AOL's top 100 prospects

AOL's Frankie Piliere, whom I've never heard of before and whose last name took a few tries to read and pronounce properly, has posted a top 100 prospects list based "upon [his] years of experience in the industry as a scout and talent evaluator" so take it for what you will.

This list is, as it has to be, subjective and flawed, but someone took the trouble to publish it so why not have a look. One thing I like about such lists is it gives one an idea of organizational strength as opposed to depth. What I mean is, many of the players listed are not close to the majors, and many players who are nearly ready to be about average in the majors are not on the list. Rather, it is a list of players who have star potential and the ranking reflects their likelihood of tapping it.

As such, I do not think that the specific rankings are as important as the overall picture. All these players could be big contributors, and the fact that Mike Stanton is ranked ahead of Desmond Jennings and Jason Heyward should not be held against the latter two. They are all pretty much equally likely to be awesome. So, I decided to give each team a stud prospect score, awarding 10 points for a top 20 prospect, 6 for 21-40, 4 for 41-60, 2 for 61-80 and 1 for the caboose. Numbers!

1. Rangers    - 33
2. Rays         - 30
3. Phillies      - 24
4. Nats          - 22
5. Orioles      - 22
6. Giants       - 22
7. Braves      - 21
8. Yankees    - 20
9. Blue Jays  - 20
10. Mariners    - 18
11. Reds         - 16
12. Mets          - 16
13. Cubs         - 16
14. Marlins      - 15
15. Tigers        - 14
16. Athletics     - 14
17. Indians       - 13
18. Red Sox     - 13
19. Royals        - 13
20. Brewers      - 12
21. Rockies      - 12
22. Twins          - 12
23. White Sox   - 9
24. Angels        - 7
25. Astors         - 7
26. D-Backs      - 7
27. Padres        - 6
28. Dodgers      - 5
29. Cardinals    - 4
30. Pirates        - 4

It should be noted that being traded for Cliff Lee made Tyson Gilles and Phillippe Aumont much better at baseball, as they came in at 50 and 29, respectively. Had they stayed with us they would have given the M's a silly looking 28.

But mostly this looks right to me. Head and shoulders above everyone are the Rays and Rangers (the Rays with only three players in the top 100, all in the top 20; the Rangers with 5, the last of whom is a 19 year old SS). The Phillies' placement is, as I mentioned, on account of Gilles and Aumont being rather high on this list for my taste but every other team in the top ten makes some sense.

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