We now have five full seasons worth of data for players who entered 2010 as prospects. There are still players from the 2010 prospect class who have yet to play in the big leagues but have star upside, like Miguel Sano. But there are also two players from the class who have already won MVP awards, in Mike Trout and Buster Posey. William Hill Baseball Betting members may have even picked Trout as the 2014 AL MVP.
Analysis: There's still a lot to unravel in how these lists ultimately stack up, but gaps between some of the lists are widening. I've included players from the class to exemplify the differences between lists thus far. Baseball Prospectus, for example, would need the full value of one Mike Trout (career to date) and one Carlos Santana (career to date) in order to catch up to the top ranked lists in this study.
Methodology: Each list was given weighted WAR (Fangraphs) values based on how high or low it ranked players, starting at 150% for its No. 1 prospect and dropping to 51% for its No. 100. When I did this exercise previously, I gave added bonuses to players who only appeared on one list. I also took away a player's WAR from one publication if every publication but that one ranked him. I didn't do that this time.
Digging Deeper: Would anyone be interested in putting together a list of the most valuable players to date who didn't appear on any of our lists? Email adamf@projectprospect.com for a copy of my spreadsheet with the data.
Adam Foster can be reached at adamf@projectprospect.com.