I hope everyone got all of the trade/free agent signings talk out of their system, so lets get back to discussing prospects. Joe Savery took home the #9 spot, edging out Zach Collier and Jason Knapp. I’ll have more on Savery sometime later this week. For now though, we’ll round out the top 10 in the voting, which should be a close call. One reminder. If you choose to write in a vote, please type in your choice before hitting the submit vote button, and after you vote, please be kind enough to share who you voted for in the comments, since other readers can’t see the “other” write-ins. More below the fold…

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #10 →

Travis D’Arnaud took the number 8 spot in impressive fashion, receiving 161 of the 239 votes cast, a healthy margin for sure. Things are about to get real interesting now, as no player really stood out as a close 2nd place. I mentioned it before, a number of times, if you choose to vote for a player not listed by using the “OTHER” choice, you still need to type in your selection before you actually submit your vote. Anyway, full results below the fold…

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #9 →

#7 went to JA Happ, who edged Travis D’Arnaud by 16 votes. As I mentioned 2 days ago, I’ve now changed the voting method, so that it registers votes based on IP address as well as cookies, meaning you can only vote once, and if your IP address is shared with someone else, and that someone else already voted, you won’t be able to vote. Its unlikely this will cause an issue. And just to get this out of the way, if there is any trade talk posted in this post, I’m just going to delete it. Also, one more note on voting. If you write in a vote please post it in the comments of the post so others can see. I’m the only one able to see the answers, so it might be helpful. Thanks.

Check below for more…

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #8 →

Dominic Brown took slot number 6 in a walk (something he does well) racking up 73 votes, with JA Happ coming in a distant second with 21 tallies. I’ll give the full totals here, and then I have some more info to pass on before we get to number 7.

Brown – 73
Happ – 21
D’Arnaud – 10
Mayberry – 2
Cisco and Savery – 1

Check below for more…

[Update 9:10 PM] Looks like I have to limit voting by IP addresses now. That will take effect starting with #8.

If that affects you, sorry. Some people can’t just leave well enough alone and have to ruin it for everyone else.

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #7 →

Michael Taylor was the big winner for the #5 spot, taking 49% of the vote, while Dominic Brown and JA Happ battled for second, and will likely battle for the #6 slot. The voting breakdown

Taylor — 53
Brown — 28
Happ — 18
Mayberry — 4
D’Arnaud — 4
Savery — 1

Continue reading Reader Top 30; #6 →

The voting thread for spot #4 confirmed to me my decision to stop participating in the discussions here. Its done wonders for my sanity. Kyle Drabek won a close vote for the #4 spot over Michael Taylor, with 10 different prospects getting votes. Complete breakdown:

Drabek — 52
Taylor — 45
Happ — 15
Brown — 6
Mayberry — 3
D’Arnaud — 2
Mathieson, Collier, Savery, Knapp — 1

Today we round out the top 5.

01. Carlos Carrasco, RHP
02. Lou Marson, C
03. Jason Donald, SS
04. Kyle Drabek, RHP
05.

As expected, Jason Donald won the #3 spot handily after falling short on Day 1 and Day 2. The voting should now get quite interesting, with a number of intriguing guys in the 4-10 range. The final breakdown for #3 was

Donald, 63
Taylor, 17
Drabek, 17
Happ, 13
Brown, 2
Savery, 1
D’Arnaud, 1
Knapp, 1

01. Carlos Carrasco, RHP
02. Lou Marson, C
03. Jason Donald, SS
04.

Lou Marson rolled over the field in round 2, claiming 81 votes. The breakdown was as follows

Marson, 81
Donald, 16
Drabek, 8
Taylor, 3
Happ, 3

So now we move on to #3, which should prove a very interesting vote.

01. Carlos Carrasco, RHP
02. Lou Marson, C
03.

Lots of participation for #1, I hope that it continues as we move through the Top 30. There were 117 votes cast, and the breakdown was

Carrasco: 52
Marson: 47
Donald: 11
Drabek: 4
Happ: 2
Taylor: 1

So then, Carlos Carrasco is the Readers’ #1 pick. He obviously cannot be selected in future polls. When voting for #2, you can vote for any eligible player, the same process as day one.

01. Carlos Carrasco, RHP
02.

So I’ve decided that we’ll start the Reader Top 30 this week. I’ll start #1 today, #2 on Wednesday, and then #3 either on Friday or next Monday, and then we’ll do one a day until we’re done. If you’re new to the site and missed last year’s version, you can go here and see how it works. This year, instead of excluding anyone like I did last year, we’ll just use the MLB rookie requiremets. No more than 130AB or 50 IP. I don’t have all of the service days, so ignore that aspect of it. Basically, anyone with less than 130 AB or 50 IP is eligible. At the end of each voting period, I add up the votes and the player with the most votes gets selected for that day. When we start a new round, every player but the players already voted into the Top 30 are again eligible. We do this until we get to #30. At the end of the process, I’ll solicit people’s personal Top 30 lists and put them into a spreadsheet again just like last year.

Ok, have at it. Please only vote once.