BA's Carolina Top 20

I don't have first hand knowledge of this either way, but it would seem logical that they would train the people who are observing their minor league players on a daily basis (ie managers) to be able to evaluate when a player is ready to move up, how they think the player is doing, and what they think the player will become perhaps for use in future placement of the player or even to formulate draft strategy.

It seems reasonable that teams would exploit the manager as an information resource as much as possible, since few people in the organization would have as much first-hand knowledge of a player than that player's manager.

Anyway, I find the discussion interesting and maybe someone could shed more light on the question of a manager's role in a team's internal talent evaluation to give more information as to the validity or usefulness of a list compiled by those people.

"I'm sure he doesn't care what coaches from the Cal League think.  These lists are essentially pointless."

more....

"I could care less what some has-been low A coach says about a player or group of players in his league because of the inherent biases involved.  

Furthermore, minor league baseball coaches are not scouts, nor are they trained to be.  It would be like asking my finance teacher who will develop into the best I-bankers in our class.  He doesn't know, he's a teacher, not an HR person or IB scout.  

My view may be dramatically different than the majority on here, but I think these lists are incredibly pointless and I would rather here analysis on prospects from intelligent posters on this forum."

"I don't want to get scouting info from Buddy Bell and Larry Bowa rejects. Just "knowing" about a particular industry doesn't mean you have an advanced ability to evaluate others in that industry."

"what is the point of these lists if they aren't BA opinions?  Aren't subscribers paying for "expert" analysis on prospects?"

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the rest of us would at least care to hear the opinion of people who: 1) see have seen LOTS of developing baseball players over the years, 2) really know their baseball (even if not "scouting," per se), and 3) have seen the players in question on a daily basis (which is infinitely more often than 99.9% of bloggers, mind you).

are there biases and deficiencies in rankings done by managers? absolutely. but many of the rest of us think there is still VALUE to rankings -- especially if we know how the rankings were made, and can therefore hope to correct some of these biases.

you keep calling the rankings "pointless," which, yes, does seem to suggest that coaches know nothing more than a monkey with a keyboard when it comes to evaluating talent in the very leagues in which they participated daily.

"Baseball America's League Top 20 lists are generated from consultations with scouts and league managers."