John Sickels Posted His Top-150 Prospects This Morning

[Big Tymer]

I think many of us value his opinion on prospects so figured I would post a link to his newly posted top 150 list.

Good stuff.

Minor League Ball 2013 Top 150 Prospects

[wannabegriffey]

I think many of us value his opinion on prospects so figured I would post a link to his newly posted top 150 list.

Good stuff.

Minor League Ball 2013 Top 150 Prospects

I've bought his stuff every spring but one starting his first year, which I think was 1994.

And to be honest and give earned props, I put rhd just behind sickles because his work is well researched and is, most importantly, slanted towards roto.

[Sharky]

Very interesting read. Thanks a lot for posting.

I'm going RHD over Sickels.

[Big Tymer]

I've bought his stuff every spring but one starting his first year, which I think was 1994.

And to be honest and give earned props, I put rhd just behind sickles because his work is well researched and is, most importantly, slanted towards roto.

I still put most weight behind Keith Law but also consider Sickels viewpoints very highly along with Baseball Prospectus (was previously a huge fan of Goldstein's work but Parks seems pretty good too) and Baseball America. And he gives his insights away for free so what is there to complain about right

[Bodhizefa]

Sickels has Brad Miller as the #48 prospect in baseball and BP didn't even have him on their Seattle Mariners top 10 -- interesting (and for the record, I thought it was silly of Parks to leave Miller out of the M's list on BP.)

[Pauly]

Hey Im certainly no expert, but is it me or does he seem really low on some guys:

33. Rendon
38. Gyorko
39. Archer
41. Teheran
53. Arenado
78. Leonys Martin
85. Kolten Wong
92. Adam Eaton
105. Martin Perez
120. Zach Lee
134. Matt Adams

[Bodhizefa]

Really? Keith Law is the one I put the least stock in of all the prospect gurus. Baseball America is the clear #1, imo.

It's hard to put more stock in evaluations made by people who haven't actually seen the folks they're evaluating, though. I love rhd's analysis and rankings but, like the rankings of Fangraphs, I kind of take them with a grain of salt since prospect evaluation is not his job.


Edit: I also think that some folks put too much of an emphasis on speed, which is not that important a skill for real baseball and is less scarce in roto than power.

The big problem with speed is just like the old saying, "You can't steal first base." A lot of the guys with incredible speed also have incredibly small frames (by MLB standards) and they end up not being able to hit the ball out of the infield or intimidate a pitcher enough to make the guy throw anything but strikes. It's the biggest reason why minor league numbers for speedsters don't translate to the majors, and prospect writers who don't watch, in person, these sleight guys (like Dee Gordon or Billy Hamilton) with frequency don't know what other physical skills these players have that may allow them to adapt to the big league gameplay.

By the way, Law watches many of the guys he reports on while also being very well tapped in to the scout community for intel. He utilizes a great blend of stats/scouting and knows how to incorporate those principles into prospect evaluation (although I do think he has a tough time re-evaluating a guy that he initially didn't like or didn't think much of even if that player eventually breaks out). I like him an awful lot and am surprised you don't at least find him a moderately worthwhile read. Is it the snark?

[BigJonEmpire]

I like Law because he doesn't really care what the other prospect writers think when it comes to forming his opinion. At Baseball America you are often seeing a collaborative effort in their reports. I haven't gotten a great read on the new BP guys but I like their approach and the emphasis on mechanics. I love Sickels because he realizes he is writing largely for fantasy guys and his mix of methods and his inclusion of hunches and guesses (always clearly identified) can give you the jump on guys who could make a big splash.

For fantasy purposes I also like mlbprospectwatch.com and thedynastyguru.com

Nothing beats watching a player in person but there are so many scouts with youtube accounts posting reports and videos online that you can at least see quality video of most players.

[heyelander]

Really? Keith Law is the one I put the least stock in of all the prospect gurus. Baseball America is the clear #1, imo.

Seriously? Little Jimmy Callis once tried to trade with me to get my Wings With A Little Luck 45. You really going to take his opinion seriously?

[Big Tymer]

Really? Keith Law is the one I put the least stock in of all the prospect gurus. Baseball America is the clear #1, imo.

And this is why there is a market for multiple pundits. Don't get me wrong I like BA and had subscribed to them for several years before this year (which I'll probably renew when I get around to it) but they are really slow to admit they are "wrong" on prospects sometimes I feel and are also super toolsy which I'm starting to move away from after seeing multiple "5-tool" players flame out on me. What I do is create a personal composite list from 8 sources weighting each source differently. While this waters down the gut feelings of some of the writers I personally believe in consensus estimates especially where there isn't group think.

[JudeBaldo]

I think many of us value his opinion on prospects so figured I would post a link to his newly posted top 150 list.

Good stuff.

Minor League Ball 2013 Top 150 Prospects

Yup. He's also a very nice guy. Thanks for the post Rick.

[rhd]

Very interesting read. Thanks a lot for posting.

I'm going RHD over Sickels.

Wow, what an endorsement! I'm speechless.

[cardboardbox]

My preference used to be:

Law
Goldstein
---------
Sickels
---------
BA to see what everyone else is thinking

Now I'm down to mostly just Law but I like reading Sickels also.

[Sharky]

Seriously? Little Jimmy Callis once tried to trade with me to get my Wings With A Little Luck 45. You really going to take his opinion seriously?

Wings 45? Now whose judgment is called into question?

[wannabegriffey]

A little late for virtually all auctions and drafts in 2014 (concussion), I received my pdf file of sickels minor league evaluations.

A good comparision to rhd, though sickels isn't as 'fantasy' based.