KUDOS to Benjamin Chase, Rates TOP 100(103) prospects FIINAL

rico43

rico43

<B>Director of Minor League Reports</B>
The web site Tomahawk Take has a talented writer named Benjamin Chase. Since their site serves a different fuction that Chop County, I do not hesitate to endorse and admire the work he did to rate the Braves TOP 100 prospects as of November of 2017. Actually, it's 103 with some odd waffling in the 40s. With the pending threat of the loss of some prospects due to Coppy Gate, this kind of list serves a bigger purpose that usual.

LINK TO ARTICLE

1. Ronald Acuna, OF

2. Mike Soroka, RHP

3. Luiz Gohara, LHP

4. Kolby Allard, LHP

5. Kevin Maitan, SS

6. Kyle Wright, RHP

7. Max Fried, LHP

8. Austin Riley, 3B

9. Ian Anderson, RHP

10. Cristian Pache, OF

11. Alex Jackson, C

12. Touki Toussaint, RHP

13. Joey Wentz, LHP

14. Drew Waters, OF

15. Bryse Wilson, RHP

16. William Contreras, C

17. Patrick Weigel, RHP

18. Kyle Muller, LHP

19. A.J. Minter, LHP

20. Travis Demeritte 2B-3B

21. Dustin Peterson, OF

22. Yunior, Severino, 2B

23. Tyler Pike, LHP

24. Brett Cumberland, C

25. Matt Withrow, RHP

26. J.C. Encarnacion, 3B

27. Isranel Wilson, OF

28. Tucker Davidson, LHP

29. Yefri Del Rosario, RHP

30. Anfernee Seymour, CF

31. Lucas Herbert, C

32. Freddy Tarnok, RHP

33. Huascar Ynoa, RHP

34. Akeel Morris, RHP

35. Corbin Clouse, LHP

36. Jared James, OF

37. Jacob Webb, RHP

38. Carlos Castro, 1B

39. Yenci Pena, SS

40. Thomas Burrows, LHP

41. Ricardo Sanchez, LHP

42. Derian Cruz, 2B-SS

43. Ray-Patrick Didder, OF

44. Josh Graham, RHP

44a. Braulio Vasquez, INF

45. Dilmer Mejia, LHP

45a. Leudys Baez, OF

46. Jefrey Ramos, OF

46a. (!) Kade Sivicque

47. Joey Meneses, 1B

48. Drew Lugbauer, C-3B

49. Jonathan Morales, C

50. Alay Lago, 2B

51. Alejandro Salazar, SS

52. Justin Ellison, OF

53. Chase Johnson-Mullins, LHP

54. Juan Contreras, RHP

55. Devan Watts, RHP

56. Troy Bacon, RHP

57. Yoeli Lopez, OF

58. Livan Soto, SS

59. Luis Valenzuela, INF

60. Jaseel de la Cruz, RHP

61. Tyler Neslony, 1B-OF

62. Phil Phiefer, LHP

63. Adam McCreery, LHP

64. Connor Lien, OF

65. Carlos Franco, 1B-3B

66. Matt Custred, RHP

67. Brad Keller, OF

68. Jeremy Walker, RHP

69. Brandon White, RHP

70. Drew Harrington, LHP

71. Juan Carlos Negret, OF

72. Jon Kennedy, LHP

73. Braxton Davidson, OF

74. Joseph Odom, C

75. Jaret Hellinger, LHP

76. Caleb Dirks, RHP

77. Gary Schwartz, OF

78. Wes Parsons, RHP

79. Luis Mejia, 3B

80. Dylan Moore, SS

81. Austin Bush, 1B

82. Kevin Josephina, 2B

83. Sean McLaughlin, RHP

84. Bruce Zimmerman, LHP

85. Raysheandell (Shean) Michel, OF

86. Ryan Lawlor, LHP

87. Zach Rice, LHP

88. Tanner Murphy, C

89. Manuel Juan, 1B

90. Alan Rangel, RHP

91. Henry Quintero, OF

92. Cutter Dyals, LHP

93. Antonio Sucre, OF

94. Hayden Deal, LHP

95. Miguel Jerez, LHP

96. Chad Sobotka, RHP

97. Filyer Sanchez, LHP

98. Hagen Owenby, C-1B

99. Omar Obregon, INF

100. Troy Conyers, LHP
 
Relievers Adam McCreery, Jon Kennedy will be fast-tracked. Close to having one or both in my top 30. Right now, I'm holding off until the other shoe drops. Afraid we're losing Drew Waters as well as much of the 2017 international signing class.
 
Good Job...That takes a lot of work.

I'm kind of surprised Michael Mader, Jordan Rodgers, or Landon Hughes didn't make the cut but that's an extensive list
 
So, first off, thanks for the kind words. This is my third year doing the top 100 for the Braves, previously with Tomahawk Take, and now with Call To The Pen. I'm also an editor with the Twins site on FanSided, and I put together a top 100 there. It took a LONG time to build up enough contacts I trust to counter all the guys I can't see on milb.tv, but frankly, I watch that like most people breath at night. Many summer nights I zip through 2-3 games on there, reviewing prospects with Notepad open as I throw up any thoughts as I watch a game.

I'll be starting a series on top 10s for each team this week before heading to my top 125 just after the first of the year along with positional rankings in January as well. Needless to say, the upcoming top 10s for each team is about as much time as I'll spend this offseason NOT writing about Braves prospects!!
 
rico43 said:
Relievers Adam McCreery, Jon Kennedy will be fast-tracked. Close to having one or both in my top 30. Right now, I'm holding off until the other shoe drops. Afraid we're losing Drew Waters as well as much of the 2017 international signing class.
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Their stuff is such that it's hard to have them quite that high. Also, there are just a ton of relievers right now. Some very, very good guys spent all year in Rome (usually starting pitchers and position guys spend a full year at Rome as part of the Braves development, but not relievers) simply because of the depth of relievers. A guy like Thomas Burrows should have been pushed quickly, but he wasn't, primarily due to the lack of room in upper level bullpens.

On the punishment, I have a guy who has gone on to work with MLB's main offices in New York. He's specifically said he cannot comment on specifics on the investigation, but he gave me one thing when I sent him my list - he told me that I wouldn't have to worry about losing anyone on that list, based on their initial investigation. That doesn't mean that they aren't going to find more, but that is quite good news!
 
Glad to have you on board Ben. Hope you stick around.

Quick question, please don't take this as a slight as I am genuinely curious, why 100? Seems to me that any player past 30 in even the deepest system is about as much of big league prospect as I am. What value does your analysis bring to the average fan to read through the last three quarters of players on your list?
 
The first year I did it, Jose Ramirez was #90, Camargo was #48, Whalen was #45, and all of those guys have now hit the majors. Guys like Withrow (79), Chase Johnson-Mullins (76), Weigel (72), Minter (47), Didder (42 before Rome), Povse (39), Pache (35), and William Contreras (34 after first DSL year - I've legit been on him from the beginning) were all guys who are still prospects, but were not mentioned by anyone that year and now have put themselves in a spot where they have either moved up significantly or gained some significant note in the system: https://tomahawktake.com/2016/10/09/atlanta-braves-top-100-prospects-a-review-of-last-years-100/

As much as anything, it allows the average fan to get a chance to read names that they may begin to hear much more the next year. The argument that any particular player has minimal chance to make it is just as true from 1-5 as it is from 95-100. I will tell you that there is no such thing as prospect ordering done by teams, but every team has an idea of how they'd rate another team's catchers, middle infielders, outfielders, etc., and there's some level of idea the order if forced to choose between outfielder and catcher, but typically that's not something that a lot of time is spent on. The teams often have guys that we as fans never hear about from the prospect websites that they consider as more premier trade targets than any top 20 guy on a site's list. A longer list like this gives a chance for a guy that another team comes calling for to be highlighted and noted.

More than anything, readers enjoy lists. You'll see tonight, but I put together another 30ish names for "names to know" along with the top 100. Frankly, there are a handful of guys in that grouping this year that wouldn't surprise me if they made the big league club in 2018. The Braves' system has that much depth that it's worth taking the time to review at that level right now. I did the same with the Twins, and the guys I profiled were at lower levels, but the talent level was huge. Frankly, Huascar Ynoa ranked better with the Braves than he would have with the Twins as hard as that may be to believe.
 
biggentleben said:
On the punishment, I have a guy who has gone on to work with MLB's main offices in New York. He's specifically said he cannot comment on specifics on the investigation, but he gave me one thing when I sent him my list - he told me that I wouldn't have to worry about losing anyone on that list, based on their initial investigation. That doesn't mean that they aren't going to find more, but that is quite good news!
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Awesome. And awesome work.
 
chop2chip said:
Glad to have you on board Ben. Hope you stick around.

Quick question, please don't take this as a slight as I am genuinely curious, why 100? Seems to me that any player past 30 in even the deepest system is about as much of big league prospect as I am. What value does your analysis bring to the average fan to read through the last three quarters of players on your list?
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Have you seen some of the players in the 30-50 range on his list? They're not knocking down the door or anything, but they're real prospects still.

Also, welcome Ben! Always enjoyed your commentary on TC, hope you stay somewhat active!
 
mqt said:
Have you seen some of the players in the 30-50 range on his list? They're not knocking down the door or anything, but they're real prospects still.

Also, welcome Ben! Always enjoyed your commentary on TC, hope you stay somewhat active!
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As much as I can. With two sites currently to edit, it gets a little hairy, but eventually I'll pare it down to just the general baseball site (and a day job and 5 foster/adoption kids), so I'll try to keep peeking in every so often!

TC and I don't get along so much anymore, mainly because of the "lead" minor league guy there. Funny part is, a few of the guys I chat with most on Twitter are the rest of his prospect team, and I'm not even at the "competing site" anymore, but he's got his own stuff to deal with, which is why I don't post there anymore - I go there for Matt's articles, mostly, unsigned in.
 
Julio3000 said:
Top 200 or GTFO.
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Careful...someone joked about that with me last year. I produced my list of 265ish players that I considered for the list and had ordered. Many of them do get tossed aside right away for a host of reasons, but even a lot of the guys that will be in the post tonight (9 eastern will be a post with the entire top 105 (because I lost 5 guys in the course of a computer change but it had them "struck through" on my list, so I didn't realize it until I started getting deeper into the list - all 5 were top 50 guys) in a list format along with roughly 30 guys that are "others to know".
 
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