Inspired by an idea I got from Baseball Rumor Mill, I thought it would be cool if we looked at the average prospect rankings for the Yankee system. I took a few lists and assigned 20 points to the #1 ranked prospect, 19 to the #2 and so on. Here are the lists I used:

Sean P’s Pending Pinstripe list

Greg Fertel’s Pending Pinstripe list

Mike Axisa’s River Ave Blues list

EJ Fagan’s The Yankee U list

The Hardball Time’s list

Fangraphs

Baseball America

John Sickles

Baseball Prospectus

Keith Law

Baseball Digest

Luke Gude

Here are the results, the number next to the name is the point total:

1. Jesus Montero  - 240

2. Austin Romine - 216

3. Zach McAllister - 207

4. Manny Banuelos - 205

5. Slade Heathcott - 187

6. JR Murphy - 125

7. Andrew Brackman - 100

8. Mark Melancon- 98

9. Jeremy Bleich- 91

10. Ivan Nova- 78

11. Jairo Heredia-77

12. Kelvin De Leon- 76

13. DJ Mitchell- 72

14. Gary Sanchez- 59

15. Wilkins De La Rosa- 48

16. Corban Joseph- 48

17. David Adams- 35

18. Adam Warren- 30

19. Dellin Betances- 28

20. Jose Ramirez - 22

Now some of these lists still had Austin Jackson and Arodys Vizcaino on them so I bumped everyone up a spot to compensate. I only took the top 20, but because there were different names on each list, there were actually about 30 names. Every list had at least 10 names, so the top 10 I would say is the most solid. Only 5 lists had 20 prospects or more ranked. So while it certainly isn’t all the way perfect, it’s still a fun look into where everyone stands.

Here are some quick thoughts.

- The top 5 are very solid. Obviously Montero was a unanimous #1 selection on every list, but the drop off from Slade Heathcott to JR Murphy is pretty big. Those top 5 names, maybe with a little change in the order, are just about the consensus top 5 Yankee prospects.

- All of the national guys left Nova off their lists completely. All of the Yankee blogger lists had him in their top 10 and when omitting Austin Jackson and Arodys Vizcaino, he did quite well. The same thing happened to a lesser extent with Dellin Betances, Jairo Heredia and Wilkens De La Rosa (although he was on Sickles list).

- On the other side of the coin, all the national guys except Baseball America included Gary Sanchez while he was completely omitted from the Yankee lists. I think there are a few reasons for this. First, most of the national guys put their rankings out recently while the RAB, TYU and PP lists have been out since the fall. Also, the national guys are obviously privy to much more information than the rest of us, and clearly they're all hearing the same thing. Sanchez has never played in a professional game. To be fair however I think if the lists were rewritten after loosing Jackson/Dunn/Vizcaino, Sanchez would be quite a bit higher all around the table.

- Kelvin De Leon is another contentious guy whose ranking really broke down by group. The Yankee group was pretty low on him collectively (last spot on my list, not on Greg’s at all) while THT, BP and Fangraphs were all pretty high on him. I think it really breaks down by preference- if you're more into statistical analysis, the 30% K rate is going to scare you away. But if you call a scout you’re going to hear about a 19 year old with advanced power to all fields.

- Jeremy Bleich seems to be a polarizing figure. If you believe in the reports that he was hitting the mid 90’s at one point with his fastball, you’re probably more inclined to ignore the extremely bad AA debut and put him on your list. Seems like some have and some have not to this point.

- It seems like everyone is on the wait and see track with DJ Mitchell right now. He popped onto Baseball Prospectus’s list as well as John Sickles but was in the bottom half of most of the Yankee blogger lists.

- Corban Joseph was somewhat surprising to see make the final cut. He was not on Greg’s list or my own and was the second to last on RAB’s list and bottom 5 of TYU’s. Sickles and Baseball Prospectus mentioned him though, along with Fangraphs and Luke Gude.

- Keith Law was bullish on both Jose Ramirez and David Adams, pulling them onto the list with his top 10 rankings. Greg has been a real fan of Jose Ramirez for awhile now and he was the only other person to have him ranked. As for Adams, he was in the bottom 5 of all 4 Yankee blogger lists.

- Andrew Brackman I think caused the most consternation among fans this year that followed the minor leagues. He was all over the place in the rankings, showing up towards the top of RAB and TYU’s lists, in the middle of the pack for Greg and myself and towards the bottom of Baseball America’s top 10 as well as Keith Law’s top 10. Sickles had him towards the bottom of his 20 plus list and Baseball Prospectus didn’t have him at all. Fangraphs and Baseball Digest also had Brackman ranked in their top 10’s.

So once again, I realize these rankings are not perfect, mostly because most of the lists contained names vanquished from Yankee-land. And again, the names towards the bottom are certainly more volatile than the ones near the top- because of the sample size of the lists as well as the varying length in them. However this is mostly for fun, so hopefully it'll be considered with those intentions in mind. Let's hear what you think.

Scranton is our last team to take a look at by way of TotalZone rating. Here's the info once more:

TotalZone invented and calculated by Sean Smith of Baseballprojection.com. "Runs" is relative to league average. The meaning of specific numbers varies from position to position, but in general, +10 is a very good fielder, +15 or more is outstanding. Below -10 is not very good at all. Runs/150 estimates runs saved per 150 games, and is shown for players with at least 1/3 that playing time at a position. This article describes preliminary work in translating across levels.

The article describing the translation is a must read for fully understanding what these numbers represent, but in short, infield numbers are slightly more reliable than outfield ones and sample size issues are in play with any infielders with less than 350 chances and outfielders less than 1000 (2 full seasons roughly). Also these performances are relative to their league, so a AA third baseman would be slightly worse than a AAA third baseman. Reading the whole article is definitely recommended.

Kevin Russo’s numbers are a little troubling. As a guy who could be in the mix for the utility infielder role, Russo’s defense is important. However this number is unusually low, well below his normally average ratings. Miranda’s TotalZone rating was very surprising and I’m not sure what to make of it. He’s been pretty bad before this year yet this is the most chances he’s had at 1B.
Austin Jackson actually posted some solid defensive numbers which is a little bit surprising. Looking at his career he as a pattern of HORRIBLE numbers one year (2006, -14/2008, -13) and then looking solid the next (2007, +3/ 2009, +4). I’m not really sure what to make of this either because the sample seems solid. Scouting reports are kind of mixed on him, rating him as average overall. Should be interesting to see what UZR says about him in Detroit this year though. Again here, Colin Curtis has a pretty solid showing as a corner outfielder. They're very similar to the numbers he posted in Trenton (LF +4). I think if he can develop a little further he could be a nice utility outfielder for the Yankees in 2011.

The Trenton Thunder are our second to last team to examine defensively by way of TotalZone rating. Here's the stuff you need to know:

TotalZone invented and calculated by Sean Smith of Baseballprojection.com. "Runs" is relative to league average. The meaning of specific numbers varies from position to position, but in general, +10 is a very good fielder, +15 or more is outstanding. Below -10 is not very good at all. Runs/150 estimates runs saved per 150 games, and is shown for players with at least 1/3 that playing time at a position. This article describes preliminary work in translating across levels.

The article describing the translation is a must read for fully understanding what these numbers represent, but in short, infield numbers are slightly more reliable than outfield ones and sample size issues are in play with any infielders with less than 350 chances and outfielders less than 1000 (2 full seasons roughly). Also these performances are relative to their league, so a AA third baseman would be slightly worse than a AAA third baseman. Reading the whole article is definitely recommended.

Infield

Outfield

Well the biggest controversial nugget here is the Eduardo Nunez numbers for sure. Well after ticking defense off the list of things Nunez might do well, I guess we just have batting average, and thank goodness that's so important! Oh, wait. This isn’t a sample size thing either. He’s had WELL over 1000 chances in his career at SS and never posted a TotalZone rating above 0. That’s pretty clear. Now while I think that Nunez probably has a lot of nice skills as a baseball player, at some point those skills just have to turn into results. MAYBE they’ll develop in the future, but its really extremely unlikely at this point.

Colin Curtis grades out as a very nice defensive outfielder at this point, at least in LF anyhow. He’s been solidly above average for his career there- not terrific certainly, but very solid. I wouldn’t get too worked up about the Edwar Gonzalez numbers either. Edwar Gonzalez is probably a good RF but most likely not THIS good- not that it matters as he’s certainly a non-prospect.

NoMaas has a two part interview up with John Manuel of Baseball America with a bunch of solid information. There are of course questions discussing guys like Andrew Brackman and Jesus Montero, but Manuel also talks about some less heralded prospects: Jonathan Ortiz(?), David Adams, and Christian Garcia.

Head over to NoMaas and give it a read: