Good stuff:
1. The top 20 rankings is my favorite part of this site. I look forward to those like a birthday present when a new one is available! I also appreciate it when you revisit those lists later in the year.
2. The contributions from posters. I get quite a bit of information from them, that you yourself probably don’t have time to really get into. For example, I would never have realized just how big a jump Rubby De La Rosa took as far as being a top prospect without the legions of positive comments about him.
3. The AQA threads are extremely helpful.

Improvements:
1. The most important improvement would be to get your input on whether a prospect’s possible improvement or tanking is for real. For example, when Devin Mesoraco was going all gangbusters at the beginning of the year, if we could have gotten some opinion from you on whether it was for real, that would have been very helpful. Same with Jerry Sands, Brandon Belt (and Rubby too, of course). Same with Jaff Decker having a slow start, etc. The key is getting your opinion earlier when the prospect change is in question at that time, rather than after the fact. Of course, it’s hard to know when that “timely” moment is…
2. In those top 20 lists revisited, it would be helpful to include some prospects that came out of the blue and are now relevant. You just ignore them as if they didn’t exist. (Again, Rubby is a good example of this). A quick comment on those guys would be helpful, including why they took such a big leap (if the reason is known).

Of course, overall, I LOVE this site and check it nearly every day (and usually multiple times a day). Thank you for all you do on it.

everything else is fine

During the season, I am guessing that you keep some lists, such as players that suddenly catch your attention, players not on your top 20 lists but moving into the conversation, pitchers improving their control, prospect status tumbling, prospects stepping up, etc.. It would be great to have some of this lists on the site. It would be conversation starters for those of us not familar with these players. You don’t have to put alot of background to the player on the list, just put him on the list, we can ask you the questions about who they are and why they made the list.

1) What do you like best about Minor League Ball right now?

Your writing. The AQA threads. The ease of getting personal responses from you when the question is good enough.

2) What improvements or changes would you like to see in the future?

A partner writer would help out: Eno Sarris or another young buck. Just to flesh out when you are sick or Jeri is or whatnot. I mention the guy I did by name simply because that’s the fantasy writer element, too.

Positional top tens. It’s something we can piece together from grades, but these would make for great articles

and in reality, I really don’t care about anything other than the content. You could put a picture of roadkill as the background and it wouldn’t bother me as long as the writing and the comments stayed the same.
As far as point 2- I know I’m asking alot, and maybe you could find an intern at KU who could do this for grades, but getting an everyday mid-morning to lunchtime update of the prospects daily performances (I know KG does it at bp but you and he have different opinions on who is a prospect) would be awesome! Nothing too ridiculous, just 10-15 guys who are performing good or bad on the previous day. Maybe a Sickels sleeper in there too! Beyond that, great work.

The one thing I wouldn’t mind seeing more of is a little more about the people who will be in the minors next year, like a little more about the draft. Especially since mlb bonus baby hasnt been updated in months. Dont know if thats possible, it may take another writer I dont know. Thanks.

Would like to see more “Prospect Smackdowns” (I think you do an excellent job on these and generally enjoy the discussion and contributions of the community on these).

Also, if you are looking for ideas, just a thought about incorporating a “Floor” and “Ceiling” type column to your posts including some ‘floor and ceiling’ comparisons for each prospect and the likelihood you think the prospect will develop towards his ceiling, etc.

AQA thread’s are awesome; to echo an earlier comment, I really enjoy reading about your philosophy and general baseball/prospect analysis process/evolution; I get lots of value from many of the fanposts - great to read the the thoughts of others, especially their “on hand” observations of prospects in what are far away places to me. The “guess the prospect” thread is also a lot of fun.

I don’t really pay attention to Facebook, where I believe you now have “other” observations/comments, so I miss your Star Trek thoughts & comments unrelated to minor league ball - I’d love for those to come back here…Thanks for asking for the input. John, you(and Jeri) rock!

You’ve mentioned them in passing before, but never really got around to it. The Retros are cool, but I’d much rather see postings on baseball’s history, and the further back in time, the better.

To get 7 John Sickels. One per day. Get it done!

1) What do you like best about Minor League Ball right now?

At the risk of sounding like a brown nose, it really is the author, John Sickels. More so than just trying to put out your opinion about some prospect, you do listen to the posters here and listen to their opinion. Even to the point that many of the articles/posts are designed to create discussion among the board in which you interact in rather than simply to state your opinion and think that the followers should listen to you over their own opinions (not to say that is the attitude of those sites, but after being here, it does feel that way sometimes). Even though this give and take will inevitably lead to some posters with a sense of entitlement or need for self-aggrandizement, I rather this than the alternatives.

Other than that, I also like the variety of articles/posts. I don’t read every Crystal Ball or Prospect Retro or a post on Ships, but I respect the fact that it is entertaining to many and keeps the creative juices flowing. Obviously, I like the posts detailing new thoughts or notes on prospects, the lists (top 20 and sleepers), and - perhaps especially - the AQA threads and that’s why I keep coming back, but sometimes the variety is exactly what is needed instead of a plethora of names that I might see in MLB one day (since there’s really only 2 MiLB teams close enough to me that I’d attend with any regularity).

2) What improvements or changes would you like to see in the future?

Personally, I’d like a more functional tool bar. Someone had the idea of listing the teams so that every post associated with particular team would come up and that’s a good idea. It would be an easy way for people who are new to the site to catch up fairly quickly with the site for the particular team they follow. Also, when a rumor that my team is involved in trade discussions with another team, then I could have an easy way to get the current rundown of their system for my own personal rosterbation.

Also, I was also thinking that maybe you could include a top x lists as well - maybe top x overall prospects and/or top y prospects at particular positions and slap it on the toolbar as well. There are obvious problems with such an idea, but I do think it’d be fun discussion and would allow for an easier route to your (somewhat current) ideas. It may even become a nice tool when you’re getting a little writer’s block to review what you’re ideas where when you wrote them and decide if you still agree with them or not… and write a post about it.

Lastly, I really enjoy the personal scouting missions and wish there were more of them. Maybe even going a little further afield during the season and seeing teams on either coast. I understand that family matters obviously put a crimp on these, but I do want to put it out there for future thought - maybe even eventually scheduling the family vacations around the trips (nothing like a vacation you can write off!).

1) I love that this site is free. I would have never known the quality of what is done here if it had not been free. So because it was free, it eventually led me to purchasing the book. Also love AQA.

2) Hmm. Im not sure. Maybe more write-ups on players like Travis Snider who are no longer minor league eligible but haven’t quite blossomed in the majors yet.

I absolutely love this site - I began visiting more frequently a few years ago to do some research for a 10-round minor league fantasy draft, where I knew next to nothing about the prospects around apart from the MLB team I follow.
I couldn’t have done that draft without this site.
I now visit the site practically every day.
The Top 20s are my favourite articles, and are a great help for minor league draft preparation as well as getting a better idea of what teams are sacrificing or acquiring in trades which involve prospects.
I also like the different types of posts, as the mix of Top 20s, Prospect Retros, Smackdowns and Guess The Player posts keeps the site interesting.
I’d like to see more Guess The Player posts, but otherwise don’t mess too much with a winning formula. Thanks John, keep up the great work.

What if each team got one poster (ie I’ll take the mets) just like the shadow draft. Each poster is responsible throughout the season for getting the prospects from you’re top 20 for each teams stats into a nice package daily and then send them on to you for posting. It could be a daily/ every couple of days type thing that takes writing off of you and gets content up that people are asking for. Also, it costs John no money or time (or very little time). Like i said, I’ll do the mets. Is this something that people would get into? Is this possible?