Looking back at 04's Top 100

by rdf8585 on Jan 14, 2026 12:59 AM EST

Interesting article from Matthew Pouliot at Rotoworld. He's taken a look back at his top 100 list from 2004 and made comparisons between it and the ones from BA and BP. It's hard to believe some of these guys were so highly regarded 4-5 years ago, but that just serves a dose of reality when it comes to prospects.

In the end, Pouliot concluded, "it looks like Baseball America had the best list. They get points for placing Upton second, Sizemore in the top 10 and Felix No. 30. I had some victories (Youkilis, Bedard and Adrian Gonzalez among them), but also more ugly misses than BA did."

Read it here: http://www.rotoworld.com/content/features/column.aspx?sport=MLB&columnid=2&articleid=32048

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King Felix

Were there any red flags or concerns as to why he was so lightly touted? I didn’t follow prospects as much in 2004 so I am not sure what the general viewing on this current ace was?

by Chalupa Cabrera on Jan 14, 2026 4:31 AM EST reply reply 0 recs

he was probably 17 years old

it’s the same argument we still have now. how can you rate a 17 year old who’s never pitched in america as a top prospect? especially without ever seeing him with your own eyes.

When they should be sacrifice bunting, they are buying effeminate designer jeans. When they should be fouling off pitches, they are masturbating. Always, they are masturbating.

by variablesdont on Jan 14, 2026 6:02 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

was he really lightly regarded?

I recall the day I signed him in my minors league. He was real young, guessing he was 17 but not sure, and he was BLOWING UP the northwest league. After seeing a few box scores, I googled him and realized that I was looking at an elite prospect. To me he was a no-brainer.

by psugator on Jan 14, 2026 8:16 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

Looking up Felix on the 'old' newsgroups, I found this on the archive

BASEBALL AMERICA named Everett’s FELIX HERNANDEZ the # 1 prospect in the
Northwest League (ssa).
Here’s what they had to say:

1. Felix Hernandez, rhp, Everett AquaSox (Mariners)

In a league filled with college players, Hernandez dominated at 17. He led the
league in wins, ERA and strikeouts for most of the summer, before allowing four
earned runs over five innings in his final start before a promotion to low
Class A Wisconsin. “He more or less dominated every time he took the mound,”
Tri-City manager Ron Gideon said.

Hernandez throws his overpowering fastball at 94-95 mph and it tops out at 97,
with some managers saying it could reach 100. He commands it well, moving it
all over the strike zone, and is adept at working hitters up the ladder. He
also has a plus curveball and solid changeup. He has a good presence on the
mound and a knack for pitching.

“He’s not raw at all,” Spokane manager Darryl Kennedy said. “The only rawness
is that he is 17 years old. He’s one of the better young prospects on the mound
in this league in a while.”

Team W-L ERA G IP H R ER BB SO
Everett 7-2 2.29 11 55.0 43 17 14 24 73

by BBFan1 on Jan 14, 2026 1:18 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

Link

by BBFan1 on Jan 14, 2026 1:21 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

That scouting report is weird.

Felix’s fastball is hardly a command pitch for him. Amongst his arsenal, it’s his worst offering. But, chicks dig the fastball I guess.

Fans are typically idiots.

by The Typical Idiot Fan on Jan 15, 2026 5:14 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

In all honesty

I think people were just that much slower to believe undrafted latin players developed that quickly. We had less on them back then as we do today.

by gpellet41 on Jan 14, 2026 5:10 AM EST reply reply 0 recs

+1

True, not to mention the technology 5 yrs back was probably less with the online videos, scouting reports, statistical tracking, blogs, etc. I’m thinking that all these which we have today can give a player some more ‘hype’ or ‘attention’. Which brings me to, after Felix’s success (although still very young and developing) have young Latin players gotten more attention as result of his performance?

by Chalupa Cabrera on Jan 14, 2026 12:25 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

Felix

BA was probably the first to mention Felix as a perhaps a future stud pitching prospect. Anytime you hear a teenage prospect doing well, you are bound to hear bits and pieces from their sources, wherever Felix was playing at the time.

It just takes time to build up some hype [for people to catch on and follow the bandwagon] and with the season Felix had in 2004, everyone had him on ‘their lists’ entering the 2005 season.

by BBFan1 on Jan 14, 2026 1:08 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

Don't forget...

Seattle had a pretty sketchy recent history with pitchers at this time.

I am a Mariner fan, and even I passed on King Felix in 2004 in my Sim League draft. In all honesty though, since he wasn’t highly rated, I passed on him with pick 8 (or somewhere around there) because I was hoping he would fall to my pick that I had around #21. I ended up taking Justin Verlander with that pick. Then I had #23 I think as well… I wanted Wade Townsend there (I read multiple places that he had the quickest path to the majors of the Rice Trio because he would likely be a ML closer), but he got taken and I ended up with Phil Humber. And as bad as he can be, I actually ended up making out with that pick lol.

I think information on these prospects is just so much more abundant now than it was five years ago. Blogs weren’t huge then so there were less websites to search. Baseball Prospectus was around… and it was free, but it was more geared towards Major Leaguers. Baseball America was still a pay site, but I am a cheap bastard. Sickels was still at ESPN doing his Down On The Farm reports at the time I think, but he wasn’t able to put out as much information as he can now.

I’ll put it this way, I remember reading a Gammons article where he was talking about minor leaguers, and I took a lot of stock in that lol.

King Felix was a name back in 2004, and if you followed prospects with any seriousness, you knew who he was, but it was really 2005 when his stock rose as much as it did if I remember right.

"My mom always taught me it's better to laugh at yourself than to laugh at others. She was so wrong. ;)" -Pedrophile

by Boxkutter on Jan 14, 2026 1:17 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

This is too good not to read - Rett Johnson vs. Felix Hernandez

Which one would be untouchable?

Link

by BBFan1 on Jan 14, 2026 1:24 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

WOW

not much love there for the King! Also XD @ the 4 yrs away comment, ouch!

by Chalupa Cabrera on Jan 14, 2026 2:08 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

+1

Solid story there Box. It makes for good memories to look back on what could/couldn’t be for your sim/fantasy team when assessing and drafting minor league guys. Best also to get a view from a Mariners fan like yourself.

by Chalupa Cabrera on Jan 14, 2026 2:06 PM EST up reply reply 0 recs

This actually works well

With John’s diaries on biggest busts. Pouliot’s look-back analysis here shows most of the time the issue is injury - at least with the 2004 prospects. A couple (Hamels, Bedard) pan out, but the vast majority that face injury concerns in the minors never do pan out.

by guru4u on Jan 14, 2026 7:24 AM EST reply reply 0 recs

I should point out too

The issue seems the same for hitters as it does pitchers.

by guru4u on Jan 14, 2026 7:25 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

Let this be a reminder to all the Fantasy players

Prospects are HUGE risks.

by novaoakland on Jan 14, 2026 7:48 AM EST reply reply 0 recs

Analysis

So I spent the last 30 minutes or so analyzing Pouliot’s list in greater detail, trying to categorize his ranked players into different classifications. Here are my unscientific results:

Players that turned out to be solid big league regulars - 44
Failed prospects due to injury - 29
Failed prospects due to just never progressing - 7 (e.g. Ramon Nivar)
Major K rate issues with hitters - 6 (e.g. Brad Nelson)
Players where the evaluation is still ongoing - 5 (e.g. Ian Stewart)
ARL argument that never panned out - 3 (e.g. Sergio Santos)
Pitcher command issues that never improved - 3 (e.g. JD Durbin)
Flat out fluke years that Pouliot bought into - 2 (Guillermo Quiroz and Seung Song)
Unsustainable BA - 1 (Jeremy Reed)

So basically 44/100 turned out just fine (I did not attempt to rate the actual ranking, so a guy like Hanley Ramirez is in the ok column despite being severely underrated, just like Zach Greinke was likely overrated at #3). 5 additional guys could get thrown into that ok rating, as the evaluation period is still ongoing. If all 5 turn out ok, we’re talking about a 50% hit rate. But of those 44 guys that turned out ok, 7 were in the top 10 (I put Weeks in the ongoing evaluation rating due to his major K issues), 5 were in the 11-20 range, 4 were in the 21-30 range, and 26 out of the top 50 overall have turned into solid big league regulars. Clearly, the top 10 are pretty safe bets, but once you get past the top 10, things get sketchy.

I remember Pouliot’s 2003 list looking pretty ugly, but if someone wants to do a similar analysis on that list the results would be interesting to compare.

My point was to see how many actually panned out, and to try to categorize the reasons for the various failures. It looks like injuries is by far the biggest reason for prospect failure. Command/Strikeout issues were a distant 2nd reason - that result surprised me a bit.

by guru4u on Jan 14, 2026 10:05 AM EST reply reply 0 recs

This is a good way to break it down

It’s hard to fault Pouliot or Sickels or anybody else for players getting hurt. It’s going to happen, and it doesn’t mean these guys can’t identify future major league talent. It just means that nobody has figured out the best way to judge who is going to get hurt.

44 out of 71 is 62%. That’s not bad, especially when a handful of other guys could still pan out.

by thejd44 on Jan 14, 2026 11:52 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

greinke was overrated at 3?

he’s been pretty damn good…and is still crazy young

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Jan 15, 2026 2:33 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

C'mon now...

Do you really think he should have been #3 overall, ahead of Mauer, Morneau, Hanley Ramirez and David Wright???

Besides, I said likely overrated… there is stil room for judgment in his game. I like him a lot, but he was probably not the 3rd best prospect in 2004 based on revisionist history.

by guru4u on Jan 15, 2026 7:54 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

They've all had success more quickly

But I don’t know that they’ll have more successful careers, especially Morneau.

Either way, these ratings aren’t supposed to be that fine-grained. Greinke was rated top 10, and at this point, he seems like a top 10 guy from that year.

by mraver on Jan 15, 2026 8:02 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

LOL

Wow, guru, you do know that revisionist history tends to be a bad thing, right?

by FI2 on Jan 16, 2026 1:21 AM EST up reply reply 0 recs

Breakdown...

I think in order to actually learn from these lists, breaking it down into % right and why they failed is somewhat useless. I think looking at each player a little more in depth and seeing what caused the failure.

What percent of hitters who strike out say, 20%, or more make it? What percent of pitchers who strikeout less than like 7 per 9 or walk more than 3.5 per 9 in the minors make it? I want them to give us some things to actually look for. What about middle infielders who only have a SLG of 375 but can steal 20+ bases a year and have a 340 OBP? How about what level of baseball these guys were playing in? How many of the Top 50 were in HiA or lower and how many of those made it? How many were in the upper minors?

Breaking it down that way would teach us a lot more I believe. But in the end, every player is an individual so we will never be able to say Player X won’t make it because they don’t meet this or that minimum requirement. A lot of it has to do with physical ability and work ethic.

"My mom always taught me it's better to laugh at yourself than to laugh at others. She was so wrong. ;)" -Pedrophile

by Boxkutter on Jan 14, 2026 1:25 PM EST reply reply 0 recs