Baseball Prospectus Top 101 Prospects

I know some will never let the lewis pick go. We'll see who the better player is. I was not sold on Lewis and think he could be a flame out. But most kids will flame out.

The ONLY complaint I have on the last draft was winning too many games and missing out on Senzel. We Pick that guy and I'm feeling really good about a 2018 infield with Senzel, Swanson, Albies, FF. Inciarte in CF. We'll just figure out the rest.
 
I think people put too much into pre-draft rankings, certainly the Braves saved money with Ian Anderson, that doesn't mean he was necessarily an overdraft. There are a lot of national guys who really really like Anderson and when they talk about him, they specifically point out that he wasn't just a pick for cost-savings.

I'm not trying to just blindly defend the Braves here either, but I think they legitimately looked at him at as a top-10 talent that they were ALSO able to get underslot.
 
Enscheff said:
People say things like this as if no other organization has guys ready to make big jumps up these lists if they have good seasons. Typing them in a comma separated list doesn't make them any better, or make them any more likely to rise up these rankings than an equivalent list of prospects from another team.

And if prior drafts are any indication, I am not confident the Braves will add an impact talent with the #5 pick. They will most likely get a group of underwhelming "signable" guys (most likely pitchers) while superior talents are selected between their top 2 picks. I wouldn't be shocked at all if both the ChiSox and the Yankees draft a better player than the Braves do at #5. The Braves have shown they try to be a little too smart with their drafting and get a group of "signable" guys rather than going for BPA at the time of their pick.

That's how the Braves end up drafting the #96 prospect with the #3 pick, while many other higher ranked prospects were drafted well after the Braves took Anderson.
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The prospect status of new draft picks is entirely based on their status before the draft. So obviously if we draft a guy lower on draft boards at the time of the draft, he will also have a lower prospect status. Highlighting his current prospect status does not provide further evidence that it was a bad pick, it just tells us what we already know.

It's another reason I don't entirely believe in the surplus value according to prospect range. I get that it holds up when using aggregate data, but there is too much variance among the circumstances for guys in each range for it to be very useful beyond a very quick reference.

And sure, other organizations can point to young, unproven guys. But the very reason our system is considered better than everyone else's is due to the sheer quantity of those guys we have. So it would stand to reason that we have a better chance than all of them to have more of those guys hit.

Go look at the ages of Chicago's top 10-15, for example, and then ours, and tell me what you see.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
BUTTT..... wouldn't most of these list be just carry over from pre-draft scouting? I mean, can you really say that Anderson was worse then Groome or Pint..
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Yes, this is my point. If you take the #12 guy on draft boards at #3, then he'll still rank there 6 months later. We knew that at the time of the draft. This time next year, the Braves believe it will be an entirely different picture once these guys really hit pro ball. We'll see then who was right.
 
thewupk said:
You tell me.
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If going by pro performance, then No. But I am fine personally with their placement. I just don't see the point and arguing that Anderson was a bad pick at #3 because now look at the rankings. these rankings are built on pre draft hype (like Maitan).. So you can't really point to the new prospect list as evidence.. when really that is just an extension of what was already known. We know Anderson was a surprise.. I think mid season update will help determine if the Braves saw something or was hoping under slot the whole way.
 
We are also making conclusions on the success or failure of a draft strategy from six months ago. If you want to sat the early scout return is that it looks suspect then fine. But any definitive evaluation is just silly at this point. So far the braves draftING the last two years has been positive on the whole.
 
Where was Soroka ranked nationally? How much of an overdraft was it then? We just can't really say at all. Now that the organization is back with its key scouts from pre-wren days I have tremendous confidence they are picking the right guys.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
If going by pro performance, then No. But I am fine personally with their placement. I just don't see the point and arguing that Anderson was a bad pick at #3 because now look at the rankings. these rankings are built on pre draft hype (like Maitan).. So you can't really point to the new prospect list as evidence.. when really that is just an extension of what was already known. We know Anderson was a surprise.. I think mid season update will help determine if the Braves saw something or was hoping under slot the whole way.
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We will see how it shakes out. I still feel Lewis was the pick that needed to be made for this team.
 
thethe said:
We are also making conclusions on the success or failure of a draft strategy from six months ago. If you want to sat the early scout return is that it looks suspect then fine. But any definitive evaluation is just silly at this point. So far the braves draftING the last two years has been positive on the whole.
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I guess we can't question anything the Braves do. Same ole same ole.
 
thewupk said:
We will see how it shakes out. I still feel Lewis was the pick that needed to be made for this team.
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I wanted Lewis too. but I refuse to say Anderson was a bad pick just yet. Like I said a few post earlier.. I still have questions about the strategy. hoping I am wrong. my point above was more to say what Smoot was saying. pointing to prospect rankings as proof is silly.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I wanted Lewis too. but I refuse to say Anderson was a bad pick just yet. Like I said a few post earlier.. I still have questions about the strategy. hoping I am wrong. my point above was more to say what Smoot was saying. pointing to prospect rankings as proof is silly.
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I'm not saying it's a bad pick either. I am saying it wasn't the best pick available.
 
thethe said:
Who said that. You said the braves drafting strategy was wrong because they passed on Lewis. What is your support of that? Opinions?
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I think Lewis has a higher ceiling than Anderson. Braves are in need of high ceiling position players. Seems simple enough to me.
 
thewupk said:
I think Lewis has a higher ceiling than Anderson. Braves are in need of high ceiling position players. Seems simple enough to me.
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And what are you basing it off of? What if Anderson has a higher ceiling? It's uch more cost effective to buy hitters than pitchers IMO.
 
thethe said:
And what are you basing it off of? What if Anderson has a higher ceiling? It's uch more cost effective to buy hitters than pitchers IMO.
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It's based on watching videos and reading scouting reports of those players. What is your opinion based on? What the Braves tell you?
 
thewupk said:
It's based on watching videos and reading scouting reports of those players. What is your opinion based on? What the Braves tell you?
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I havent made a statement one way or the other. It's way too early to tell.
 
thethe said:
I havent made a statement one way or the other. It's way too early to tell.
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It's not too early to have an opinion right now. And the majority of people feel the Braves took less talent to get better talent than normally available later in the draft. Whether that is correct move remains to be seen but I am not a fan of that strategy for the Braves right now. Maybe for a team like the Marlins who have nothing but the Braves already had a strong system. Getting the #1 guy available is what I would have done. And I don't believe the Braves spin that Anderson was that guy.
 
I think best player available. But with baseball and the slot system it gets more complicated than that.

I'll be curious this year. We have a TON of high upside pitching. If they feel a great arm comes to them, I'm sure they'll take it.

But it's getting to the point where you have to think they are hoping that a bat makes sense for them.

Again this Lewis stuff is BS IMO. Senzel is the miss. If we had him we'd be arguing about if he could start this year.
 
thewupk said:
The point is the Braves went for quantity over possible quality last year. BP ranks the next 9 guys drafted after Anderson above him. 7 of the 9 following Anderson are rated above him in Baseball America's top 100.

Certainly having Lewis at #34 in BA's top 100 would look really strong for the Braves.
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Ding, ding, ding. Someone gets it.
 
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