Atlanta Braves Prospects Get Baseball America’s Blessing

We are reaching the end of the ‘prospect ranking season, with Baseball America releasing their look at baseball’s Top 100 overall aspiring players.  How closely do their numbers match up with others?

Baseball America unveiled their Top 100 Prospects list for the upcoming season last night on MLB Network and, to the surprise of nobody, the Atlanta Braves were featured heavily.

Eight Braves landed on the list, all of which cracked the top 80.

• #3 Dansby Swanson
• #11 Ozzie Albies
• #37 Kolby Allard
• #48 Mike Soroka
• #66 Ian Anderson
• #67 Ronald Acuna
• #77 Kevin Maitan
• #78 Sean Newcomb

It is notable that of the eight Braves to be recognized by Baseball America, four were position players.After receiving some criticism from fans for being pitcher-heavy with a lack of ‘impact bats’, the Braves’ farm system has balanced out nicely since this time last year.

In addition, no other team matched Atlanta’s crop of 8 on the Baseball America list this year.

The Yankees were closest with 7; multiple teams placed 5 on the list.  The Angels had none; the Marlins just 1.

In the NL East:  Nationals 2, Mets 3, Philadelphia 4.

Breakdown

Here’s how Baseball America’s rundown compares to the other lists from major publications:

Baseball America’s list is essentially the intermediate point between ESPN’s and MLB.com’s this year.

While there’s not a ‘Fried’ or a ‘Gohara’ on BA’s list, they did recognize Ronald Acuna, who appears to be the Braves’ most recent breakout star prospect.  Notably, he’s not exactly tacked onto the end of their list, either:  putting him 67th – ahead of Kevin Maitan – makes a clear statement about his potential.

What’s Different and Where’s a Consensus?

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• BA disagreed with Keith Law of ESPN that Max Fried and Luiz Gohara were deserving of a spot.
• BA agreed with both ESPN and MLB.com that Dansby Swanson is a top-5 prospect in baseball (with Ozzie Albies right behind him).
• BA disagreed with MLB.com that Kevin Maitan deserves to be in the top third of the list before he plays his first game as a professional.
• BA agreed with both ESPN and MLB.com that Sean Newcomb has fallen to outside the top-75 after having a 3.86 ERA in AA last season.

Of particular note:  if you combine these lists, you’ll find eleven different names that these evaluators feel are worthy of being listed among the best prospects in baseball.

If you want an endorsement of the Braves’ farm system – that’s it right there.

How Are These Lists Formed?

Each major site uses a different procedure when deciding their Top 100. All three sites refer to information given to them by official MLB scouts and team executives when compiling their lists, however, they differ in the number of writers used during the process.

According to Baseball America’s website, their list is put together with input from seven writers: John Manuel, J.J. Cooper, Matt Eddy, Ben Badler, Kyle Glaser, Hudson Belinsky and Vince Lara-Cinisomo, whereas ESPN’s list is crafted by Senior Writer Keith Law, alone.

Law’s strategy as the sole producer of ESPN’s Top 100 Prospects installment is to avoid taking into account the previous years’ lists and to carry no biases into each season.

Next: A Report on Someone Who Likely Just Missed These Charts

MLB.com’s list is compiled by three writers: Jonathan Mayo, Jim Callis, and Mike Rosenbaum.

TomahawkTake writer Alex Burke contributed the bulk of this report.  Pretty much everything interesting, in fact.