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Just a day after Baseball Prospectus released their top ten list, Baseball America released theirs. The list is available for everyone to read, along with some write ups on the players involved.
The list is as follows:
1. LHP Blake Snell
2. SS Willy Adames
3. RHP Brent Honeywell
4. 1B Jake Bauers
5. OF Garret Whitley
6. OF Mikie Mahtook
7. RHP Taylor Guerrieri
8. RHP Jacob Faria
9. 1B Casey Gillaspie
10. SS Daniel Robertson
Blake Snell has been the consensus No. 1 in recent rankings, and it only makes sense as Baseball Americarecently named him their minor league player of the year. He struck out 31.3% of the hitters he faced and led the entire minor leagues with a 1.41 ERA across Class-A Advanced Charlotte, Double-A Montgomery, and Triple-A Durham.
On the other hand, Jake Bauers leaped to the No. 4 spot, where others left him outside the top-ten completely.
BA's rankings seem to very determinant on the prior season, and Bauers is coming off a strong season indeed. 19-years old during the season, he hit for a combined .275 average along with 12 home runs between Charlotte and Montgomery. He ended the season with a .360 wOBA. Considering he was far under the average age for the levels he played at, Bauers is showing serious tools at the plate.
Bauers experimented with outfield in the Arizona Fall League, and there is a chance the position change could stick.
BA mentioned the successes of the Rays infamous 2011 draft picks in Snell, Taylor Motter, Mikie Mahtook, Taylor Guerrieri, and Jacob Faria. All of them had strong seasons, including Mahtook's strong MLB debut that included a monster September.
Garret Whitley, this year's first round draft pick, is listed quite high at No.5 despite his struggles at the plate in the GCL and short-season Hudson Valley. In fairness, Whitley has the raw tools that makes scouts love him. He has time to develop, so BA has given him some leeway in their ranking of him. They rank his speed the best in the system.
As a whole, BA described the system as having "good balance, including a number of high-floor, upper-level prospects positioned to contribute in 2016 as well as a promising group of high-ceiling, teen prospects" and said the team will soon have some "tough" decisions to make as players start arriving in the majors. Sounds like a good problem to have.