Cleveland Indians: Top Prospects Being Recognized As Best In the Game

The Cleveland Indians’ Top Prospects Being Recognized As Some of the Best In the Game

Every winter various well-regarded baseball sources release their top 100 prospect lists.  A few of these are Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, KATOH (by Chris Mitchell of Fangraphs and the Hardball Times), and MLB.com.  This year eight members of the Cleveland Indians organization showed up on these four lists, with three showing up on multiple lists as seen in the chart below:

Most of the names should come as no surprise. Bradley Zimmer, Clint Frazier, and Brady Aiken are names most Tribe fans probably know. The others many will recognize, but I’m sure one or two from the list above may be new to many…

Baseball America showing the most respect

Baseball America led all ranking systems with five members of the Cleveland Indians organization in their top 100 prospect list.  Like most, they love  Zimmer and Frazier, but they also aren’t scared off by Aiken’s injury. This makes sense given that their number five ranked prospect, Lucas Giolito, started his career off at about the same age and going thru the same arm issues. Obviously no guarantees in life but hard to overlook the stuff with Aiken even in the face of the injury.

They also included Justus Sheffield, who hasn’t appeared on many other top 100 lists. He is a mainstay though in the Tribe’s top prospect lists and the former first round pick has done nothing but mow guys down since joining the organization. Easy to see why the like the young lefty.  Bobby Bradley makes an appearance here and is quickly becoming one of the best prospects in the Tribe system. He’s proving to be the better pure power prospect the organization has seen in years as well highlighted by this tidbit from fellow Tribe blogger Todd Paquette:

Baseball America loves using the 20-80 scouting scale for prospects. 80 being the best at any one skill (and reserved for a select few) and 20 being the worst score someone can get at any given skill.  Along with Frazier, Bradley ranks as a one of the best power prospects in all of baseball by Baseball America.  High praise for a kid barely out of high school.

What is KATOH and why are the rankings so different?

Most people have probably heard of Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, but I’m sure “KATOH” is one that many have never heard of. Not only that but many are probably scratching their heads at the list it produced, having names like Willi Castro and Francisco Mejia over the likes of  Zimmer and Frazier. Basically, KATOH is a system developed by Chris Mitchell to try and project how prospects will do once they are at the major league level (or if they’ll even make it to the big leagues). He does this using mostly statistical means versus heavy scouting methods that many sources use. 

More from Away Back Gone

• Cleveland Guardians tantalizingly close to locking up AL Central tiebreakers
• Cleveland Guardians: Terry Francona becomes meme in profanity-laced ejection
• Say goodbye to defensive shifts and hello to bigger bases, pitch clock in 2023
• Cleveland Guardians: Shane Bieber second-fastest to 800 strikeouts in major-league history
• The next week will make or break the Cleveland Guardians’ season

I won’t go too deep into how the system works but there are some of the basics. Strikeout rate for hitters is also strongly considered, which is why a guy like Frazier falls off (higher strikeout rate so far).  Isolated power (ISO) is also a predictive state he uses, which is why a guy like Bobby Bradley is able to remain on the list despite high strikeout rate.  Age relative to league is a big component here, which is why youngsters such as Castro, Mejia, and Bradley again rate well here.  Sample size also plays a part so 2015 draft picks like Aiken weren’t eligible for this list.

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise in any of these rankings was the inclusion of shortstop Castro.  Not only did he make the top 100 list here, he rated out as the best Tribe prospect.  Many sources will likely not have him as a top 20 prospect in the Tribe system, let alone one of the 100 best in all of baseball. That’s not to say he isn’t a very intriguing prospect with upside. I won’t go too much into him here but suffice to say he’s a very toolsy middle infielder who is only 18 still and posted a strikeout rate of just 10.3% last season. He added 20 stolen bases and while his OPS of just .634 looks weak he was one of the younger players at the level, which given what I’ve just said about KATOH explains why he’s so well liked. If everything clicks with him he could jump up lists in the coming years, but there’s a lot of risk with him as well…

Which list is best?

Deciding which prospect list to call the “best” is a fool’s task. Ranking prospects is extremely subjective and there’s no right or wrong answers.  People see things differently and no one can following all 30 teams and view every prospect all year. When people watch prospects versus another plays a huge part as does the individual’s philosophy on stats versus scouting what they see.

KATOH is definitely the least known and probably least respected of the four sources I have listed; however, I think it’s one of the more interesting ones as it has taken a different angle on prospect rankings.  With most lists you’ll find the same 50 (or more) guys on the lists as everyone pretty much has the same opinion on guys that they’ve heard from scouts they trust. That’s not a bad thing as scouting still matters (and Chris Mitchell admits as much) but that doesn’t mean one can’t use other methods to try and rank players.Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and MLB have been doing this for years and have the name recognition.  That in many eyes will make them “better,” but they’ll be the first to admit not to take their own rankings as gospel. Heck, even within each publication there are varying opinions on guys. For example, Baseball Prospectus ranked  Aiken the second best prospect in the Tribe’s system; however, he did not make the top 101 list while Frazier, ranked as the third best in the Tribe’s system, was 53rd overall. This discrepancy comes from multiple people and opinions at work at the site.  I’m sure some at MLB.com some would rank

Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and MLB have been doing this for years and have the name recognition.  That in many eyes will make them “better,” but they’ll be the first to admit not to take their own rankings as gospel. Heck, even within each publication there are varying opinions on guys. For example, Baseball Prospectus ranked  Aiken the second best prospect in the Tribe’s system; however, he did not make the top 101 list while Frazier, ranked as the third best in the Tribe’s system, was 53rd overall. This discrepancy comes from multiple people and opinions at work at the site.  I’m sure some at MLB.com some would rank Rob Kaminsky below the likes of Sheffield and Aiken, but nevertheless Kaminsky, Aiken or Sheffield, makes the top 100 list.

Next: Cleveland Indians: Everybody wants what they have -- pitching

There are also many other top prospect rankings that I didn’t dive into.  Keith Law (ESPN), Rotoworld, and John Sickels (minor league ball) all have rankings out or about to come out and are work the reads as well (big fan of Sickels personally and can’t wait to see his final lists).  Regardless of which list one prefers it’s great to see so many members of the Cleveland Indians organization showing up. The system is improving (Law recently ranked it the 11^th best in baseball) and with the core already in the big leagues, the future looks awfully bright in Cleveland.