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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 Arizona Diamondbacks 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 Arizona Diamondbacks 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 | Archie Bradley | 420 | 120 | 1 |
2 | 3 | Braden Shipley | 402 | 113 | 1st Round |
3 | 2 | Chris Owings | 394 | 115 | 4 |
4 | 4 | Stryker Trahan | 348 | 100 | 1 |
5 | 8 | Jake Lamb | 325 | 76 | 18 |
6 | 5 | Aaron Blair | 323 | 99 | Comp Balance A |
7 | 7 | Brandon Drury | 287 | 96 | Justin Upton Trade, Braves |
8 | 9 | Jake Barrett | 239 | 48 | 7 |
9 | 10 | Justin Williams | 210 | 46 | 2nd Round |
10 | 12 | Jose Martinez | 206 | 22 | 17 |
11 | 6 | Andrew Chafin | 189 | 97 | -2 |
12 | 12 | Sergio Alcantara | 184 | 22 | Dominican IFA |
13 | 11 | Matt Stites | 182 | 23 | Ian Kennedy Trade, Padres |
14 | NA | Zeke Spruill | 100 | -2 | |
15 | NA | Jimmy Sherfy | 65 | 10th Round | |
16 | NA | Daniel Gibson | 58 | 7th Round | |
17 | NA | Daniel Palka | 51 | 3rd Round | |
18 | NA | Felipe Perez | 49 | 1 | |
19 | NA | Jamie Westbrook | 45 | 5th Round | |
20 | NA | Brad Keller | 40 | 8th Round | |
20 | NA | Jose Munoz | 40 | -2 | |
22 | NA | Matt McPhearson | 35 | 4th Round | |
23 | NA | Jose Herrera | 26 | Venezuelan IFA | |
23 | NA | Michael Perez | 26 | -12 | |
25 | NA | Andrew Barbosa | 24 | Unranked last year | |
26 | NA | Nick Ahmed | 22 | -12 | |
27 | NA | Anthony Meo | 16 | -14 | |
28 | NA | Brandon Sinnery | 15 | Undrafted FA | |
29 | NA | Brandon Jacobs | 13 | Mark Trumbo trade, White Sox | |
29 | NA | Evan Marshall | 13 | -10 | |
31 | NA | Charles Brewer | 12 | -4 | |
31 | NA | Ender Inciarte | 12 | Unranked last year | |
33 | NA | Andrew Velazquez | 11 | Unranked last year | |
34 | NA | Chuck Taylor | 10 | Unranked last year | |
35 | NA | Gerson Montilla | 7 | Unranked last year |
2013 prospects not on 2014 list
Graduated:
Didi Gregorius, #6
A.J. Pollock, #10
Traded:
Tyler Skaggs, #1 - To the Angels in the Mark Trumbo trade
Matt Davidson, #3 - To the White Sox in the Addison Reed trade
Adam Eaton, #4 - To the White Sox in the Mark Trumbo trade
David Holmberg, #8 - To the Reds in the Heath Bell trade
Yordy Cabrera, #21 - To the Marlins in the Heath Bell trade
Ryan Wheeler, #23 - To the Rockies for Matt Reynolds
Rule 5:
Starling Peralta, #25 - Returned to the Cubs
Dropped Off:
Alfredo Marte, #16
Chase Anderson, #17
Keon Broxton, #21
Evan Marzilli, #25
Jonathan Griffin, #27
J.R. Bradley, #30
Socrates Brito, #30
Visual Representation
Here is a chart of the Diamondbacks' 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.