My ranking of all 30 farm systems went up this morning, and it will all be followed on Thursday morning by the master ranking of the top 100 prospects plus top tens for all 30 organizations and an article on the ten guys who just missed the main 100. ESPNDeportes.com will have my ranking of the top 40 Latin American prospects in the minors, limited to players born outside the U.S.
I’ll chat Thursday at 1 pm, and I believe we have two other prospects chatting tomorrow, including #1 overall prospect Jason Heyward.
And on Friday, I’ll have an article on at least one sleeper in each organization who could make the big leap on to the list next year; last year’s list had around 32 names in total, and I think 14 ended up on this year’s top 100.
As for the dish, I hope to resume regular blogging tomorrow night, probably with a long-overdue writeup of Power Grid. Thanks for your patience.
Keith,
Keep up the good work. Have you ever done / considered doing a blog piece on the best and worst free agent signings of the offseason. I know that you did a ranking of the Top 50 free agents prior to signing and you’ve blogged following some of the signings, but it would be interesting to see your rankings.
I always heavily look forward to the KLaw 100 prospects! I’m hoping my Mets have 3 in the top 50 (Mejia, Martinez, Davis).
And very ironic – I just played Power Grid for the first time last night…good game!
another quick thing I noticed about other top prospects lists: it seems that everyone has “just traded” bias towards their rankings. I’ve seen AJax, Aumont, Drabek, Wallace, etc. all a lot higher than they should be (or at least I think they should be). I saw Aumont ranked 28 or 29 on one – what?!
Keith: I know Edison Volquez is coming off TJ but given his pre-surgery repetoire (and major league success), can you spoil one ranking and tell us if he made your top 10?
+n, +r = spelling fail
Everything is live now.
Aiden: I had an exec point out the same thing, actually, referring specifically to a player his team had acquired.
HK: Probably not. No time between this project and now the immediate rollover into the draft.
Keith, the text you attributed to George Frideric Handel at the top of your top 100 prospects list was actually written by his librettist for that oratorio, Thomas Morell. Handel was a composer. He rarely crafted the texts that he set musically.
Nik: Thanks. I know nothing about classical music, and in fact found the quote in Ulysses. When I googled it, I only came up with Handel’s name on the text. My error.
My pleasure. Wonderful job, yet again, with your rankings, even if I do feel you graded the A’s prospects a bit harshly. Thanks!
ulysses related – the last chapter was eye bleedingly awful and after so much work to make it that far – he pulls the 60 pages of non punctuated solid block writing. this is when I threw the book, cursed and concluded that the best part of reading ulysses was finishing the book and then being able to say ‘i’ve read ulysses’. good luck and great job to finish….
Keith, I’m working my way through the Jeeves and Wooster Ominbus, very enjoyable reading, thanks for the recommendation. Considering that fact that great writing can be so enjoyable, why would anybody ever want to put themselves through reading Ulysses if the best thing to be said about it is that you finished it (I know Brian said that, but I get the feeling you may agree)? I’ve very rarely started a book and not finished it, but when I have it was because I didn’t find it enjoyable to read (Ivanhoe leaps immediately to mind).
Regarding the top 100, do you really think Lars Anderson might be too smart? Or perhaps to state more accurately, that his struggles last year might be related to a tendency to over-analyze things, leading to self-doubt?
Rhum Babancourt is actually distilled in St. Lucia. TrueFact.
Keith, I think your slogan should be, “Keith Law: Biased against whatever team you root for since 19xx.” xx being whatever year you started writing for espn. I’d buy that t-shirt.
Hey Keith. Trapped in my Man Room while my wife hosts 30 other women for a jewelry party. Good times. I missed your live chat the other day and wanted to ask: When you rank your top 100 prospects …. how do you weight and take into account the following things:
1) Raw ability. Stuff, tools.
2) Performance in the minors.
3) What your eyes & guts tell you about how likely a guy is to be a success. For instance … Strasburg is highly likely to be good unless he gets injured. But Lars Anderson … you have to take a leap of faith that with his intelligence and raw ability, he’ll work things out.
Just curious how you consider all those things to come up with your rankings.
Thanks for the ESPN content and great blog here … great tips. Picked up some Pimsleur CDs on your suggestion and was able to converse a little in Polish when I met a Polish foreign national on a trip to AZ. Actually, when our Pointer / Black Lab mix is naughty, we now say “Przepraszam!” (Excuse me!!).
Dan – I like it.
Joe K.: There’s no formula, although I will say that gut feel/instinct comes into both 1 and 2. If I see a player and get an immediate, strong reaction on his future, I listen to it.