clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

2014 Pittsburgh Pirates Consensus Top 28 Prospects

What is the consensus ranking for each of the Pirates' top prospects?

Gregory Polanco is the Pirates top prospects
Gregory Polanco is the Pirates top prospects
USA TODAY Sports

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 (21 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 Pittsburgh Pirates top prospect list.

Sources

Regular Lists

Baseball America

Baseball Prospectus

Bleacher Report

Bucco Buzz

Fangraphs

Grading on the Curve

Keith Law (ESPN)

MLB.com

MLB Draft Insider

MLB Prospect Portal

Pirates Prospects

Prospect Digest

Rant

Top Prospect Alert

Fantasy Lists

Dynasty Sports Empire

Fake Teams

Prospect 361

Razzball

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 Pittsburgh Pirates 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 Gregory Polanco 274 79 3
2 2 Jameson Taillon 269 77 0
3 3 Tyler Glasnow 250 71 8
4 5 Austin Meadows 237 64 1st Round
5 4 Alen Hanson 214 68 -2
6 7 Nick Kingham 208 54 2
7 6 Josh Bell 203 59 -1
8 8 Reese McGuire 189 53 1st Round
9 10 Luis Heredia 160 25 -4
10 9 Harold Ramirez 114 36 Unranked last year
11 11 Barrett Barnes 60 23 -4
12 NA Tony Sanchez 50 9
13 NA Clay Holmes 46 -3
13 NA Wyatt Mathisen 46 -4
15 NA JaCoby Jones 31 3rd Round
16 12 Michael De La Cruz 23 11 Unranked last year
17 NA Blake Taylor 16 2nd Round
17 NA Willy Garcia 16 6
19 NA Jaff Decker 14 Padres, Alex Dickerson
20 NA Stolmy Pimentel 12 Unranked last year
21 NA Jin-De Jhang 11 -2
22 NA Cody Dickson 10 4th Round
23 NA Brandon Cumpton 9 Unranked last year
24 NA Andrew Lambo 7 Unranked last year
25 NA Joely Rodriguez 6 Unranked last year
26 NA Adrian Sampson 4 -10
27 NA Gift Ngoepe 3 -3
28 NA Jose Osuna 1 -10

2013 prospects not on 2014 list

Graduated:

Gerrit Cole, #1
Justin Wilson, #14
Bryan Morris, #15

Traded:

Dilson Herrera, #12 - To the Mets in the Marlon Byrd trade
Alex Dickerson, #20 - To the Padres in the Jaff Decker trade
Victor Black, #21 - To the Mets in the Marlon Byrd trade

Dropped Off:

Kyle McPherson, #13
Andy Oliver, #17
Phil Irwin, #25

Visual Representation

Here is a chart of the Pirates' top prospects. The error bars represent the minimum and maximum ranking for each prospect.

Piratesprospects2014

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.