Nine Yankees make Baseball America’s top 100 also-rans list

March 3, 2014 by Mike Axisa 19 Comments

When Baseball America released their annual top 100 prospects list last month, the Yankees only had two representatives, and one (RHP Masahiro Tanaka) isn’t really a prospect. C Gary Sanchez was the only true prospect to make the list but he was far from the only Yankees’ farmhand to receive consideration. In fact, nine others were within shouting distance of the top 100.

J.J. Cooper published the top 100 also-rans list today, meaning the players who appeared on the personal top 150 prospects lists of the various editors but not the final top 100. The nine Yankees: OF Aaron Judge (one vote, peaked at #150), 3B Eric Jagielo (four, 131), 2B Gosuke Katoh (one, 147), 1B Greg Bird (one, 97), LHP Ian Clarkin (one, 135), C John Ryan Murphy (two, 122), RHP Luis Severino (one, 150), OF Mason Williams (six, 90), and OF Slade Heathcott (six, 89). Seems like Williams and Heathcott were the closest to the top 100, understandably so.

Eselquetodolosabe

Big anticipation to see what Aaron Judge brings to the franchise. Also, a forgotten player, Ty Hensley should be interesting to monitor. A nice amount of interesting prospects to keep an eye out for…. Can’t wait.
- pat
  
  Funny how a 6’7″ 230 LB first round CF can be thought of as a forgotten man. But he totally is. Haven’t heard diddyabout him since he signed so late,
  - I’m One
    
    And also since he didn’t really play due to injury. I’m really hopefull he’s healthy all season and puts on a display at the plate this season, at whatever level he’s playing at. He’ll need to work to keep his strikeout rate under control, but if he can do that, he can be a really exciting player.
Richard Leo

obviously those guys are the keys to the farm.
but don’t forget banuelos and tyler austin.
viridiana

Very interesting. This list really provides numerical basis for argument that Yankee farm is not as bad as it looks — and could indeed improve dramatically by net year.
Looks like there are roughly 110 prospects on this list. Yanks are over-represented with nine players. Three or four would be average.
And if you combine the Top 100 with this list, Yanks have 11 out of Top 210 prospects. Again, average would be seven. Of course, it would be much nicer to be Top heavily in the Top 100. But this is the next best thing and should provide encouragement after two very hard-luck years on farm.
BA even mentions Judge and Severino as youngsters who could rise to Top 100 next year.
- viridiana
  
  *to be top-heavy*
- Tom
  
  This is not a list of the next top 111 prospects. This simply means one of seven people saw a prospect in the top 150, which for reasons unknown you are concluding to mean the next best 111 prospects. If just one evaluator had a high opinion of someone it would skew the list. Which is probably why BA uses seven people to do this.
  
  For example – one guy had Katoh at 147. The other 6 had him out of the top 150, but we have no idea how far outside the top 150. For some reason you have decided he must be in the top 211, simply because one of seven guys had him in the top 150? How can you conclude this without knowing anything about what the other 6 folks thought?
  
  I think you can reasonably conclude guys on multiple lists are guys in the next tier (Williams, Heathcott, Jagielo, Murphy?), but guys getting a single vote could be just about anywhere overall.
  - viridiana
    
    Of course it’s not a definitive ranking. That’s obvious. But the guys on this list all attracted at least someone’s attention. And the guys who did not attract any attention are not on the list. So there are clear and justifiable parameters. It’s a rough cut, sure. But it tells us there are nine more Yankees prospects who are at least in the conversation.
W.B. Mason Williams

John Ryan Murphy could really shoot up the rankings in a hurry if he puts up similar numbers to last year.
- Ed
  
  If he plays like he did last year, he could easily end up on someone’s MLB roster and ineligible for next year’s list.
RetroRob

I’m sure the voting methodology is in there somewhere, but Judge gets one vote and peaks at 150, while Greg Bird gets one vote and peaks at 97?

I suppose I will now have to go read it!
- Jorge Steinbrenner
  
  Seems like just an aggregate of the folks who contributed to the top 100 list.
  - RetroRob
    
    I initially thought the peak vote was some how related to the number of votes. Made more sense once I looked it over. Interesting that at least one person thought Bird was already a top 100 prospect.
    - ALZ
      
      He put up strong stats this year.
- Ed
  
  I assumed that each voter submitted their own ranked list of 150 (at least), and then the lists were averaged together to make the final list.
- Mikhel
  
  Per Baseball America
  
  ¨• One point for ranking as a league’s top batting or pitching prospect.
  
  • Four points for ranking as a league’s No. 1 prospect, with value descending by two-tenths of a point thereafter, so 3.8 points for ranking No. 2 on down to 0.2 points for ranking No. 20.
  
  • Five points for ranking in a Triple-A league; four points for Double-A; three points for high Class A; two points for low Class A; and one point for any of the six short-season leagues.
  
  • Two points for playing pitcher, catcher or shortstop; one point for playing second base, third base or outfield; no points for playing first base.
  
  • Players receive half-credit for their league’s star rating, so that a player in a five-star league such as the Florida State receives 2.5 points; a player in a one-star league such as the California receives 0.5 points.
  
  • Organizations do not receive double credit for having one prospect who ranks on two lists; only the player’s highest score is counted toward the total.
  
  It rewards organizations for having players in close proximity to the majors who stand out in talented leagues and who play demanding positions.¨
Tanakapalooza Floozy

Cashman failed, obvi.
http://ROTOscouting.com Mike Newman

When scouting players, I prefer to go in blind and report what happens over the course of a game or series. I saw the Charleston team in May including Aaron Judge, Ian Clarkin, etc. Overall, the roster was impressive, but Luis Severino was THE guy. With a big fastball (touched 97) and strong feel for a change-up, he’s probably the best pitcher in the system right now. Clarkin was solid too, but the difference was night and day.
David

Nobody realizes it just yet but everyone will soon. Bird is the word. He is going to be the Yankees starting first baseman by 2016 at minimum. He right now is the Yankees top prospect irregardless of any list you see out there I would go as far as saying Greg Bird right now is better then Texiera. In fact not only is Bird the best Yankee prospect, he is the best hitter in the entire Yankees system PERIOD. If the Yankees were to start Greg Bird at 1st base in 2015 from day 1, he would hit 30 hr and have over 100 rbi’s, and would be the AL roy.