Baseball America's Top 10 Dodger Prospects for 2013

Baseball America released it's 2013 Dodger prospect list this morning, and as you may have guessed the rankings are significantly different from a year ago. Only three players from last year's list made the cut, with Joc Pederson taking a big step forward, Zach Lee falling a few spots, and Chris Reed remaining just about constant. Here is the complete list:

1) Hyun-jin Ryu, LHP
2) Yasiel Puig, OF
3) Corey Seager, SS/3B
4) Joc Pederson, OF
5) Zach Lee, RHP
6) Chris Reed, LHP
7) Onelki Garcia, LHP
8) Paco Rodriguez, LHP
9) Matt Magill, RHP
10) Ross Stripling, RHP

Click here to go to see the additional analysis provided by Baseball America, including the best tools and their projected 2016 lineup

Couple of thoughts on the list, starting with the fact that I was a little surprised to see Ryu at #1. He is clearly the most big league ready out of anyone on the list as he is expected to start the year in the Dodgers rotation, but in 20 years will he turn out to be best player of the group? I guess we'll have to wait and see. Dropping Lee to #5 (from #1) was also something I didn't see coming, but given that the top 5 seems to be pretty interchangeable it's not too shocking. Going further down the list, I know the reports on Garcia have been positive, but I thought he'd be a few spots lower. Finally I fully expected a surprise name to make the list, but I just didn't think it would be Stripling. Baseball America typically chooses a player with more upside as their "sleeper" and I thought it would be someone like Zachary Bird or Jesmuel Valentin.

In terms of the projected lineup (linked above), I don't have any qualms about BA's picks. Corey Seager would be a perfect fit for 3rd base in four years, and Jesmuel Valentin could be a solid 2nd baseman in the future. My only question mark would be Chris Reed as the #5 starter as still think he might eventually move back to the bullpen.

For their "Best Tools" picks there aren't any big surprises, but I'll mention a few of the more interesting categories here. Chris Withrow was left out of the top 10 but his fastball was named as the best in the system, while Zach Lee has the best changeup. Chris Reed's slider is tops in the organization, and Onelki Garcia has the best curveball. Yasiel Puig is the best athlete, and Joc Pederson has the best strike zone discipline.

At 12 pm today Baseball America will be holding an online chat where subscribers to Baseball America can ask him questions. This chat focuses solely on the Dodger prospects and usually provides quite a bit of insight to what coaches and scouts say about our minor leaguers. If you are not a subscriber and have a question you want to ask, let me know in the comments and I'll ask it for you.

Now that Baseball America has posted their prospect list, I figure that it's about time that I start my annual minor league rankings. The format will be a little different than past years, but don't worry I'll still be ranking every player in the Dodgers minor league system. The first post in my series will be coming next week.

Finally, I thought it'd be interesting to include the Baseball America prospect lists from the last three years, so here they are: