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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.
Jose Abreu and Matt Davidson were not ranked on every list. I gave them a two and three ranking, respectively on the lists that did not rank them. I also gave Marcus Semien a rank of five on the BR ranking. It seemed like more an oversight than a real non-ranking, and it messed up the overall results.
You can also view the 2013 Chicago White Sox 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 Chicago White Sox 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 | Jose Abreu | 387 | 99 | Cuban IFA |
2 | 5 | Erik Johnson | 384 | 91 | 2 |
3 | 2 | Matt Davidson | 374 | 93 | Addison Reed trade, Diamondbacks |
4 | 6 | Marcus Semien | 336 | 80 | 14 |
5 | 2 | Tim Anderson | 330 | 93 | 1st Round |
6 | 4 | Courtney Hawkins | 328 | 92 | -5 |
7 | 7 | Trayce Thompson | 289 | 78 | -5 |
8 | 10 | Chris Beck | 283 | 38 | 1 |
9 | 9 | Tyler Danish | 241 | 52 | 2nd Round |
10 | 8 | Micah Johnson | 218 | 61 | Unranked last year |
11 | 12 | Carlos Sanchez | 186 | 18 | -8 |
12 | 14 | Danny Webb | 150 | 17 | Unranked last year |
13 | NA | Jacob May | 138 | 3rd Round | |
14 | NA | Francellis Montas | 84 | Jake Peavy trade, Red Sox | |
15 | NA | Scott Snodgress | 81 | -7 | |
16 | NA | Andrew Mitchell | 70 | 4th Round | |
17 | NA | Chris Bassitt | 67 | Unranked last year | |
17 | 11 | Keon Barnum | 67 | 34 | -7 |
19 | 12 | Micker Adolfo Zapata | 59 | 18 | Dominican IFA |
20 | 14 | Adam Engel | 48 | 17 | 19th Round |
21 | NA | Trey Michalczewski | 41 | 7th Round | |
22 | 16 | Jared Mitchell | 33 | 16 | -15 |
23 | NA | Jacob Petricka | 25 | -10 | |
24 | NA | Leury Garcia | 22 | Rangers, Alex Rios trade | |
25 | NA | Eric Surkamp | 17 | Claimed off waivers, Giants | |
26 | NA | Chris Freudenberg | 16 | 8th Round | |
27 | NA | Adam Lopez | 14 | Unranked last year | |
28 | NA | Rangel Ravelo | 11 | Unranked last year | |
29 | NA | Matt Ball | 7 | 11th Round | |
29 | NA | Cleuluis Rondon | 7 | Jake Peavy trade, Red Sox | |
31 | NA | Braulio Ortiz | 6 | Unranked last year | |
32 | NA | Myles Jaye | 3 | -16 | |
33 | NA | Jefferson Olacio | 1 | Unranked last year |
2013 prospects not on 2014 list
Graduated:
Andre Rienzo, #6
Josh Phegley, #21
Traded:
Jeff Soptic, #27 - To the Giants for Conor Gillaspie
Outrighted:
Simon Castro, #12
Jhan Marinez, #21
DFAed:
Santos Rodriguez, #24
Dropped Off:
Keenyn Walker, #5
Nestor Molina, #11
Joey DeMichele, #14
Charlie Leesman, #15
Brandon Brennan, #17
Sammy Ayala, #19
Tyler Saladino, #20
Andy Wilkins, #21
Kevan Smith, #24
Kyle Hansen, #24
Luis Castillo, #28
Todd Kibby, #29
Visual Representation
Here is a chart of the White Sox 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.