Fake Teams

We were lucky enough to receive another top 100 list today, this time from the guys over at Baseball America. Their list is the only one so far that comes from a group of experts, as opposed to one specific expert. Their list is also a little bit different in that they ranked both Yu Darvish, and Yoenis Cespedes, since both had signed when they prepared their list. You can find the whole list here, and here's their top 10:

1. Bryce Harper, WAS

2. Matt Moore, TAM

3. Mike Trout, LAA

4. Yu Darvish, TEX

5. Julio Teheran, ATL

6. Jesus Montero, SEA

7. Jurickson Profar, TEX

8. Shelby Miller, STL

9. Trevor Bauer, ARI

10. Dylan Bundy, BAL

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With exactly 15 systems down, I'm hoping to finish up the last of these posts prior to the end of Spring Training. The goal with each team I look at is to discuss a few players who are likely to have an impact in the Majors in 2012, a few who could be ready by the start of 2014, and a few more who are a long ways away, but could be interesting as well. You can find links to the previous teams below:

Houston Astros | Minnesota Twins | Seattle Mariners | Baltimore Orioles

Kansas City Royals | Chicago Cubs | San Diego Padres | Pittsburgh Pirates

Colorado Rockies | Cleveland Indians | Chicago White Sox | Detroit Tigers

Oakland Athletics | Los Angeles Angels | Tampa Bay Rays

He has three pitches that at least flash plus, with a low-90′s sinker, low-80′s sinking changeup, and 75-79 mph curveball. He throws all three offerings with the same arm action, and he utilizes a simple, low-maintenance delivery that he repeats well. He’s always been lauded for his mound presence and cool demeanor, so he’s overall far more advanced than the typical 20-year-old pitcher.

If he continues to make refinements in the coming years, there’s no reason why his three-pitch mix won’t be good enough for him to become one of the better lefthanded starters in the game.

He's got plenty of stuff but command wobbles prevent the B+ at this time. Ceiling is a tad higher than Banuelos, but I'm less confident that he'll reach it. Depending on what happens with his command, he could develop into anything from a number two starter to a disappointing mop-up man.

With Betances, it seems like you're look at a pitcher who has a much higher chance of failure, but poitentially a bit more upside than Banuelos. He will likely spend most of 2012 at AAA hopefully showing that he can remain a starting pitcher. However, he will be 24 this season, and it does concern me slightly that the team may decide he won't be able to be an effective starting pitcher, and convert him to the bullpen. His fantasy value would likely drop off a cliff should that happen, as I don't particularly see him getting the first shot at the closer's job once Mariano Rivera retires.

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As we continue on with our positional rankings, the first teams have begun reporting for Spring Training. We're likely to see at least a fair amount of top prospects at the start of Spring Training, but many will likely be sent to minor league camp before too long. With that in mind, here's the links from around the minor league world for this week.

Fake Teams

Bret Sayre released the second half of his top 100 fantasy prospects list on Tuesday.

Craig Goldstein continued to review his dynasty league draft, looking at round 2 and round 3 this week.

I continued on with the Minor League Keeper Thoughts series, looking at some of the prospects from the Tampa Bay Rays system.

I also took a look at some of the excerpts from Kevin Goldstein's top 101 prospects chat

Ray Guilfoyle took a look at some excerpts from Keith Law's top 100 prospects chat. (Part 1, Part 2). He also put together a lineup of the best players at each position based on his rankings.

Ray also took a look at some of the reactions to the Yoenis Cespedes signing by the Athletics.

Chris Buckley continued on with reviewing his 50 round dynasty draft, looking at rounds 31-40.

Minor League Ball

John Sickels opened up a discussion on how teams should now try to spend their budget for international signees.

John also wrote about some draft sleepers from rounds 10-20 of last season's draft.

Ray wrote about an up-and-coming hitting prospect in the Dodgers' system.

Matt Garrioch reviewed the top 2011 international signings, as well as taking a look at Trevor Story of the Rockies and some prospects from the 2011 draft who could have an impact on the 2012 fantasy season.

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We will have taken a look at 15 of the systems after today's choice, the Tampa Bay Rays. The goal with each team I look at is to discuss a few players who are likely to have an impact in the Majors in 2012, a few who could be ready by the start of 2014, and a few more who are a long ways away, but could be interesting as well. You can find links to the previous teams below:

Houston Astros | Minnesota Twins | Seattle Mariners | Baltimore Orioles

Kansas City Royals | Chicago Cubs | San Diego Padres | Pittsburgh Pirates | Colorado Rockies

Cleveland Indians | Chicago White Sox | Detroit Tigers | Oakland Athletics | Los Angeles Angels

Overview

Graduations have thinned this system out slightly, but that's really being picky to say it's had a huge impact. The system has seen its' share of top prospects, and while the team has shown success over the past few years at the Major League level, it doesn't seem like it has caused their farm system to suffer dramatically as a result.

2011 Graduates

Jeremy Hellickson, Desmond Jennings, Jake McGee

Ready in 2012

Matt Moore

There's not a ton to be said about Matt Moore that hasn't already been told. He led the minors in strikeouts twice, and finished second last year. He struck out 200+ batters in each of his last two seasons in the minors. He averaged over 12 strikeouts per 9 innings for his entire minor league career. He even started game 1 of the ALDS last year and threw 7 innings of shutout ball against the Rangers. He's clearly shown that he's ready for the big leagues, and the team signed him to a very cost-controlled contract during the offseason. He'll slot into the rotation for the Rays, and I believe he has the potential to be one of the top 25 starting pitchers in all of fantasy this season. Robert ranked him at #37 overall among starting pitchers in his earlier rankings, and while I think that's a lot more likely to be where he finishes the season, you'll likely have to draft him earlier than that in most leagues if you want him on your team.

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As we take a look back at some of the key prospect lists, top 10s, and other minor league analysis from the week, here's this week's minor league links. Some key dates for the minor leagues this year:

April 6th - Full-season (AAA, AA, High-A, Low-A) leagues start their season
June 4th-6th - The Amateur Draft
June 15th-18th - Short-season leagues start their season
July 8th - Futures Game

We're also anticipating the top 101 from Kevin Goldstein in the coming week, as well as impact prospects for 2012 from Keith Law over at ESPN.com. Be sure to stay with Fake Teams as we continue to expand our minor league coverage, as well as our major league positional rankings sometime next week.

Fake Teams

I continued on with my Minor League Keeper Thoughts series, looking at a trio of AL West teams: The Texas Rangers, the Oakland Athletics, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

I also opened a brief discussion on Keith Law's top 100 prospect list, along with some of my thoughts for fantasy owners. Law also released his top 10 prospects per team, as well as a sleeper prospect per organization as well. (Insider for both links)

Bret Sayre released the first half of his top 100 dynasty prospects list. The second half will be out next week.

Craig Goldstein took a brief look at how the first round of his dynasty league minor league draft went. He also took a look at the top 100 prospect list from Scout.com, along with some of his thoughts on some of the rankings.

Markus Potter gave us some insights from a chat held by Kevin Goldstein earlier in the week.

Minor League Ball

John Sickels took a look back at the elite prospects he ranked: Pitching Prospects from 2007, Pitching Prospects from 2003-2006, as well as the elite hitting prospects from 2003-2006.

Matt Garrioch gave in-depth reviews of his top 5 high school draft prospects, as well as his top 5 college draft prospects.

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So far, we've looked at 13 of the systems in the Majors, and seen some good and some not-so-good. The goal with each team I look at is to discuss a few players who are likely to have an impact in the Majors in 2012, a few who could be ready by the start of 2014, and a few more who are a long ways away, but could be interesting as well. You can find links to the previous teams below:

Houston Astros | Minnesota Twins | Seattle Mariners | Baltimore Orioles

Kansas City Royals | Chicago Cubs | San Diego Padres | Pittsburgh Pirates | Colorado Rockies

Cleveland Indians | Chicago White Sox | Detroit Tigers | Oakland Athletics

Overview

It's hard not to like a system that has the top prospect overall, but there's a lot of question marks after Mike Trout. You have a shortstop prospect who missed a majority of the 2011 season, but stayed in one top 50 in spite of that fact. There's a third base prospect drafted a couple years ago who won't likely be ready for a few more years. Overall, the system has graduated a fair amount of players in the past few seasons, and they will look to improve under new general manager Jerry DiPoto.

2011 Graduates

Jordan Walden, Tyler Chatwood (now with Colorado), Mark Trumbo, Hank Conger

Ready in 2012

Mike Trout

You know the name. You've seen him at either the #1 or #2 spot in nearly every top 100 list that has come out. Trout is the reminder that the players in the draft aren't always taken in order of potential skill level. Trout may have been slightly overlooked by teams coming into the draft due to being from New Jersey, not exactly a hotbed of high school baseball. But Trout has already shown that he's likely to be a top-flight outfielder and top-flight overall fantasy provider for years to come. In 40 games last year for the Angels, he hit 5 homers and stole 4 bases. At age 19. What else really is there to say about Trout? He looks like he could be a top 10 overall player in his prime, hitting for a high average, solid power, with solid speed and a lot of runs scored. For 2012, he will likely start the season in AAA due to the logjam that is the outfield for the Angels, but it's extremely likely at some point during the season that his performance will dictate moving him up to Anaheim. Honestly, if he's available in your dynasty league, I'd start questioning the other owners after I picked him up.

Garrett Richards

Richards pitched well enough in AA during the 2011 season to earn himself a callup at the end of the season. He was able to repeat most of his performance from the 2010 season while moving up to AA. The only number that really concerns me was his drop in strikeout rate (from 9.4 K/9 in 2010 to 6.5 K/9 in 2011). Here's what Al Skorupa of Bullpen Banter had to say about Richards as a part of their top 15 prospects:

Garrett Richards has some front line stuff and velocity. The problem is his mechanics aren't smooth or consistent and his arm action isn't pretty. This leads to poor command, inconsistent release points and pitches left up. I've seen a lot of questions about why Richards isn't striking out more guys... a lot of it goes back to his mechanics and delivery. His command and execution of his pitches isn't quite there but hitters are still unable to do much because his raw stuff is just so good. If Richards can clean up his flaws the sky is the ceiling, but he could still be an effective starter even if he doesn't. If he really falls apart he could be a late inning reliever.

Richards seems likely to be back at AAA to start the 2012 season, and if he has a good year in Salt Lake City could be in Anaheim to stay by September. I'd like to see his walk rate drop or his strikeout rate improve as well, but I think he'll be the 5th starter for the team fro the 2013 season.

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Thursday morning, Keith Law released his much anticipated top 100 prospects list, as well as his top 10 prospects for each team. With prospect research always been so much of a crapshoot, I like to take a look at as many of these types of lists as possible. We saw earlier in the week some of Craig's thoughts on the top 100 list provided by Scout.com, and in the coming weeks we will also likely receive lists from Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, as well as Baseball America. While all of these lists are rating and reviewing prospects based on their real-life value, there is a lot to be gleaned from how the players are viewed by the industry as a whole.

Here's Law's top 10, along with some of my thoughts after the jump:

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