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Fantasy owners, especially those in keeper or dynasty leagues, are always looking for the next top prospect to draft who will carry them the their next (first?) fantasy baseball championship. The prospect experts are in full force right now with John Sickels covering his Top 20 Prospects for each major league team, Baseball America with their Top 10 Prospects and Baseball Prospectus's Kevin Goldstein publishing his Top 20 Prospects as well. ESPN's Keith Law will publish his Top 100 Prospects for 2012 at the end of January.
With that said, I will post some of the top rated prospects from each of the experts over the next 3 months leading up to draft day, so today I continue with more of John Sickel's Top rated prospects for 2012. I will limit the list to A, A- and B+ rated prospects.
John Sickels updated top rated pitching prospect list after the jump:
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Pitchers
A Rating
Trevor Bauer, ARI
Julio Teheran, ATL
Shelby Miller, STL
Gerrit Cole, PIT
Matt Moore, TB
A- Rating
Jarrod Parker, ARI
Tyler Skaggs, ARI
Archie Bradley, ARI
Jacob Turner, DET
Dylan Bundy, BAL
Jameson Taillon, PIT
Taijuan Walker, SEA
Danny Hultzen, SEA
Drew Pomeranz, COL
B+ Rating
Arodys Vizcaino, ATL
Randall Delgado, ATL
Jake Odorizzi, KC
Carlos Martinez, STL
Tyrell Jenkins, STL
Martin Perez, TEX
Matt Barnes, BOS
Trevor May, PHI
Jesse Biddle, PHI
Robbie Erlin, SD
Joe Wieland, SD
Keyvius Sampson, SD
James Paxton, SEA
A.J. Cole, OAK
Noah Syndergaard, TOR
Deck McGuire, TOR
Justin Nicolino, TOR
Daniel Norris, TOR
Drew Hutchison, TOR
Garret Richard, LAA
Zach Lee, LAD
Matt Harvey, NYM
Zach Wheeler, NYM
Nestor Molina, CHW
Addison Reed, CHW
Chad Bettis, COL (borderline B+)
If I had to pick one pitcher from each of the letter rankings above, I would pick Matt Moore, Tyler Skaggs and Arodys Vizcaino. I have already written enough about Moore, so you already know how much I like him.
I was surprised when I took a look at Tyler Skaggs 2011 stats a few nights ago. He dominated High A and AA in 2011, striking out 198 while walking just 49 in 159.1 innings of work. His minor league strikeout rates match Matt Moores', but Skaggs has better control. He is probably less than a year away from the big leagues, and the Diamondbacks have the makings of one of the better starting rotations in baseball in the next few years with Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Trevor Cahill, Trevor Bauer and Skaggs. Oh, and don't forget about Archie Bradley.