Many things get the hard core baseball fan ready for the coming season. Among those might be the first day of spring training exhibition games or the day catchers and pitchers report. It might be your favorite teams kickoff event, the Cubs convention is perhaps the most famous of these events. For others, it is the release of the subjective prospect rankings, something Baseball America pioneered when it released its first such list in 1990. For quite some time now, annual list of a similar nature have been produced by baseball specific resources like Fangraphs, Baseball Prospectus and MLB’s own Pipeline which is it’s prospect driven site, while other more general sports sites like ESPN and The Athletic have also done so.
What is interesting to me is how there seems to be quite a bit of common thinking for the very top tier of these lists, but they quickly go off in different directions after about the top 20 players or so.
While the MLB and ESPN lists are free for all to see, you have to be a subscriber to Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus to see all of their more in depth content. So out of respect to those publications, I’m not going to run down every player and compare how they rank on all of these lists, but I want to make note of trends.
Note that Baseball Prospectus ranks 101 players, the others 100, but I did include player 101 for this review. A total of 140 players were on at least one of the four lists, 68 made it on all four, more about how this all broke down shortly. Of note, Baseball America was an outlier in years past as they would include major international signings who were experienced pros from Japan on their lists, starting this year, they like the others will not rank a player who is deemed to be a professional under the MLB rules for signing international players at or over age 25.
I compiled all of the ranked players on the lists and sorted them by players who were ranked on all four lists, then those on three, then those on two, and then those on a single list. Each player then got an average rank score and no surprise, Jackson Holliday of the Orioles who was the player at number 1 on every list had a rank score then of 1. There are some players who have better rank scores who are not on all lists, so I’m going to look at all players who were on all lists first, then work my way down from there. Players who have a tie score will then further be ranked based on who had the best or worst overall ranking.
Of the 68 players who were on all four lists, the player by far who had the worst average ranking was Bryce Eldrige of the Giants at 86.5, Baseball America had him at 57, while he was ranked 96 at both MLB and ESPN, 97 at Baseball Prospectus. Who was the second player after Jackson Holliday at the opposite end of this spectrum, Jackson Chourio of the Brewers, but his average rank of 3 was because Baseball Prospectus has him at number 6, the others all have him at 2.
There are 16 players who appear on 3 of the lists, interestingly the players who are missing from one of the lists are all either not on ESPN, Baseball America or Baseball Prospectus. All 16 of the players on a trio of lists made the cut for MLB, 6 were on all but Baseball America, while 4 each were on all but ESPN and Baseball Prospectus. Michael Busch, just recently obtained by the Cubs via trade had an average prospect ranking of 55 among the services that ranked him, he didn’t make the grade for ESPN but was ranked 43 by Baseball America, 51 by MLB and 71 by Baseball Prospectus. The best ranking for a player who didn’t make the cut for BA was 2023 Diamondbacks draftee Tommy Troy, who had an average rank of 58.67 among the trio who listed him, 35 at BP, 67 at ESPN and 74 at MLB. The best ranking average for a player who didn’t make the cut for BP, Pirates pitching prospect Jared Jones who had an average rank of 63, which included 53 from ESPN, 62 from MLB and 74 from BA.
There were 25 players who made it on a pair of lists. Here ESPN has the most common ground, 6 players were on their list along with BA, while they shared 5 with BP and another 4 with MLB. Of the 10 remaining players, 4 were also on MLB and BA, while BP shared 3 each with the MLB and BA lists.
The best average rank score with this group, AJ Smith-Shawver of the Braves with a 55.5 score, ranking 42 on BA and 69 on MLB. Dodgers prospect Josue De Paula was next at 58, the best average of a player who was ranked by the combo of ESPN and BP, 68 by the former and 48 by the latter. What is funny here, the top 5 average scores with this group were all either ranked by ESPN and BP or by MLB and BA. Cubs prospect Kevin Alcantara at 72.5 is the first player we see on the combo of MLB and BP, ranked 65 by MLB and 80 by BP. The first player on the combo of BA and BP with an average rank of 73.5 is speedy Cardinals outfield prospect Victor Scott II, ranked 83 at BA and 64 at BP. Reds prospect Edwin Arroyo with an average of 75.5 is the highest ranked player from the combo of ESPN and MLB, an 84 from ESPN and 67 from MLB. Finally, Yankees prospect Austin Wells with a 76.5 average has the highest combo from ESPN and BA, 82 and 71 rankings respectably.
In terms of the players who appear on only one list, the highest ranked player on each is Zach Dezenzo, an Astros prospect ranked 40 overall by BP. The remaining players of this sort, Parker Meadows of the Tigers who is 45 at ESPN, Mason Miller of the Athletics ranked 45 at BA and Aidan Miller of the Phillies who ranks 61 at MLB. I mentioned Bryce Eldridge earlier who is the lowest ranked player who is on all four lists at all but BA, on the BA list, that honor goes to Dodgers prospect Nick Frasso who is ranked 97 at BA, with rankings of 67 at BP, 80 at MLB and 86 at ESPN.
Finally, a note about who made the bottom of each list. Mariners prospect Lazaro Montes was 100 at BA and did not appear on any other ranking. Once highly rated Guardians prospect Daniel Espino who has battled an injury history was 100 at MLB, he also appeared at 92 on the ESPN list. Another very famous prospect, Druw Jones of the diamondbacks was 100 at ESPN, he is also ranked by both MLB at 78 and BP at 81, he didn’t make the BA list and I personally think that is a mistake as I would like to see what he can do in a fully healthy season, something he has not yet experienced in two years of pro ball.
The bottom players at 100 and 101 for BP only appeared on their list, Juan Brito of the Guardians and Chase Davis of the Cardinals.
Tommy Troy who was mentioned earlier as not appearing on all four lists, unranked by BA was the highest ranked player by BP at 35 who did not appear on all four lists. The highest ranked players on the other lists who didn’t make the cut on all four, The previously mentioned AJ Smith-Shawver who was the highest rated such player at BA with a 42 rank, he only made one other list as noted with MLB. The highest ranked MLB player who didn’t make every list was Phillies pitching prospect Mick Abel, he’s ranked 49 at MLB and is listed at 64 for BA and 78 for ESPN, unranked at BP. Finally, the top ranked ESPN prospect who is not on all the lists, Cubs pitcher Jordan wicks who is still prospect eligible and had a good brief cup of coffee in the majors last fall. He’s on just two list, ranked 41 at ESPN and 94 at BP.
Finally, a focus on the top 10 rankings. The top 10 players based on ranking average are Jackson Holliday of the Orioles with an average rank of 1, Jackson Chourio of the Brewers at 3, the Rays Junior Caminero at 3.25, the Rangers Wyatt Langford at 4.25 and Evan Carter at 4.75 round out the top half. The back half of that list features the Nationals Dylan Crews at 5.75, Pirates pitching prospect Paul Skenes at 7, Padres catching prospect Ethan Salas at 9.25, and a tie at 10.75 between two players, the Nationals James Wood and the White Sox Colsen Montgomery. The top 7 on this list made the top 10 in all rankings, Salas is top 10 in all but BP where he is 12, Montgomery is 8 at ESPN, 9 at MLB, 15 at BA and 11 at BP for two top 10 appearances, while Wood despite just one top 10 rankings which is a 7 at BP, gets marks of 11 at both ESPN and BA, while MLB ranks him at 14.
A small number of additional players appear on at least one top 10 list. Tigers top prospect Jackson Jobe is on only the ESPN list at 10, his other rankings are 17 at BP, 20 at BA and 25 at MLB. Walker Jenkins of the Twins is top 10 at MLB ranking in the 10 position, his other marks are 13 at BA, 14 at ESPN and 16 at BP. BA has two top 10 players who are not on other lists, diamondbacks prospect Jordan Lawlar comes in at 7 on that list, with rankings of 11 at MLB, 14 at BP and 17 at ESPN. Also they have orioles catching prospect Samuel Basallo at 10, his other marks are13 BP, 17 MLB and 27 ESPN. Finally in addition to James Wood, two other players are top 10 on just the BP list giving them a trio of such players. Roman Anthony of the Red sox has the largest top 10 difference between a list he is on and his overall average, BP ranks him number 8, while he is listed at 21 BA, 23 ESPN and 24 MLB. Padres prospect Jackson Merrill is ranked 10 at BP, he has marks of 12 at both ESPN and MLB, while BA ranks him at 17.
Blind Baseball Perspective 