Top 30 Prospects List By CanuckDodger

Five seasons in the minor league system. FIVE. And he has yet to get more than 215 AB’s in a season or make it past low A.. I don’t know if he is a chronic injury case, but something is not right there.

Lee supposedly throws SLIGHTLY harder than Gould, is projected to have a four-pitch arsenal while Gould will have three, and while Lee’s “mound presence” attracted praise, Gould was said to need to mature in that area. In Gould’s favour, his breaking ball (a curve) sounds better than Lee’s best breaking ball. Going with Lee over Gould wasn’t a hard decision, but I didn’t think they were too far apart, and they are still young enough that a lot can change for both as they develop. Not out of the question that in a couple of years Gould could surpass Lee. Look at the big leap forward Eovaldi took this year, while guys who were more highly esteemed than Eo fell back — a lot .

Martin is definitely a reliever. Closer ceiling, but a low enough floor than he may never be ready for the majors. Withrow could still start in the majors eventually, but 2012 really needs to be his year, or it is the bulllpen for him. Miller strikes me as a reliever going forward, but the Dodgers may not be ready to make that call yet. Reed — complete shot in the dark. A fortune teller with a crystal ball probably has a better grasp on him than I do. We haven’t seen anything from Reed worth using to draw conclusions yet, and Logan While could, in time, look like either a genius or an idiot for picking him in the middle of the first round. His #16 ranking on my list is a compromise between arguments for ranking him much higher and arguments for ranking him much lower.

I factor in MLB readiness with considerations of ceiling in doing these ranking, so Eovaldi’s looking pretty good as a starter in the majors (I am not counting his relief appearances against him, especially since the Dodgers see him as a starter) played a big role in just how high he places in my esteem, but the truth is, he did well enough in Double A, and his fastball is good enough and his slider sufficiently promising, that I probably would have ranked him #1 anyway, given his competition. It just would have been a tougher decision.

Many fans don’t like it, but GM’s and managers pretty much agree nowadays that defense and handling pitchers are both more important for a starting catcher than his offense (which is just a bonus if it is good). That said, and with there appearing to be no debate on Fed-Ex’s defensive merits, he DID hit really well in Triple A for us, at the quite-acceptable age of 23. Sure, it was ABQ, but let’s just say he was more impressive with the bat in that environment than the strikeout-prone Trayvon Robinson (also 23), who isn’t even a catcher let alone one with good defense, and the trade of whom for Fed-Ex PLUS two other players made us all want to kill Colletti and then ourselves. Easily a Top 10 guy. The fact that he wasn’t held in that kind of esteem before is irrelevant. Prospects’ stocks can rise and fall quickly.

…was pretty disappointing in 2010 at the same level he played at in 2011, and there wasn’t exactly much of a rebound this year. Sure, the ERA improved, and there was a slight bump in the K rate, but the walk rate got worse, reaching the point of untenability. That drops him down. He is going to drop more — in my eyes — if he doesn’t seriously get his act together in 2012.

…is older than Songco, ideally should really have reached Double A before his age 24 season, and while he probably has as much raw power as Songco, and has more defensive value, he strikes out a lot, especially for his age relative to competition, raising the same concerns that have already made me write off Kyle Russell. Add to that he missed quite a bit of time this year with an injury, and an injury-marred season always knocks somebody down in rankings like these.

Cash missed the full 2011season with an injury, and it is not like he has a prior admirable record of performance that we can look at, so it is not unreasonable to keep him off the Top 30 list this year. Nothing says that somebody who misses the list this year can’t do well in 2012 and be on next year’s list.

As for Josh Wall, his fastball has been clocked at 100 MPH in the Arizona Fall League, and he was reaching the high 90’s in Chattanooga. His age did cause me to put him a little further down the list than I otherwise would have, but a guy can certainly be a reliever prospect at his age. We drafted Javy Guerra as an 18-year-old and he just made the majors this past season as a 25-year-old. Was Guerra not a prospect after his age 24 season in 2010? I put Guerra at #21 on last year’s list, and now I have put Wall at #22.