Reader Top 30; #2

2010 Reader Top 30

We kicked off the Reader Top 30 on Friday, and as I close down the voting, Kyle Drabek ends up taking the top spot, with a total of 260 votes, with Domonic Brown coming in 2nd at 219 and Michael Taylor coming in 3rd with 94 votes. It should make for an interesting debate at #2, so we won’t waste any time in getting there. I’m going to add one player into the mix, though I doubt we’ll need him this round. Check below the fold for the poll…

01 – Kyle Drabek, RHP
02 –

53 thoughts on “Reader Top 30; #2”

  1. Crap. I don’t think you can go wrong with either one. Both have tons of talent, and are performing at high levels. I went with Brown because he has a higher ceiling and is a few years younger. It was a tough call though.

    – Jeff

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  2. I went with Taylor because he’s closer to the show but I can’t argue against Brown. #3 will be the easiest slot to pick. If its Brown this round, it will be Taylor in the next or vise-versa.

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  3. I don’t think the talent gap between Brown/Taylor is enough to override the fact that Taylor is further along the development scale. This puts Taylor #2 and Brown #3..

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  4. Although I think Michael Taylor is most likely to be a very good player out of the big 3, I understand why he is 3rd on most lists. Drabek likely brings more value in any trade, so he probably should be #1. Brown reportedly is more coveted than Taylor. But I still think Taylor will be better than both.

    Vote for Taylor.

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  5. Domonic Brown because of a more baseball oriented type of atheticism than Taylor might have. Also the younger age, speed , defense, and the like. Putting Taylor higher than Brown might have seen influence from the football oriented triangle approach, which bases evaluation on the height, weight, speed factors, and the whole Stanford communicate with the public thing. I say Brown.

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  6. I picked Brown #1o overall ahead of Drabek so of course I’m sticking with him here. He is already better defensively than Taylor in left and right fields, can play all 3 outfield positions, is 2 years younger and just 1 level behind. I think he is faster and has better power potential than Taylor.

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  7. I voted for Taylor. I realize that everyone talks about Domonic Brown having the higher upside given his age and raw tools and, who knows, perhaps that’s true. But here’s why I voted for Taylor.

    First, he has an unbelievable demonstrated history of success – I concur that, of our top 3 guys, he’s the most likely to be a very good player – probably at least a 50% chance of being at least a borderline all-star guy and probably a 70% chance of being a solid regular.

    Second, I haven’t seen him play very much, so commenting on his tools is a little premature. However, I am straining to see what tools he does NOT have. He can hit for average, he hits for power, he gets on base, he steals bases and he’s got a rocket for an arm by all accounts.

    Third, I just have a feel with him that his potential is even more than what we suspect. Charlie is very good at taking good hitters and raising their power a notch. So, maybe Taylor really isn’t a 20-30 homer guy a year, perhaps he’s a 25-40 homer guy a year and, if so, that’s a superstar, particularly if he can continue to hit around .300. He’s also an extremely bright and motivated fellow (not that Brown isn’t, but Taylor has a reputation for being extremely intelligent, this coming straight from the mouth of the his Stanford coach with whom I spoke last summer, who referred to Taylor has being very “cereberal”).

    So, for me, it’s Taylor at 2.

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  10. Went with Taylor at 2, b/c he has had huge success at each level and is at a higher level than Brown. Saw him play and think he has all the tools. Put him in the Phils lineup now and he makes a contribution.

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  11. I’m going with upside and thus Brown just nudges Taylor out for me. No insult to Taylor whatsoever. Its rare to have two great OF prospects like this. I hope we don’t do something stupid like trade either one. They are more like 2a and 2b to me.

    At this point I think Taylor is a better ballplayer but Brown is the better prospect if that makes sense.

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  12. I went with Taylor mostly because he will be the future leader of this club (unless …). On the field Taylor plays better defense. Brown is faster. That should mean fun by 2011 or sooner.

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  13. I went with Taylor, for many of the reasons listed above. Just to reiterate…

    If you rate Browns potential from 1-100 at 90, and taylors at 85. I feel like that would be a fair comparison. However, the hang up for me is results so far. I see taylor at 90 (practically overachieving) and brown at 82.

    Add the numbers togeather, and it explains why I have taylor ahead of brown. I mean look at Taylors numbers in 2008 in comparison to browns 2009? Taylor hit .310 with 20 HR’s in 2008, whereas brown hit .290 with 14 HR’s. I understand brown has more upside being as he did it at a younger age, but Taylor is so close to major league ready I have to give him the edge here. Ultimately, this year will define a lot for each player. If brown’s projected power doesn’t show itself this year and taylor can maintain his historical dominance, this pick next year will be a no-brainer for me.

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  14. It’s looking like we won’t even need to vote for Prospect #3. Just take the “loser” of the Taylor/Brown vote here and move on to #4.

    By the way, I voted for Taylor for basically all the reasons stated in the above comments.

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  15. Taylor. Just because!

    Haha, Taylor just has that intangible that I love. He wants what he wants and works his arse off to get it. As someone already mentioned the gulf between Brown and Taylor isn’t big enough to unsubstantiate the consistent numbers Taylor’s put up already. Brown is still green. Taylor looks a heck of a lot closer to being a finished product (prospect-wise that is).

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  16. I voted Taylor. He seems like a lock to be a good player. I think Brown will be, and could be better, but it seems certain that Taylor will be a good major league player. That being said, I am glad we have both of them and an outfield of Taylor, Brown and Gose would be pretty electrifying (and cheap)

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  17. I thought I was going to be in the distinct minority voting for Taylor over Brown, but it is actually looking relatively close. It also appears that more people who are voting for Taylor are explaining why. I have seen them both play on many occasions and while I can see why everyone is so excited over Brown, I am confident that Taylor will have the better career.

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  19. By the way, whoever suggested this is a really important year for both Brown and Taylor, I disagree with you with regard to Brown. Brown strikes me as the type of player who could make it to the major leagues, slowly improve and then go, almost overnight from a good player to a superstar. I don’t think this is even close to a critical season for Brown although, obviously, we’d all like to see him improve in all facets of the game, including in the field, where reports are that he is inconsistent.

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  24. went with taylor here. Everyone has made pretty good cases that i agree with. Im more of a production guy. I understand that potential makes you drool and can push brown higher, but thats what it is, potential. Taylor is closer, more polished, and right now has the better game. In my eyes that means he takes it at 2.

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  25. I went with Brown. I just hope to see Taylor and Brown in the Phillies OF at least some time in 2011 (apologies to Werth (FA) and Ibanez (Age)).

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  27. 2012 outfield- left field taylor, right field brown, center field werth. could be an incredible outfield, we just need to get ibanez out of here

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  31. I can’t see either Taylor or Brown as anything left than solid starting outfielders in the majors. I’m going with Brown because: (1) he’s demonstrated a smidge more patience than Taylor; and (2) if he gets his act together defensively, he’s a Gold Glove right fielder (whereas Taylor is either a passable right fielder or a good left fielder).

    Agreed with Bellman though: however this turns out, #3 will be the easiest decision of the entire process.

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  33. It was tough- but I went with Taylor because I’ve seen him play but I’ve never seen Brown. Taylor also gives such good interviews!

    Those silly reasons were my tie breaker.

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  34. Just wondering about the eligibility of Scott Mathieson in these rankings. While not a traditional prospect, he certainly merits consideration high on the list from what I’ve seen and read about his recovery.

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  35. What a fun choice to have to make. I don’t know if they will be but I hope they’re both here for awhile. I voted for Taylor as #2 because his last two seasons have just been so good. Brown has been good too but will hopefully get better while Taylor just needs to maintain his performance but do it on a tougher stage. I read lots of opinions saying Brown has a higher upside and maybe he does but Taylor is much more certain to me and his level of play could be that of a star too. Big Mike is the man!

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  36. I download the statistics for the Phillies Farm teams in preparation for the top 30 poll. I was sorting the hitters and came across an interesting fact. Who had the highest OBP of anyone in the system with more than 20 games played? The answer is Brendan Akashian with a .442. He only hit .204 but he had a ton of walks and he was hit by 5 pitches. Don’t go writing Brendan into the poll.

    OPS leader was none other than Michael Taylor. Santana and Brown were 2 and 3. Susdorf was very high also.

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  38. I voted for Taylor last time, and I did it again.

    With how close he is to making a difference, I can’t see putting Brown ahead of him, even if Brown has a higher ceiling.

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  40. RodeoJones – Brown does not play center. In fact, at this point, he’s a barely adequate corner outfielder. Of course that doesn’t mean much now. He projects to be a very good corner outfielder with instruction and playing time.

    Rating prospects has to be a large part “projectability.” When to prospects are similar, then the younger more projectable one has to be ranked higher. Clearly it’s not by much. But Brown has to get the nod for doing similar things at a much younger age. And he’s at a much younger baseball age since Taylor played college baseball and Brown never did. That’s a lot of development time. In Taylor’s case, wasted time because it was at Stanford. But it’s time nonetheless.

    Side question: Knowing what Stanford’s baseball program does to swings, why in the world would anyone who wants to play pro ball ever go there? There are good educations to be had at a lot of places not named Stanford, and at places that don’t ruin players’ natural swings.

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  41. ****Side question: Knowing what Stanford’s baseball program does to swings, why in the world would anyone who wants to play pro ball ever go there? There are good educations to be had at a lot of places not named Stanford, and at places that don’t ruin players’ natural swings.****

    Because a Stanford degree is a great thing to fall back on if you’re one of the 95% of college players that never see action in an MLB game.

    Also, there have been plenty of other Stanford players that have done just fine in the Majors regardless of their aluminum bat swing program.

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/stanford.shtml

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  42. If you told me my son would have an opportunity to play on a full-scholarship at Stanford, I’d stop what I was doing and get him out there – swing be damned. There are a small handful of top academic schools in the country that offer full athletic scholarships and Stanford is at the very top of that list. It’s the equivalent of somebody giving you a full scholarship to an Ivy League school that just happened to be located in a beautiful place with a perfect climate. If you were a good student, it would be really hard to turn that down.

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  43. The BA influence suggests Brown but I went with Taylor at #2 because I see him as a more consistent run producer. All throughout the World Series I kept thinking how much better we would have been with a hitter like him in the lineup. My right-handed bias might be showing but I think he’ll be able to hit all pitching better than Brown.

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  44. I went with Brown – and I’ll admit, I was swayed by opinions of the BA, BP, etc scouts. Those guys all seem to rank Brown higher because of his age/tool set.

    Personally I like that he can take a walk. I kind of see him developing into a Werth type. Both are tall athletic corner outfielders, with patience, good speed, decent, but not great contact, and quality defense (think Brown will get there). Like Werth, I kind of see Brown developing that Pop a few years into his MLB career. Just needs to grow into his frame.

    Taylors a little older – and the scouts don’t love him as much. Those are his only knocks! He’s going to be at least a really solid player – possibly much more.

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  45. Also, someone has already said it – but whoever happens to be the runner-up here – can we just go ahead and list them as #3 and be done with it?

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  51. I agree on the re-start. I will have to rethink my top prospects as well. I am nowhere near as positive about the new guys as Jeff. Probably something like this:

    1. Brown
    2. May
    3. Valle
    4. Gose
    5. Aumont
    6. Cosart
    7. Ramirez
    8. Santana
    9. Bastardo
    10. Maybe Gillies, Mathieson, Stutes, Savery, Worley (if eligible)

    All the Mariners prospects slot in a little below the ones we are giving up. Drabek>Aumont because Aumont is a relief pitcher. Taylor>Gillies because of power and higher level. D’Arnaud>Ramirez because he is at a premium position. I really wish we were getting Morrow in this deal. Gillies is an interesting project, but we have 5 of him. His stats at High Desert are a little bit of an illusion (though I guess that makes Ramirez look better as well).

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