Back by popular demand, I've taken an early look at the competitive dollar values of 2008's top 100 prospect lists. For details on the methods and calculations of this study, check my article from last week.
Only about 60-percent of the players who were ranked as top 100 prospects by Baseball America (BA), Baseball Prospectus (BP), ESPN and us (PP) have reached the big leagues thus far, so there's still a lot to be decided over the next decade or two.
2008 Top 100 prospect list values
Here's a look at how things are shaping up (dollar values are in millions).
1. BA, $297.3
2. BP, $128.4
3. ESPN, $113.3
4. PP, $65.9
And the 2008 prospects with the most career value so far (followed by the publication that ranked the individual the highest):
1. Evan Longoria, $56.8 (ESPN)
2. Joey Votto, $36.7 (BP)
3. Jair Jurrjens, $35.4 (BA)
4. Geovany Soto, $30.0 (ESPN)
5. Jacoby Ellsbury, $28.8 (BA)
6. Clayton Kershaw, $25.3 (BP)
7. Joba Chamberlain, $25.3 (BA)
8. Nick Blackburn, $24.9 (BA)
9. Max Scherzer, $20.1 (BA)
10. Kosuke Fukudome (BA)
Notable prospects from this class who have yet to reach the big leagues and their strongest endorser:
Desmond Jennings (ESPN), Jarrod Parker (BP), Jason Heyward (BA), Jeremy Hellickson (ESPN), Jesus Montero (PP), Jose Tabata (ESPN), Matt Dominguez (ESPN) and Nick Weglarz (ESPN).
Comments
There's a very good chance that Baseball America's top 100 will run away with the 2008 title. BA made some great value picks (like Blackburn and Jeff Niemann) and has very few early picks that are looking bad. Aside from leaving Trevor Cahill off its list, there isn't much wrong with BA's 2008 top 100.
On top of having nearly 50-percent of our picks still in the minors, only a handful of our picks have a full season of experience so far. But it's already looking like some of our early picks will never be big league regulars. Also note that we had Joey Votto at the exact spot as BP, but the way the mock draft worked out, he didn't falls to us regardless of the order. We lost out on a lot of picks by a narrow margin: Clay Buchholz, Matt Wieters, Rick Porcello and Jair Jurrjens as well.
While we had eight loner instances in 2008, they've only cost us $22.3 million so far. ESPN is already down $52.5 million due to its omissions of Brett Anderson ($17.1) and Jair Jurrjens alone.
Baseball Prospectus was extremely conservative with the players it chose to rank in 2008. While it ranked most of its big money earners only a few slots ahead of other publications -- sometimes dead even -- because it didn't have many "daredevil" picks getting in the way, it got almost all or its guys.
The chart below is one of the mock drafts I conducted for 2008.
| Rd. | ESPN | $ | Baseball Propectus | $ | Baseball America | $ | Project Prospect | $ | |||
| 1 | Evan Longoria | $56.8 | Jay Bruce | $9.0 | Joba Chamberlain | $25.3 | Colby Rasmus | $10.4 | |||
| 2 | Clay Buchholz | $12.5 | Clayton Kershaw | $25.3 | Cameron Maybin | $5.8 | David Price | $8.1 | |||
| 3 | Travis Snider | $2.7 | Homer Bailey | $6.7 | Franklin Morales | $6.3 | Jake McGee | n/a | |||
| 4 | Fernando Martinez | -$2.3 | Rick Porcello | $8.6 | Matt Wieters | $8.4 | Andy LaRoche | $8.5 | |||
| 5 | Desmond Jennings | n/a | Wade Davis | $5.2 | Jacoby Ellsbury | $28.8 | Johnny Cueto | $13.1 | |||
| 6 | Andrew McCutchen | $15.3 | Jordan Schafer | -$1.4 | Brandon Wood | -$2.8 | Ian Kennedy | $1.6 | |||
| 7 | Josh Vitters | n/a | Mike Moustakas | n/a | Elvis Andrus | $13.6 | Daric Barton | $8.5 | |||
| 8 | Carlos Triunfel | n/a | Jarrod Parker | n/a | Carlos Gonzalez | $13.8 | Chris Marrero | n/a | |||
| 9 | Angel Villalona | n/a | Joey Votto | $36.7 | Matt LaPorta | $1.8 | Gio Gonzalez | $2.7 | |||
| 10 | Jose Tabata | n/a | Chase Headley | $7.2 | Nick Adenhart | $0.9 | Matt Antonelli | n/a | |||
| 11 | Austin Jackson | n/a | Reid Brignac | -$0.9 | Jason Heyward | n/a | Jeff Clement | $2.1 | |||
| 12 | Lars Anderson | n/a | Neftali Feliz | $4.9 | Adam Miller | n/a | Fautino del los Santos | n/a | |||
| 13 | Geovany Soto | $30.0 | Chin-lung Hu | -$1.3 | Kosuke Fukudome | $19.0 | Beau Mills | n/a | |||
| 14 | Carlos Gomez | $14.3 | Ross Detwiler | $5.7 | Deolis Guerra | n/a | Aaron Laffey | $13.9 | |||
| 15 | Nolan Reimold | $4.7 | Manny Parra | $14.8 | Brett Anderson | $17.1 | Sean Gallagher | $5.5 | |||
| 16 | Taylor Teagarden | $5.3 | Steve Pearce | -$1.8 | Ian Stewart | $12.1 | Aaron Thompson | n/a | |||
| 17 | Michael Main | n/a | Chris Tillman | -$0.6 | Jair Jurrjens | $35.4 | Bill Rowell | n/a | |||
| 18 | German Duran | -$3.7 | Eric Hurley | $0.0 | J.R. Towles | $0.9 | Trevor Cahill | $2.9 | |||
| 19 | James McDonald | $0.6 | Justin Masterson | $12.8 | Carlos Carrasco | -$1.3 | Kevin Mulvey | -$0.4 | |||
| 20 | Matt Dominguez | n/a | Jed Lowrie | $8.2 | Nick Blackburn | $24.9 | Michael Burgess | n/a | |||
| 21 | Tim Alderson | n/a | Jordan Walden | n/a | Daniel Cortes | n/a | Tyler Robertson | n/a | |||
| 22 | Nick Weglarz | n/a | Ryan Kalish | n/a | Chris Volstad | $6.9 | Mat Latos | $0.3 | |||
| 23 | Brett Cecil | $1.8 | Engel Beltre | n/a | Neil Walker | -$1.4 | Greg Reynolds | -$2.4 | |||
| 24 | Felipe Paulino | -$0.6 | Brent Lillibridge | -$3.8 | Luke Hochvar | $15.6 | Hank Conger | n/a | |||
| 25 | Tommy Hanson | $11.7 | Gerardo Parra | $1.2 | Chris Davis | $2.2 | Michael Bowden | $0.8 | |||
| 26 | Aaron Poreda | $0.2 | Scott Elbert | -$1.1 | Max Scherzer | $20.1 | Jesus Montero | n/a | |||
| 27 | Kyle Blanks | $4.2 | Alan Horne | n/a | Brett Sinkbeil | n/a | Madison Bumgarner | $0.1 | |||
| 28 | Fernando Perez | $3.4 | Chris Perez | $0.9 | Radhames Liz | -$2.7 | Sean O'Sullivan | -$0.5 | |||
| 29 | Brandon Boggs | $1.0 | Brandon Jones | -$2.4 | Chuck Lofgren | n/a | Cole Rohrbough | n/a | |||
| 30 | Henry Sosa | n/a | Bryan Anderson | n/a | Dexter Fowler | $1.4 | James Simmons | n/a | |||
| 31 | Jeremy Hellickson | n/a | Chorye Spoone | n/a | Tyler Colvin | -$0.3 | Phillippe Aumont | n/a | |||
| 32 | Josh Donaldson | n/a | Jeremy Jeffress | n/a | Adrian Cardenas | n/a | Wladimir Balentien | -$1.3 | |||
| 33 | Chris Nelson | n/a | Wes Hodges | n/a | Troy Patton | -$0.5 | Anthony Swarzak | $0.1 | |||
| 34 | John Jaso | -$0.2 | Gorkys Hernandez | n/a | Collin Balester | -$1.4 | Will Inman | n/a | |||
| 35 | Jordan Zimmermann | $8.2 | Casey Weathers | n/a | Joe Savery | n/a | Kasey Kiker | n/a | |||
| 36 | Jaime Garcia | -$1.9 | Ben Revere | n/a | Hector Gomez | n/a | Chris Parmelee | n/a | |||
| 37 | Chris Withrow | n/a | Chris Carter | n/a | Jeff Niemann | $14.2 | Blave Beavan | n/a | |||
| Tot. | $164.0 | $133.9 | $264.1 | $74.0 | |||||||
| n/a: | 16 | n/a: | 14 | n/a: | 9 | n/a: | 18 |
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