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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 onVERY 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: Manny Machado (BAL), Will Middlebrooks (BOS),
| Rank | Name | Org. |
| 1 | Nick Castellanos | DET |
| 2 | Miguel Sano | MIN |
| 3 | Mike Olt | TEX |
| 4 | Nolan Arenado | COL |
| 5 | Anthony Rendon | WAS |
| 6 | Jedd Gyorko | SD |
| 7 | Joey Gallo | TEX |
| 8 | Kaleb Cowart | LAA |
| 9 | Matt Davidson | ARI |
| 10 | Cheslor Cuthbert | KC |
You can find notes on some of the prospects after the jump:
- Castellanos is being converted to the outfield at the moment, in the hopes that he will be able to get to the Majors that much faster that way. That's really his best path to the bigs with the Tigers, but there's always the possibility that they will make him the marquee piece in a trade to get something else they need. If that happens, I would have to imagine that he would be moved right back to 3B.
- Arenado has fallen a bit out of favor at this point, and there seems to be some concerns about makeup. It's a bit hard to tell if they are justified or not at this point, but he'll likely put up excellent numbers in AAA next year in Colorado Springs.
- Joey Gallo put on a power show in his stints in the Arizona League and the Northwest League, hitting 22 homers in just 59 games. He came into the draft known for his power, and it will be interesting to see how it progresses as he moves up the levels.
- Cuthbert had a tough year, but a 19 year old at High-A can be expected to struggle to some extent. If the struggles continue next year, we may have a better picture as to whether or not the hype was too high or if it was just a bad season.