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Prospects and Swagger

By Bradley Woodrum
Desmond Jennings peers into your soul with his +7 SWGR.
Desmond Jennings peers into your soul with his +7 SWGR.

 

No one on the corner got swagga like us.

- Pres. George Washington, IIRC

 

Baseball America released their list of Top 100 prospects today. Of interest to us:

6) Jeremy Hellickson

15) Matt Moore

22) Desmond Jennings

27) Chris Archer

71) Jake McGee

88) Josh Sale

92) Hak-Ju Lee

Overall, the Rays have 7 players in BA's Top 100. That's 7% of the top prospects belonging to a team representing 3% of the league. That's not bad -- nay, it's great.

Elsewhere, Keith Law has ranked the Rays farm as 2nd best in the majors by a close margin; Frankie Piliere has the Rays 3rd best, immediately behind the Braves and Royals; and John Sickels has the Rays system comfortably in 2nd place.

When it comes the my recently invented Swagger (SWGR) equation, the Rays are the best in the league:

SWGR = (FarmAwesomeness) + (MajorsCompetiveness)

Some thoughts after the jump.

Thoughts:

  • Tim Beckham has nearly faded completely from all prospect lists. This is disheartening, but frankly, he's just one good year away from being every scout's sweatheart again.
  • Which brings me to a point SternFan1 and I were discussing: Prospect lists tend to succumb to the SNT Syndrom -- the Shiny New Toy Syndrome. A quick perusal of BA's top 20 makes one think: "Alcohol kills prospectiness," because most top prospects are under the legal drinking age.
  • The Yankees and Blue Jays have a pretty decent farm system, but the Red Sox do not. The first makes me upset and the second makes me happy.
  • Jason Collette has been recently looking at the Rays prospects. Today, he produced this nifty chart:

 

  • Of note: 30% of the Rays top prospects were non-drafted free agents (NFDA). This means two things: (1) there's talent outside of the draft, and (2) there's even more talent outside of the American baseball realm (meaning most of North and Latin America).
  • Jeremy Hellickson did not receive the same love as other top prospectors, getting only a #6 slot from BA. A lot of others rank him anywhere from #1 to #4 in the MLB. (Although some rank him even lower than Jennings or in the 20s -- gasp!)
  • Baseball Prospectus has a nice compilation of prospect rankings. I imagine update #10 is forthcoming (in order to reflect BA's recent publication).
That is all.

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