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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.
Robbie Ray was not ranked on every list, since he was traded to the team mid-offseason. I gave him a ranking of three on the lists that missed him.
You can also view the 2013 Detroit Tigers top prospect list.
Sources
Regular Lists
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 Detroit Tigers 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 | Nick Castellanos | 650 | 200 | 0 |
2 | 3 | Robbie Ray | 624 | 191 | Doug Fister trade, Nationals |
3 | 2 | Jonathon Crawford | 622 | 194 | 1st Round |
4 | 4 | Jake Thompson | 604 | 188 | 1 |
5 | 6 | Eugenio Suarez | 543 | 169 | 3 |
6 | 11 | Corey Knebel | 500 | 85 | 1st Round |
7 | 8 | James McCann | 444 | 134 | 7 |
8 | 7 | Devon Travis | 412 | 144 | 11 |
9 | 13 | Endrys Briceno | 372 | 45 | Unranked last year |
10 | 5 | Steven Moya | 346 | 175 | 0 |
11 | 9 | Daniel Fields | 304 | 95 | 2 |
12 | 15 | Drew VerHagen | 298 | 43 | 6 |
13 | 12 | Tyler Collins | 272 | 46 | -4 |
14 | NA | Casey Crosby | 233 | -8 | |
15 | NA | Melvin Mercedes | 148 | 8 | |
15 | NA | Domingo Leyba | 148 | Unranked last year | |
17 | 14 | Kevin Ziomek | 138 | 44 | 2nd Round |
18 | 16 | Austin Schotts | 129 | 42 | -11 |
19 | NA | Javier Betancourt | 120 | Unranked last year | |
20 | NA | Harold Castro | 104 | -8 | |
20 | NA | Kyle Lobstein | 104 | Rays, Curt Casali | |
22 | NA | Steven Fuentes | 98 | Unranked last year | |
23 | NA | Buck Farmer | 89 | 5th Round | |
24 | NA | Austin Kubitzka | 77 | 4th Round | |
25 | NA | Jose Valdez | 66 | Unranked last year | |
26 | NA | Kyle Ryan | 58 | Unranked last year | |
27 | NA | Wilsen Palacios | 57 | Unranked last year | |
28 | NA | Zach Reininger | 55 | 8th Round | |
29 | NA | Jose Ortega | 54 | -10 | |
30 | NA | Jordan Lennerton | 53 | Unranked last year | |
31 | 16 | Jordan John | 49 | 42 | Unranked last year |
32 | NA | Jeff Thompson | 44 | 3rd Round | |
33 | NA | Joe Jimenez | 43 | Puerto Rican NDFA | |
34 | NA | Ramon Cabrera | 37 | -9 | |
35 | NA | Calvin Drummond | 34 | 6th Round | |
35 | NA | Dean Green | 34 | Unranked last year | |
37 | NA | Warwick Saupold | 27 | Unranked last year | |
38 | NA | Willy Adames | 26 | Unranked last year | |
39 | NA | Anthony Castro | 25 | Unranked last year | |
40 | NA | Francisco Martinez | 24 | Traded from Mariners for cash | |
41 | NA | Will Clinard | 23 | -10 | |
41 | NA | Matt Hoffman | 23 | -15 | |
43 | NA | Franklin Navarro | 22 | Unranked last year | |
44 | NA | Jeff Holm | 21 | Unranked last year | |
45 | NA | Angel Nesbitt | 18 | Unranked last year | |
46 | NA | Ryan Robowski | 17 | Unranked last year | |
47 | NA | Tommy Collier | 15 | Unranked last year | |
48 | NA | Kasey Coffman | 14 | 10th Round | |
49 | NA | Elys Escobar | 13 | Unranked last year | |
50 | NA | Aaron Westlake | 11 | Unranked last year | |
51 | NA | Jade Todd | 9 | Unranked last year | |
52 | NA | Josh Turley | 8 | Unranked last year | |
53 | NA | Will Startup | 7 | Independent Leagues | |
54 | NA | Connor Harrell | 5 | 7th Round | |
55 | NA | Chad Green | 3 | 11th Round | |
56 | NA | Chase Edwards | 2 | 24th Round | |
NA | 10 | Jose Alvarez | 86 | Unranked last year |
2013 prospects not on 2014 list
Graduated:
Bruce Rondon, #3
Hernan Perez, #17
Traded:
Avisail Garcia, #2 - To the White Sox in the Jose Iglesias trade
Danry Vasquez, #4 - To the Astros for Jose Veras
Rule 5:
Jeff Kobernus, #19 - Returned to the Nationals
Jesus Ustariz, #26 - Rule 5 to the Cardinals
Dropped Off:
Brenny Paulino, #11
Dean Green, #15
Joe Rogers, #16
Montreal Robertson, #19
Logan Ehlers, #24
Alex Burgos, #26
Kenny Faulk, #29
Michael Morrison, #30
Tyler Gibson, #31
Visual Representation
Here is a chart of the Tigers' 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.