How can this be?  Why is Loney's hitting only 11 HR's in a very pitcher-friendly Double A league, playing half his games in the league's most pitcher-friendly park (Jacksonville), at age 21, such a black mark against Loney, but nobody seems to have a problem with Jackson, at age 23, hitting a mere 8 HR's in one of the most hitter-friendly leagues in baseball, playing his home games in one of the most extreme hitter's parks in that league (Tucson)?  In fairness, let me point out that Jackson missed some time, playing only 93 games in Triple A, or 45 games fewer than Loney played in the minors in 2005.  Fine, Jackson played only about two-thirds of Loney's season, so lets adjust for the disparity and increase Jackson's home run totals by a half, raising Jackson from 8 to a full 12 HR's.  There.  The 23-year-old first base prospect who doesn't play his position well hit the equivalent of 12 home runs in a season playing in launching pad parks.  In 2007, when Loney turns 23 on May 7, 2007, if he were the first baseman in Tuscon (for the sake of argument let's just assume a trade to the Diamondbacks), does anybody think Loney would hit a mere 12 HR's over the season, given that two years earlier, as a less-developed player, both physically and skills-wise, he had hit 11 HR's playing in a league and home park that for pitcher-friendliness compares to the Pacific Coast League and Tucson like Shea Stadium compares to Coors Field?  If you say yes, I have a bridge I would like to sell you.

A couple of days ago, John justified his giving Loney a "C+" by saying that Loney has not lived up to expectations.  I do agree that Loney has not lived up to expectations.  He was expected to have developed more power than he has by now.  After Loney torched the Pioneer League and played in the Florida State league as an 18-year-old, Loney was talked about as a future star.  If Loney had lived up to expectations, he would no doubt either be in the majors already, or he would at least rate an "A" grade as a prospect right now.  Clearly Loney is not an "A" prospect, or an "A-" prospect.  Loney right now projects to be a great defensive first base man in the majors who hits for a high average (.285 to .300), draws enough walks to have a .350 to .365 OBA, and hits between 18 to 20 HR's.  As long as he is not too expensive, and as long as more HR power is coming from other positions on a team, THAT kind of first baseman is a good, valuable player.  Not a "star" by any means, but a good player.  A first baseman with 20-homers-a-year-power is just not going to be considered a star.  Two things to note now:  a prospect who projects to be the above-outlined player deserves better than a "C+" grade.  Not an "A-", but a "B" certainly.  Second, Conor Jackson projects to be pretty much the same player I outlined above.  18 to 20 HR's a year to go along with a high batting average.  Maybe add some more walks, and take away the great defense at first base.  The extra walks and inferior defense cancel each other out in my mind, so what we are left with, in my view, is Conor Jackson meriting a grade of "B" as a prospect, the same grade I think Loney deserves.  Loney and Jackson, cosmically related.  Given their respective skin pigmentations, I'm tempted to start humming "Ebony and Ivory"...

Can't you just be happy that John (and people on this site) rated the Dodgers as having the top farm in baseball? What is this desire to come up with some random reasons to belittle a player in another system, especially by offering such rather ridiculous arguments and comparisons?

The reality is, Jackson has lived up to the expectations that come with being a first round pick, has raked everywhere he's played in the minors, and deservedly is penciled in as the starting 1bman in AZ this year. Scouts and statheads agree that there is a lot to like about him, and I think he can be an all-star quality player for many years.

Loney, despite the hype, has never lived up to the expectations people had of him. You can make all the projections you want, and hypothesize about his future all day long, but until Loney delivers at the plate, and starts fulfilling his promise, he will always be penalized in these rankings. As it should be.

You didn't mention him here, even though he had a ridiculously good season in South Bend. What is it that you don't like (or maybe like?) about him? And where is the love for Jason Neighborgall and his electric fastball? :)

Also, a minor point, but I'd have thought that Nippert would rank just a notch higher, maybe as a B+. Finally, nice to see Chico on the list. He will be better this time around in AA. I am glad no one took him in the rule 5.

Btw, I finally registered to post here, despite being a long time lurker. You've got a great site, John. Keep up the excellent work.

But I will say that there IS a point in there worth addressing.  Since I have CONCEDED, in my first post, that Jackson is PERCEIVED as a much better prospect than Loney (wrongly, I have argued), it does stand to reason that Jackson will get a lot more benefits of the doubt if he should struggle at all in the majors than Loney would.  I'll go on the record right now and say that I believe many prospects "fail" simply because they are not given the chances they deserve, while other prospects "succeed" because they are handed opportunity after opportunity.  A few years ago, Eric Gagne's struggles in the majors as a starter put his MLB career on thin ice.  If the Dodgers hadn't lacked a closer at just the right time, who knows what could have happened to Gagne?  He wasn't "meeting expectations," but the need for a hard-thrower in the back of the Dodgers' bullpen opened up a window of opportunity for Gagne.  Right now, in the majors, a one-time first base prospect arguably more highly regarded in his time than Jackson is currently, Hee-Seop Choi, is regarded as a huge failure by everybody IN baseball, and his MLB future is in serious doubt, even if Baseball Prospectus and statheads still love him.  Choi has not "met expectations" as far as the Dodgers are concerned, and he will be relegated to the bench this year (behind Garciaparra) or demoted to Triple A.  The Cubs and Marlins jettisoned him as well for being a perceived disappointment.  Will Loney not get a chance in the majors?  It is "possible," I suppose.  But I think he will, because the Dodgers right now, even without Loney ever playing a single game in Triple A, regard Loney as a better first baseman, and hitter, than Choi, and it is what the Dodgers think that will determine how much of an MLB chance he ultimately gets.  I do think Choi is being undervalued, however.  Unfortunately that happens in baseball, even to guys who at one point, when they were prospects, looked like future stars.

And I am compelled to spit out venom? Uh, OK. I already explained the "ridiculous arguments" comment; the "bitter" comment stems from the fact that, based on several of your posts that I have read, you appear to be on a mission to prove that every Dodger prospect is somehow undervalued and every other team's prospect (especially in the NL west) is somehow overvalued. After a while, all of your posts sound the same.

Again, I have no desire to insult you, or anyone else. But I also have no desire to engage in what you define as "intellectual engagements" with you. You call them "intellectual engagements", I call them "long and repetitive rants".

Btw, I'd love to hear your opinion on Matt Elliot. Also, what do you think of Kellen Raab? I know he was taken late in the draft, and was thought of as a roster filler, but he actually improved a bit last year in South Bend? I'd love to know if you ever saw him pitch, and what you thought of him. Thanks...

I think Young's power and speed potential as a center fielder are really incredible and that he certainly stands a much better chance of staying in center than Kemp does, but I also think that you have to like the fact that Kemp could even play centerfield adequately given the fact that he's 6'4'' and over 210 pounds.  Also, while both players exhibited below average contact skills, Kemp only struck out once every 4.9 pa's compared to 4.2 for Young and if you look at at bats instead of plate appearances, the gap is even bigger to 1 per 4.6 ab's for Kemp, and 1 per 3.6 ab's for Young.

As a Dodger fan (you must have known, who else would go to the Diamondback's top 20 to talk about Dodger's prospects?), I would love to see Kemp show the kind of plate discipline that Young has shown, but all in all I do not think that the plate discipline should equal a full grade difference, especially given the fact that Kemp should have considerably more power potential given his size.  

Kemp definitely needs to work on plate discipline, and that will ultimately determine whether he becomes an allstar caliber player. He is a very raw talent and I hope he can develop his tremendous skills further.

While it is not smart to put too much stock in AFL stats, they should not be dismissed totally. Matt Kemp played very well in the AFL hitting .383 with 12 XBh, 18 runs 3 HR and 16 RBI in 23 games, while Chris Young hit just .253 with 2 HR and 11 RBI.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/columnists/askba.html

"      I was looking over the Diamondbacks Top 10 list again and really questioned why Conor Jackson was rated ahead of Carlos Quentin. When you look at the stats, Quentin wins in all of them except for batting average. I also read that Quentin is a good fielder and has an excellent work ethic. I know that Jackson has great pitch selection, but Quentin's is pretty good too. I'm not trying to take anything away from Jackson because he's a great player, but why was he rated ahead of Quentin?

      Rick Blenk
      Freeport, Maine

When I did our Triple-A Pacific Coast League Top 20 in the fall, I also put Jackson ahead of Quentin. To quibble with Rick for a second, Quentin doesn't best him in all the stats. Though Jackson hit just eight homers at Tucson, his strikeout-walk ratio is clearly superior (69-32 to 72-71), a lot more doubles (39 in 93 games versus 29 in 136) and, despite hitting just eight homers, similar isolated power (.199 to .219). But statistics aren't the reason I made that decision.

There's both an art and a science to prospect ranking, and in truth, in a lot of cases, there's no single correct answer. Rick likes Quentin more than Jackson and that's easily defensible. Quentin has a track record of hitting throughout the minors, more established home run power at this point and more defensive ability. Quentin should be a solid right fielder and may be an adequate center fielder, while Jackson is just a first baseman.

But I think we'll ultimately judge both players on what they do at the plate, and I think Jackson will be the more productive hitter of the two after talking to several PCL managers and scouts. Jackson has an innate gift for identifying the type and quality of a pitch seemingly as it leaves a pitcher's hand, and I think he'll turn a lot of his doubles into homers as he gets comfortable in the major leagues. One scout told me, "You get the feeling he's going to get a hit every time up. There's not a pitch he can't hit. He has great hand-eye coordination and great feel for the barrel of the bat. He must have Superman vision or something."

Kevin Goldstein did our Arizona Top 10, and I asked him why he went with Jackson over Quentin. Kevin said:

"When talking to scouts about them, more (but not an overwhelming majority) preferred Jackson's bat. They thought both would be above-average major leaguers at their position, but I found more people who saw Jackson as a potential star."

And just to clarify, because this comes up from time to time, BA's prospect lists reflect more than just the opinion of the writer (or of the team). John Manuel and I go over the lists carefully and usually tinker with them. "

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4781

"Hitters Recap: The ideal hitting prospect? Delmon Young minus the Triple-A stats. The model prospect would put up ISOs of .220 or higher against an older peer group, make decent contact, run the bases well, play a premium defensive position and figure to stick at said position, command the strike zone and not have a history of injury (particularly hands and wrists for hitters--aka "James Loney Disease.""

maybe the dodgers can eventually trade him to the giants for steve finley. who then would proceed to hit a pennant clinching grand slam against the padres.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/statistics/2005/10274.shtml

None of LA's top prospects (save Martin) has great plate discipline, so I won't be shocked at all if those same onlookers then become curious why their stats become so deflated once they play some in the majors.

In Loney's case, he actually needs to stay healthy for a full season, and show he's even ready for AAA.