Community Top 30 Prospects - 2008

Now that Baseball America has released their top 10 prospects list for the Dodgers, I feel like it's time to do a community top 30 prospects list yet again. Like last year, list anywhere from your top 10 to top 30 prospects in the comments. After a couple weeks, I'll total them all up (a first place vote gets 30 points, second place gets 29, etc.) and come up with the community prospect list.

You can see last years results in the left sidebar, but they were the result of only six or seven people voting. I'm shooting for 10 this year, I think we can do it.

This is my list. Note that this is pretty much a rough draft and will evolve over the next couple weeks as others point out people that I just plum forgot, or I learn the guy with great numbers only throws 80 miles an hour. While I'm certainly far more receptive to scouting reports than I used to be, I do believe that you actually have to accomplish something to become a highly rated prospect, so my rankings take that into account. Some notes on specific players are below.

1. Andy LaRoche
   
2. Clayton Kershaw
   
3. James McDonald
   
4. Jonathan Meloan
   
5. Scott Elbert
   
6. Chin-Lung Hu
   
7. Andrew Lambo
   
8. Ivan DeJesus
   
9. Josh Bell
   
10. Blake Dewitt
    
11. Chris Withrow
    
12. Pedro Baez
    
13. Austin Gallagher
    
14. Bryan Morris
    
15. Delwyn Young
    
16. Xavier Paul
    
17. Steven Johnson
    
18. Ramon Troncoso
    
19. Justin Orenduff
    
20. Wesley Wright
    
21. James Adkins
    
22. Garrett White
    
23. Kyle Smit
    
24. Luis Ferraras
    
25. Greg Miller
    
26. Lucas May
    
27. Cory Wade
    
28. Bridger Hunt
    
29. Michael Watt
    
30. Preston Mattingly
    

Chin-Lung Hu - He made a believer out of me this year after I called his first half a huge fluke. However, he walked only 32 times in 546 at bats, and only six times in 192 AAA at bats. Until he solves that problem, he's a huge risk to put up a .300 on base percentage, and that's simply unacceptable for any starting player.

Andrew Lambo - His .342 average this year was probably a bit fluky. He had a .407 BABIP with only a 12.7 line drive percentage. Still, he showed good control of the strike zone with 25 walks against 38 strikeouts, along with decent power. I wouldn't expect him to hit like this when he goes to low A next year, but he's probably the best pure bat aside from LaRoche that we have in the farm system.

Chris Withrow - Logan White picked him first, he must be good. That's about all I have on him since he only pitched nine innings this year. To his credit he fanned 13 in those frames. Going to need to actually do something for him to move up on my list.

Pedro Baez - I know nothing about him, but scouts seem to love him. Hopefully he'll actually start hitting and make a believer out of me

Delwyn Young - Not nearly as impressed by his 2007 campaign as most people. His strikeout rate isn't terrible, but when you couple that with only 38 walks in 490 at bats you have a guy that will likely be abused by big league pitching. Plus, he's 25 in a massive hitters park. Huge seasons like that should be expected if you're going to make any kind of impact in the bigs. Still, he's almost guaranteed to be in the bigs for the next few years, though not necessarily on the Dodgers, so he gets a decent ranking.

Luis Ferraras - Blew away the rookie league at age 17, striking out 27 in 27.1 innings while allowing only three earned runs.

Bridger Hunt - My pet prospect. Probably doesn't deserve to be on this list, but someone has to stay on the Bridger Hunt hype train. Still shows good control of the strike zone and can become dangerous if he develops some power.