Craig and I will be working our way through each of the 30 minor league systems in the coming months, looking at some of the top prospects in each of them. After we finish those, Fake Teams will be releasing our consensus position by position prospect rankings, including a fantasy-specific top 100 prospects list.

To start the discussion, I will be posting VERY RAW positional rankings. Note the emphasis on VERY RAW. I have begun to do my research for these upcoming projects, but it is very possible I could miss a prospect or have them ranked entirely too low or high. These are more aimed at general discussion amongst the community here, so if you've read or seen something that could be interesting to how a prospect is viewed, feel free to share it in the comments.

With that in mind, here is the criteria we will be using to determine whether a player is eligible for our prospect lists:

Hitters must have less than 130 AB in the Majors.

Pitchers must have thrown less than 50 IP in the Majors.

Graduates in 2012: None

You can find notes on some of the prospects after the jump:

• DeShields would probably have received even more hype for the fact that he had over 100 stolen bases, were it not for Billy Hamilton stealing 150+. I have him right behind Franklin right now, and only because Franklin has already reached AAA.
• As you might imagine, 2B is a bit shallow at this point. With the news that Hamilton will be moved to the outfield rather than 2B, it's that much worse. We should see players move off of shortstop as they move up, and we'll see who ends up at second instead.
• Take Gyorko's numbers at Tucson with a whole block of salt, as the power numbers there are completely out of whack (similarly to Coors at times). If Chase Headley is not traded by the Padres, Gyorko looks like he would get a shot at 2B instead in the Majors.
• A couple of other prospects that I think could be on this list next year are Ryan Brett (TAM) and Chris Bostick (OAK). Brett will miss a substantial portion of next season on a suspension,so it's hard to see what he will do exactly. Bostick is a long way away, but has shown himself to be a lot better than his draft position showed.