BA FSL Top 20

20th was a little strange too. Until I realized that they just don’t care that much about the list really. Whatever one thinks about Cumberland or Flores they are among the top prospects in thier league. It’s all good though. :)

Shoot, while I’m bitching, isn’t Brackman better than the 20th best prospect in the FSL? I guess that one is at least defensable. I think Id take him over a guy like Diego Moreno maybe. Moreno had a million punch-outs but struggled some at AA and is a little dude.

Hell hath no fury like a Mets fan scorned. Or something like that. We’ve heard from plenty of Mets fans since our SAL Top 20 came out last Thursday and Flores wasn’t included.

Flores played half the season at Savannah, batting .278/.342/.433 at age 18 and as the fourth-youngest regular in the league. He was on some of the earlier versions of the list, but after Bill Ballew talked to more scouts and managers while putting together the Top 20, Flores wound up just missing out.

Flores’ bat is obviously his best tool, but SAL observers knocked the rest of his game. He’s not going to stay at shortstop, and some scouts questioned whether he’d be able to play third base because he has below-average speed and agility. There were concerns about him giving less than full effort at times. Flores spent last year in the SAL as well—he ranked 10th on last year’s Top 20—and it’s possible that SAL observers expected more improvement out of him this year.

Should Flores’ offensive potential outweighed the rest of his game and landed him on the SAL Top 20? When it comes to evaluating prospects, especially at the lower levels of the minors where they have a lot of projection remaining, there are few sure things. You could certainly make a case for Flores versus several players on the list, just as you could make a case for taking those players over him, as we did.

In contrast to our organization rankings and overall Top 100 Prospects list, our minor league Top 20s factor in league context. They’re a narrower look at how a player performed in that league, and scouts and managers in one circuit can view a player differently than others who see him elsewhere. Flores is a perfect case in point, because when our Florida State League Top 20 comes out on Wednesday, he’ll rank 10th.

FSL observers dwelled on Flores’ bat speed and ability to make hard contact more than his shortcomings. They too worried that he might wind up at first base, but they believed more in his offensive promise and didn’t have any concerns about how hard he played.

As for Marte, he wasn’t particularly close to making the SAL Top 20. He showed improvement while repeating the league at age 19 and he still has impressive bat speed and raw power, but he has a long swing and isn’t going to stick at third base. He’s a prospect, but he just wasn’t good enough for a Top 20 in a strong 14-team league.

He’s a breakout candidate for 2011, for sure.

I don’t think any part of Sanchez’s game other than defense projects as plus, and he’s been pretty crappy defensively, even before the injuries. And – oh yeah, the injuries. I think Jackson has a very good chance to be an impact prospect. I think Sanchez has a very good chance of becoming Jason Castro (blah). They really aren’t that close for me, though I do consider Sanchez a good prospect.

Beyond that, solely on the basis of how they performed in their time in the FSL (which apparently counts a whole lot for BA), I don’t think you can justify Sanchez and his 8 errors, 4 passed balls, and 15% CS rate on 62 attempts in 40 games at catcher as having been superior to Jackson, who outhit him by a not insignificant margin, also played a premium position and actually played it well, didn’t get hurt and played more games in the FSL.

Better projection & better performance. I can’t understand the decision at all. Just more BA inconsistency, as far as I’m concerned.

Let me ask you this – do you think Jackson or Sanchez will be listed higher on their top 100?

But there are a few things worth noting:

- Jackson is a plus defender in center according to most, and he should provide value on the basepaths as well. It’s not clear what kind of defender Sanchez is going to be.

- Jackson maintained solid performance in Double-A while Sanchez hasn’t reached that level yet

- Sanchez played only 59 games this year because he got hit in the face by a pitch. I’d argue that you should put more weight into 128 games of Jackson than 59 games of Sanchez.

I understand that these lists emphasize in-league performance, which is dumb by the way, but I think Jackson has clearly put himself ahead of Sanchez.

He’s just not making any of the progress that you’d hope for from a prospect of his caliber.

The improved walk rate was nice, but he didn’t improve his K rate at all, his power was still middling at best, his base-stealing efficiency was still quite poor, and we didn’t hear particularly positive scouting reports all year. Hard to say that he’s been anything but disappointing so far.

I’m surprised that Erik Komatsu wasn’t in there. I wonder if its a stature thing. That might make an interesting discussion question for the blog.

The power is always going to be borderline non-existent, but he’s got good contact skills, some speed and a solid glove at shortstop- guys have had good careers with a similar skill set. He turns 27 next year so obviously it’s getting to that point where he’s gotta get a shot, but I wonder if they’d go with Hu before seeing what Ivan DeJesus Jr. can do.

He could be an interesting shot to take for a team with little shortstop talent, like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or as you mentioned, Houston.