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2010 Tampa Bay Rays Top Prospects Meta-Analysis
Desmond Jennings, Jeremy Hellickson, Matt Moore, Tim Beckham, Top Prospects, Wade Davis February 2nd. 2010, 10:00amIn the science community, a meta-analysis is what we do when we don’t want to do any work ourselves and instead want to take the work of a bunch of other people, tease the data a little, draw some conclusions that nobody had noticed before, and then pawn it off as our own.
Presenting the 2010 Tampa Bay Rays Top Prospects Meta-Analysis.
Notes on how the rankings were constructed are found at the bottom of this post. Notes on the final rankings can be found after the table…
A few notes on the final rankings…
- Last year, there were only two players (David Price, Wade Davis) in the top 5 of every list. This year, the top three are unanimous, although there is disagreement about the exact order. Nobody else is in the top 5 of each list (Matt Moore is top 5 in 5 of 6 lists).
- Alexander Colome, Alex Torres, Kyle Lobstein, Matt Sweeney and Wilking Rodriguez are new to the list this season.
- David Price (#1 in ‘09), Jeff Niemann (10) and Fernando Perez (13) are no longer eligible. Mitch Talbot (13) is no longer in the organization. John Jaso (11) and Jake Jefferies (14) fell off the list.
- Tim Beckham had the biggest drop from last season (#2 in ‘09) and Desmond Jennings had the highest jump (6).
- Of the players that appeared on every list, Matt Sweeney had the biggest disparity between high (5) and low (24) rank.
- Four of the players have triple-A experience. Of the other rest, 7 have never been above single-A or short-season ball.
A few notes on how the Meta-Analysis was constructed…
- We included rankings from Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Minor League Ball, Biscuits Crumbs (Stacy Long), ESPN (Keith Law) and our own Trade Value Index.
- Our Trade Value Index ranks players a bit differently. In addition to projecting how good a player will be, we also consider value to the organization. For more information see the most recent TVI post.
- The final list includes all players that appeared in the top 10 of at least one list.
- Some players did not appear on every list. For players not on a list, we gave that player a ranking of 2 spots lower than the lowest ranked player in the list for the purpose of calculating the final average.
The 24th spot for Sweeney on BA was rather surprising after reading Law’s high praise of him. I am very interested to see how that one plays out.
As surprised as I was that Law had him so high, I was even more surprised that BA had him so low.
What exactly did Law say about Sweeney that led him to the shockingly high #5 ranking?
He didn’t compare sweeny to God, he just made him out to be a sub-God. Law was merely praising Sweeny’s offensive output and alluding to the need to move Sweeny to firstbase.
Things are looking very good for the Rays’ future. If they can keep the young core they currently have, they’ll only get better as their top prospects mature.
Obviously Davis, Jennings and Hellboy are the cream of the crop. Davis will be in the rotation this year and the Rays can afford to be patient with the other two. So in all likelihood Jennings and Hellboy will be the 2011 wave (although they certainly could make their debuts this year, like Big Dub did last fall).
If there is something to watch for in this group it is: who is going to be part of the 2012 group? Which of these guys will fill the gaps in two years? What we need to see is for 2-3 of the prospects ranked 4-13 take a big step forward this year. Can Tim Beckham be a top prospect again next year and on the verge of breaking through? What about Moore? Or Colome or Torres? These guys have shown signs, but we need to see it in Charlotte and Montgomery before we can be say they have a shot at being part of the 2012 group.
No Sean Rodriguez? Was he not eligible?
Not eligible…
I dont care what people say Wade Davis>Jeremy Hellickson
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