Wade Hinkle | 19 | -21 | |
51 | NA | Daniel Tillman | 17 | -35 | |
51 | NA | Nate Smith | 17 | 8th Round | |
53 | NA | Eswarlin Jimenez | 16 | -33 | |
54 | NA | Eric Cendejas | 15 | Unranked last year | |
55 | NA | Andrew Heid | 14 | Unranked last year | |
56 | NA | Jonathan Van Eaton | 12 | Undrafted free agent | |
57 | NA | Stephen McGee | 9 | 9th Round | |
58 | NA | Miguel Hermosillo | 7 | 28th Round | |
59 | NA | Lianmy Galan | 6 | Dominican IFA |
2013 prospects not on 2014 list
Graduated:
Kole Calhoun, #9
Luis Jimenez, #12
Andrew Romine, #19
Michael Roth, #27
Traded:
Randal Grichuk, #5 - To the Cardinals in the David Freese trade
A.J. Schugel, #15 - To the Diamondbacks in the Mark Trumbo trade
Released:
Nick Mutz, #20
Claimed on waivers:
Travis Witherspoon, #12 - Claimed by the Mariners
Dropped Off:
Wendell Soto, #20
Jonathan Walsh, #26
Chevy Clarke, #30
Visual Representation
Here is a chart of the Angels' 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.