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Prospect Rankings Discussion: A Quick Look at Keith Law's Top 100 Prospects

By Jason Hunt
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Thursday morning, Keith Law released his much anticipated top 100 prospects list, as well as his top 10 prospects for each team. With prospect research always been so much of a crapshoot, I like to take a look at as many of these types of lists as possible. We saw earlier in the week some of Craig's thoughts on the top 100 list provided by Scout.com, and in the coming weeks we will also likely receive lists from Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, as well as Baseball America. While all of these lists are rating and reviewing prospects based on their real-life value, there is a lot to be gleaned from how the players are viewed by the industry as a whole.

Here's Law's top 10, along with some of my thoughts after the jump:

RANK POSITION PLAYER TEAM HEIGHT WEIGHT AGE
1 CF Mike Trout L.A. Angels 6-1 217 20
2 RF Bryce Harper Washington 6-2 245 19
3 LHP Matt Moore Tampa Bay 6-2 205 22
4 SS Manny Machado Baltimore 6-3 185 19
5 RHP Shelby Miller St. Louis 6-3 195 21
6 C Travis d'Arnaud Toronto 6-2 195 22
7 SS Jurickson Profar Texas 5-11 165 18
8 C Devin Mesoraco Cincinnati 6-1 220 23
9 DH/C Jesus Montero Seattle 6-3 235 22
10 RHP Gerrit Cole Pittsburgh 6-4 220 21

  • I love the Travis d'Arnaud ranking at #6 overall, and while I'd probably put him behind Montero for fantasy purposes, I think d'Arnaud is likely to give above-average production while he is more likely to stay behind the plate.
  • Julio Teheran at #18 seems a bit low to me, especially when it seems that he's essentially ready to contribute right now. It seems really strange to me when I see that Arodys Vizcaino has also jumped ahead of him on the list (#14).
  • Granted that it is just two spots, but I'm not sure if I have seen a top 100 list that had Archie Bradley ahead of Trevor Bauer.
  • Law clearly still believes in Casey Kelly, as evidenced by ranking him at #32 overall.
  • I like the aggressive ranking of Mason Williams at #34. He's still a long way away, as he hasn't played above short-season ball, but there's clearly a lot to like there.
  • I keep hearing little blips about Padres' prospect Joe Ross, but this is the first time I've seen him on one of these lists. Must do more research.
  • In the on-going debate between Blue Jays' outfielders, Law placed Marisnick higher than Gose.
  • It seems like every year there's a few prospects who jump into the top 100 for Law that hadn't really gotten that kind of love to this point, and this year the two that stand out to me are John Hellweg of the Angels, and Enny Romero of the Rays.
  • Interestingly, the systems with the most top 100 prospects were the Padres (his #1 overall system), the Cardinals, and the Rays, all with 6 prospects.
  • Not particularly surprisingly, the Astros, White Sox, Indians, Marlins, and Phillies all finished with just 1 top 100 prospect each.

What are your thoughts on Law's top 100? Is there a prospect that it is pretty clear to you that he missed? Or one who should have been a lot lower on the list?