If you follow me on Twitter you have seen me rant about the rankings all week, mostly involving non-Phillies prospects. For now here are the rankings as far as the Phillies are involved (all scouting grades are theirs not mine)
Maikel Franco – #26
60 Hit – 70 Power – 30 Run – 60 Arm – 50 Field
Jesse Biddle – #53
55 Fastball – 60 Curveball – 50 Changeup – 50 Control
Positional Rankings:
Lefthanded Pitchers: Jesse Biddle #4
Third Base: Maikel Franco #4
Jim Callis did mention that Franco would have ranked #1 on their 1B list ahead of Jonathan Singleton.
Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo have both mentioned that J.P. Crawford just missed the Top 100.
Phuture Phillies 
60 hit 70 power is a little much….. thats .300 with 40 bombs
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I was gonna say, that really stood out to me. Looks like above average defensive grades too. Man, it would really be nice to see him reach those heights.
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The hit tool seemed excessively optimistic to me as well, the power is possible, but I suspect with a worse hit tool you are seeing more 60-65 power.
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Only 2 players hit 40 home runs last year. It might be necessary to adjust our thinking about what constitutes plus power these days.
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Although I guess the combination of a really good hit tool and a really good power tool would have to result in a crazy number of home runs so I see what you’re saying.
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for me the 20-80 scale is not a year to year evaluation
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But when power is down across baseball for an extended period of time, does it mean no one or almost no one has elite power, or does the definition of elite power change? I don’t know how that works.
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The definition changes, as it has repeatedly over the years. Dead ball, live ball, juiced ball. Regular players, juiced players. High mound, low mound. High strike, no high strike. Put the balls in the humidor, or not. Post-PEDs, the page may have turned again. It will be a few years until we know for sure. There have always been gaps in power output, when one generation of sluggers has gone over the hill and the next generation has yet to hit its swing. At present, 30 – 40 HR is a lot.
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we are getting into a territory of comparing scouting reports of ability to actual production. Gray area I suppose. But 20-80 is a scouting assessment.
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In fact, there were only 10 players over 30. Franco had 31.
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To put this in context, an ‘average quality’ MLB farm will have the #15, #45, #75, and #105 prospects. This puts us missing the later of the 3 average top 100 guys, having Crawford as just about the dead average spot for the #4 organizational prospect, and with Franco and Biddle just a tad below average for the top two prospects in an MLB average organization. We probably do have greater than normal depth in the 11-30 range, with less than average quality in the 5-10 range. I think that puts our farm ranking in the high teens, somewhere from 16-20, which is an improvement from 2013.
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The mlb.com list has definitely gotten better since Callis went to work for them. Ethan Martin being the #80 prospect last year was certainly pretty curious. This year it looks more like the rest of the industry’s rankings.
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for sure. I think Mayo is great also, but Jim Callis opens so many doors to scouts.
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Matt quick question, which profiles have you updated since the season has ending and do you plan on finishing the rest by the start of the season?
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So the ones I would classify as updated are the ones in the new format which right now is only Knapp, Rupp, Grullon, Franco, Pujols, Biddle, Mecias, Anderson, and Giles. I do plan to have all of them updated by the start of the season and at very least have all of the players in my Top 30 updated by the time that releases in 3 weeks.
One day when I have time I will knock out a ton of them.
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Not that I think MAG would have cracked the MLB top-100, but in case anyone is wondering why Tanaka was not on that list.
“Such international signees as new Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, in case you were wondering, were not considered. The rankings follow the guidelines laid out by the new Collective Bargaining Agreement in terms of who falls under the international pool money rules: Players who are at least 23 years old and played in leagues deemed to be professional (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Cuba) are not eligible.”
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I think MAG fits into the top 100 easily. Some fringy names on the back end. Floor vs ceiling.
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Huh? MAG’s floor is never healthy enough to pitch in MLB.
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Interestingly, 33 of the top 50 were 1st round picks.
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10 are international signees so only 7 are outside first round. Teams are getting better at amateur scouting, meaning not giving up picks is more important than ever
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20% of the top 50 international signees…more reason for the Phillies to fully utilize their total yearly international allocation monies.
Do I believe that they will do that?
I do not have faith that they will.
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correction – 20% of the top 50 are international signees
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