Trout and Tate are both kids just out of high school. They are very far away from the majors and have little to no data to go on. Sure, we could go on draft position or bonus, but how many times do those guys wash out? That’s not a good way to rank prospects in my opinion, but to each their own. I certainly can understand people wanting to rank those kind of guys, but they won’t show up on my list. I’m not too concerned about the Tate injury, maybe somewhat concerned about his maturity level because the ATV accident(you sign a deal for big money, be responsible) but it’s not like I’m dinging him for any of that. I just have an issue ranking guys with no track record and that have so much of their value tied up in projection ahead of guys that have proven what they can do. Maybe they don’t have the same amount of upside, but I’d sacrifice some upside for a higher floor.

Liddi is an interesting case, I certainly don’t see him as a top 100 prospect, and I’m curious why you have him as high as the 60-75 range. He posted a great looking line, but it was inflated by an extremely high and likely unsustainable BABIP, a near 300 point OPS difference between his road numbers and his numbers in the hitters haven that is High Desert, and the huge difference in BB/PA, K/PA, and BB/K in his home vs. road splits. I won’t say it’s completely impossible Liddi’s true talent level is what we saw in his home line, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. I think he’s an interesting prospect and would be in the 101-150 range for me probably, but I’d like to see what he does in AA this year before going higher.

Neal is another guy I’m not huge on, he comes in at #85 on my list. He’s kind of the reverse of Liddi though, played in a pitchers park in the same league, posted a good line at home but was even better on the road. He K’s less and walks more than Liddi. Still, he’s not a guy I’m a big fan of but one I can see having a least a solid MLB career.

As far as all the OF’s go that I mentioned, they’re the only ones on my list that haven’t made our list, besides Tate. Kalish ranks 41st, Reddick 49th(he’s not far off from Michael Saunders ability wise in my book), Jackson 76th, Mitchell 83rd, Neal 85th and Tate 99th. That said, if guys like Liddi and Trout get some vocal support here, I will be more than happy to add them to the tester list.

Comparing ages for HS and college players directly doesn’t work well, the development path is different. ARL gets used to an extreme around here sometimes, and the most often misuse is trying to compare between HS and college players. If we take a guy like Liddi at age 20 in High A and say that is the correct ARL then any college junior that gets drafted would need to start in High A or AA to be on track. That’s a big jump from college ball, which is usually considered what, somewhere between Rookie Ball and Low A? So the fact that Mitchell and Jackson were both 20 in A ball isn’t an issue as they were just drafted. We have college numbers we can look at for them and they should progress along faster than a guy like Trout or Tate. Whether they do or not is a different story, but that is how it should go, the college guys are generally closer to the bigs than a HS kid.

seen LIddi play in person for the last several years at minor league camp and otherwise. I’m a huge, huge Mariners fan, and would like nothing more than to consider him an elite prospect, but he’s just not there yet. Despite his great numbers last year, his plate coverage and batting eye aren’t that good, and I have serious doubts about how his uppercut swing will translate to Double-A.

He needs to keep hitting in Double-A to convince me he’s worthy of top-100 consideration, and I’m as big a Mariner homer as you’ll find around these parts.