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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 (31 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 Milwaukee Brewers 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 Milwaukee Brewers 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 | FTot | Change |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | Tyrone Taylor | 466 | 115 | 11 |
1 | 1 | Jimmy Nelson | 466 | 119 | 5 |
3 | 3 | Victor Roache | 416 | 105 | 6 |
4 | 3 | Devin Williams | 395 | 105 | 2nd Round |
5 | 5 | Orlando Arcia | 376 | 102 | 10 |
6 | 6 | Mitch Haniger | 361 | 91 | 4 |
7 | 7 | Johnny Hellweg | 348 | 75 | -3 |
8 | 9 | Taylor Jungmann | 327 | 66 | -5 |
9 | 11 | Nick Delmonico | 287 | 47 | Orioles, Francisco Rodriguez Trade |
10 | 8 | Hunter Morris | 259 | 74 | -4 |
11 | 10 | Clint Coulter | 219 | 48 | -6 |
11 | 12 | David Goforth | 219 | 28 | 16 |
13 | NA | Tucker Neuhaus | 184 | Comp B Draft | |
14 | 13 | Ariel Pena | 106 | 24 | -1 |
15 | NA | Michael Reed | 82 | Unranked last year | |
15 | NA | Jason Rogers | 82 | Unranked last year | |
17 | NA | Taylor Williams | 63 | 4th Round | |
18 | NA | Barrett Astin | 56 | 3rd Round | |
19 | NA | Jed Bradley | 55 | -8 | |
20 | NA | Damien Magnifico | 54 | 2 | |
21 | NA | Yadiel Rivera | 52 | Unranked last year | |
22 | NA | Tyler Wagner | 42 | Unranked last year | |
23 | NA | David Denson | 37 | 15th Round | |
24 | NA | Michael Blazek | 34 | John Axford Trade, Cardinals | |
25 | NA | Michael Ratterree | 25 | 10th Round | |
26 | NA | Jorge Lopez | 23 | -12 | |
27 | NA | Gian Rizzo | 21 | Unranked last year | |
28 | NA | D'Vontrey Richardson | 16 | Unranked last year | |
28 | NA | Brent Suter | 16 | Unranked last year | |
30 | NA | Andy Hills | 14 | 11th Round | |
31 | NA | Clint Terry | 12 | 18th Round | |
31 | NA | Drew Gagnon | 12 | -14 | |
33 | NA | Garrett Cooper | 10 | 6th Round | |
34 | NA | Brooks Hall | 9 | Unranked last year | |
34 | NA | Hiram Burgos | 9 | -13 | |
36 | NA | Tyler Cravy | 7 | Unranked last year | |
NA | 14 | Yirver Gilbert Lara | 21 | Dominican IFA |
2013 prospects not on 2014 list
Graduated:
Wily Peralta, #1
Tyler Thornburg, #2
Scooter Gennett, #8
Logan Schafer, #18
Khris Davis, #19
Jim Henderson, #20
Caleb Gindl, #22
Outrighted:
Mark Rogers, #16
Dropped Off:
Kentrail Davis, #22
Cody Scarpetta, #25
Kyle Heckathorn, #26
Cameron Garfield, #28
Visual Representation
Here is a chart of the Brewers' 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
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Chris St. John is a writer at Beyond The Box Score. You can follow him on Twitter at @stealofhome.