Prospect Rankings Discussion: A Quick Look at Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects List

Gose has A level tools, but has so far translated them into C level skills. Tools = potential, skills = results.

His speed is absurd, and there’s no questioning that. He threw 90+ as a pitcher in high school and his arm was dead on accurate on all of his throws and he looked like a better version of Peter Bourjos in centerfield. The sample size is obviously small, but the only issue he has is his hit tool, which isn’t that big of a deal anyways considering how good his other skills are.

It’s an entirely different situation for fantasy purposes, but we are concerned with that in this discussion.

Let’s assume Gose makes zero progression whatsoever. We can use an equivalency calculator to figure out what his AA numbers look like at the major league level. It translates to a wOBA on par with what Alex Rios did this past season, which is god awful. It’s about -24 runs worth of offense.

He receives 2 runs for his positional adjustment, let’s be conservative and say another 3 runs for his baserunning, and 24 runs for replacement value. Just from that alone, he is a replacement level player, but this isn’t including his defense.

We are looking at a great defensive center fielder, with the potential to be the best in the league, so you can add whatever figure you like to get his value.

A 21 year old who just finished AA while being told not to bunt, who is able to put up replacement level value in center fielder is extremely rare. Either prospect “experts” don’t see any progression on Gose’s part, don’t see him as a good defender, see everyone around him as true superstars, or are wrong.

Yes, his contact issues suck, but he doesn’t need great contact to be good, and most people seem to be overlooking that fact.

His floor is high, and his ceiling is beyond absurd. There is no denying how good he is now, and how good can become, unless you’re stuck in the 60’s and still don’t believe in defense.

They are inaccurate because they assume no progression or regression towards the mean, which in this case, I was 100% content with doing, to prove a point that Anthony Gose with no progression is still a big leaguer, which can’t be said about most prospects.

I would assume that all the pages are pretty stuck together by now in all of your copies of her books.

So let’s totally ignore his AA games and focus on a stat that doesn’t stabilize for 600+ plate appearances. Logic is fantastic.