Midseason Top 100 Fantasy Prospect List

We have reached the point in the season where updated prospect lists are coming out and we are no exception. Here at Fake Teams, we strive to provide excellent fantasy baseball coverage, including the minor leagues. With that in mind, below you will find the midseason top 100 fantasy prospect lists from our prospect writers, Jason Hunt and Alex Bell

There are three key things to remember when looking at our prospect lists. First, these rankings represent the long-term view, and as such does not include only the production expected this year, but also the overall long-term projection. With this, you're going to see a player like Lucas Giolito who is unlikely to have any impact at all in 2015 and potentially even 2016 ranked highly, as he can potentially be a top 10 starting pitcher in the majors once he does arrive. Second, prospect rankings are always a snapshot in time, as they represent how we view the player at the moment the list is published, based on the information available at that time. While we try to make our best estimate of what we expect in terms of a player's development, each new report or bit of information found over time continues to update the prospect's story. Player development is not linear, and so there are undoubtedly going rankings that are going to look amazing in the future, and others that will look absolutely terrible. Finally, each ranker will value different things higher (or lower) than other rankers. Some tend to value prospects with higher floors even if they have lower potential upsides, and I know that I can have specific biases towards certain profiles as well. These things don't necessarily make us right or wrong, just different.

The State of the Minors

2015 has arguably provided one of the best crop of graduating prospects in recent memory, both in terms of elite prospects and in overall quantity of prospects. We've seen top prospects like Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, and Joc Pederson all providing meaningful contributions for both their teams and our fantasy ones, to the point where prospects like Noah Syndergaard, Lance McCullers, and Chris Heston may be on the outside looking in for Rookie of the Year votes despite strong showings of their own. These things are cyclical in nature, but the number of potentially elite options coming up and producing like this in the same season is rare.

With that in mind, the overall talent level in the minor leagues appears to be less top heavy than at the start of the season. By no means does that mean that the minors are down, but rather that we are waiting to see the next group of potential elite talents to emerge from the lower minors and this year's draft. There are many interesting prospects in the lower minors right now that could take the the next step forward, and jump up even further in the offseason prospect rankings.

The Details and the Process

Our rankings are based on a standard 5x5 scoring format, and rather than providing a consensus list of our rankers, we provide the individual rankings for each person. This is done in part because with just two rankers, the consensus can look rather unusual on some prospects.

Our process is for each of our rankers to produce their own individual lists, which are then send to the other rankers for review and discussion. The goal of this review is not necessarily to make statements about a player's ranking being right or wrong, but rather to get an understanding of how a ranking was reached, and whether a change may be warranted with additional information or discussion. At the end of this, are the lists you find below.

Some specifics to be aware of:

1. We are including any prospects who are in the majors but have not surpassed their rookie eligibility. That means players like Byron Buxton and Steven Matz remain on the list, while Carlos Correa and Noah Syndergaard are not any longer.

2. We have removed both Hector Olivera and Rusney Castillo from our lists, as both are not prospects in the standard mold given their professional experience from Cuba. Both would fall in the top 20 for me were they eligible.

3. We have included 2015 draftees who have signed as of Sunday as eligible players, so that means that top pick Dansby Swanson wasn't eligible, but Alex Bregman and Brendan Rodgers were.

We will be around throughout the next couple days to answer questions as well, so if you have a specific player you're interested in hearing about, let us know. And to get this out of the way, yes, it's very possible that we don't like your favorite team's prospects (Ok, maybe not).