So it appears that there was some ballot-stuffing marred the result of the first round of our community prospect polling.  Consequently, I've decided to award the top spot to the highest-polling "unstuffed" candidate, who was Dustin Ackley.  I understand that this unilateral move might challenge the credibility of the process, but I think it's the only fair result.  If people lose interest from here, then so be it.  So:

1.  Dustin Ackley

Please, do your best not to ruin this exercise for the rest of the community.  Really, we understand that you like your home team's prospects a lot.  Voting for them lots of times isn't going to make them lead your team to a World Series. 

Without further ado, here's the list of candidates for the #2 prospect in the minor leagues.  Try to nominate some folks to put on the ballot for round 3, if we have one. 

It seems like there are a lot of midseason prospect lists popping up, and they represent a wide range of opinions.  I thought it might be fun to do a community midseason list. 

Rules:  This is just guys playing in the minors right now.  That means no recent graduates or draftees. Nominate the guys you want on the next poll in the comments; top 2 vote getters will make it onto the next poll, while the lowest vote getter from the poll itself will fall off.

Make sense?  Cool.  Then let's kick this thing off.

Fantasy question coming:

How would you guys rank Esmil Rogers, Christian Friedrich and Jenrry Mejia?  Let me give you a little background: in my league, we can only keep two minor leaguers (defined as fewer than 60 abs or 30 IP in the majors).  I already have way more than two great minor leaguers:  Mike Stanton, Jesus Montero, Carlos Santana, Aaron Poreda, along with Rogers and Mejia.  Friedrich just popped up on waivers.  Is his upside good enough to where he'd be one of my 2 minor leaguers?

Also, I can trade guys over the offseason.  Would the community here give up more in a hypothetical deal for Friedrich than it would for Rogers or Mejia?

Thanks in advance--

Looking for a little help from the Minor League Ball community-- all other things being equal, who do you guys like to have a stronger 2010-- Garrett Mock or David Hernandez?

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For those who aren't aware, Tangotiger (one of the authors of "The Book" and a really accomplished sabermetrician) devised a stat called FIP, which is basically an easy-to-calculate DIPS ERA. The stat is really only intended for major leaguers, but I thought it might be instructive to see how guys in AAA are measuring up. To qualify, a guy has to have thrown at least 30 innings and have started at least 5 games. I know some of these guys have already been called up, but here are the lists. I set the league average ERAs to 4.20.

International League top 10:
Jamie Shields 2.24
Kevin Barry 2.69
Tom Gorzelanny 2.73
Jeremi Gonzalez 2.82
Hayden Penn 2.90
Kris Wilson 2.97
Matt Ginter 3.05
Travis Smith 3.13
Darrell Rasner 3.13
Jeremy Sowers 3.24

PCL top 10:
Rich Hill 1.97
Jered Weaver 2.32
John Wasdin 2.47
Dana Eveland 2.48
Francisco Cruceta 2.73
Ryan O'Malley 2.73
John Rheinecker 2.98
Randy Keisler 2.99
Philip Barzilla 2.99
Kyle Snyder 3.13

Caveats: FIP is not park adjusted, which is not such a huge deal at the major league level, but may be more relevant at the AAA level. Also, the whole point of DIPS/FIP is that major league pitchers do not differ significantly in their ability to prevent hits on balls in play; that conclusion doesn't mean that AAA pitchers have the same characteristic.

Having said that, I think these are still somewhat useful lists. I'm a guy who likes his prospects to perform well. But now, I think it's time to marry this list with some good old-fashioned scouting, so we can find the guys that both the statheads and the scouts like. Clearly, it's easier to get excited by a guy like Weaver than by a guy like Wasdin. So, question: which of these guys is well-regarded by the prospect scouting community? The only guys I'd heard of before this season were Weaver, Penn and Sowers. Gorzelanny, Shields, Eveland and Rheinecker all seem like B-/C+ kind of prospects. Anyone else I should have heard of?

I think that Young was probably in line to be the starting center fielder in Arizona until he broke his hand. Now that he's missed most of spring training, that's obviously not going to happen. When should I expect to see him in the majors? Is he going to be around enough this season to help my fantasy team, or should I cut bait on this guy now?

Really, I'm just looking for 2006 projections here. I know the guy's a great prospect and he has a great chance at being awesome down the road.

So who does the community think makes the leap this year, a la Liriano last year? If you'll recall, last year Liriano was generally regarded as a pretty good prospect, but nothing like he is now; John gave him a B last year, and he didn't make either BA's top 100 or BPro's top 50. This year John gave him an A, and I can only assume he'll make at worst the top 10 on both BA and BPro's lists. So who are your best guesses at decent prospects who are poised to make the leap?

As for myself, I, like John, really like Nick Adenhart. I'm also into Garret Mock, Rich Hill and Christian Garcia.

Is Dustin Pedroia likely to start in the Sox infield next year? I assume that Renteria is locked in at short. Is Dustin ahead of Hanley? Is it likely that either will be the team's starting second baseman next year?

Third base appears to be a bit unsettled as well. Could either of Dustin or Hanley settle in there? What orientation is most likely?

I somewhat doubt that the Sox start 2 rookies next year. I've also been told that Pedroia is further along than Ramirez. My best guess at the '06 Sox infield is:

1b-- Free Agent
2b-- Pedroia
ss--  Renteria
3b-- Mueller

Thoughts?

Fantasy Question:

I'm in a league in which the pitchers are scarce. Almost every useful major league pitcher has been rostered. However, because our rules require that teams place minor leaguers on their active major league rosters, all but the very top minor league prospects (e.g., Billingsley, Cain, Verlander, Liriano) are still available.

Other minor leaguers off the menu:
Rich Hill (for some reason)
Ian Snell
Yusmeiro Petit
Dustin McGowan, who I know is up
Brandon McCarthy
Scott Baker
Anthony Reyes

So, asking the group the question: Is there anyone else out there that you think might be a September contributor? I can basically only use guys who are likely to slot in as starting pitchers. All I can think of right now are Joel Zumaya, Adam Wainright and Chuck James. Is there anyone I'm missing? If not, which one of those guys should I grab?

The California League is great for hitters, but then again it also has some legitimately terrific hitting prospects.

Billy Butler (19) is hitting .346/.419/.638 with a 35/69 BB/K ratio.
Brandon Wood (20) is hitting .321/.385/.674 with a 34/79 BB/K ratio.
Ian Stewart (20) is hitting .277/.363/.494 with a 35/66 BB/K ratio.
Stephen Drew (22) is hitting .340/.440/.708 with a 17/19 BB/K ratio.

All of these prospects offers something a little bit different. Butler's performance thus far is only exceeded by Drew, who's 3 years older. Wood has a good chance of sticking at shortstop and therefore may provide strong production from a premium defensive spot. Stewart is the most toolsy hitter. Drew is the most major-league ready and also has a chance at sticking at short.

In their Midseason Report, BA ranked these guys: Stewart, Drew, Wood, Butler
Bryan Smith @ Baseball Analysts ranked them: Butler, Drew, Wood, Stewart.

Right now, I'd probably go Drew, Stewart, Wood, Butler. I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts.

I'm not in any way affiliated with Baseball Analysts-- I just read their site sometimes.  I think that Bryan Smith is a pretty sharp cookie when it comes to prospect analysis.  For those interested, he's put up the first half of his Updated Top 75 list, with the remainder to follow tomorrow.

I'm a little surprised to see Markakis all the way down at 52 and Jered Weaver at 63. Overrated guys, I think, are Casey Kotchman @ 36 and Phil Hughes @ 31.

http://baseballanalysts.com/

So, BA put out a midseason revision to their top 25 today. Can anyone share any tidbits without running too far afoul of copyright laws? I assume Delmon and Felix were 1+2.

I'm not expecting anyone to repost the whole list; I just want to stimulate some discussion. Where do they come out on LaRoche vs. Guzman? What about Verlander vs. Stephen Drew? C. Jackson vs. C. Quentin? Actually, who is #3? As of right now, I'd probably nominate Marte.

John posted this question to the board in late June:

"Assume you are building a fantasy farm system from scratch. Here are some either/or picks for you. Answer each either/or in the comments. I have deliberately set these up so that there is no obvious "right" answer. I want to see what you guys think, to make you think, and to get some good interaction going today.

Answer each in the comments. You can have

   1. Delmon Young OR Felix Hernandez
   2. Brandon Wood OR Jeremy Hermida
   3. Justin Verlander OR Stephen Drew
   4. Adam Miller OR Ian Stewart

Have at it."

Over 3 days, I believe 39 people answered John's question. If I'm not mistaken, the tallies went like this:

1. Young over Hernandez, 24-15
   
2. Hermida over Wood, 28-11
   
3. Verlander over Drew, 31-8
   
4. Stewart over Miller, 33-6

I have Carlos Quentin on my fantasy roster. Available in my league are Justin Upton, Stephen Drew, Daric Barton, Ian Stewart and Alex Gordon. I know those guys are all pretty good; should I cut Carlos for one of them, and if so, which one?

This is a fantasy points (not roto) league, so steals aren't any more important than they are in real baseball. Obviously, the closer a guy is to the majors the better.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Hey all--

Fantasy Question for you-- Who's the best guy in the minors not on this list? (Not counting rehab-types, Edwin Jackson or Jerome Williams.)

1b
Casey Kotchman
Prince Fielder
Conor Jackson

2b/ss
BJ Upton
Joel Guzman
Hanley Ramirez
Dustin Pedroia

3b
Ian Stewart
Edwin Encarnacion

of
Felix Pie
Delmon Young
Carlos Quentin

p
Jeff Niemann
Matt Cain
Brandon McCarthy
Zach Duke
Felix Hernandez

All thoughts appreciated.