Prospect Ranking Season Under Way

As noted by Mike Curto, Baseball America, which means Conor Glassey, has released their top 10 list of Mariners prospects. The list is here and if you have a subscription to Baseball America, then you can read much more about it over here. I'm not wild about lists and rankings, but really it's the fruitless whining about the ranks that annoys me and I trust y'all to not be those kinds of people. The rundown from one to ten is as follows:

1. Mike Zunino
2. Taijuan Walker
3. Danny Hultzen
4. James Paxton
5. Nick Franklin
6. Brandon Maurer
7. Carter Capps
8. Stefen Romero
9. Brad Miller
10. Victor Sanchez

I don't find that a surprising list in either make up nor ranking with the possible exception of Carter Capps' inclusion and placement. However, I haven't really given much thought to the state of the system at the moment and Glassey gives a lot of thought so, yeah, why are you reading what I'm writing?

Last year's top 10 ranking from BA didn't surface until late January, so we get spoiled this year, during a time when it seems like the Mariners are certainly involved in trade talks that would almost certainly involve some of these players. For reference, last year's list was:

1. Jesus Montero
2. Taijuan Walker
3. Danny Hultzen
4. James Paxton
5. Nick Franklin
6. Francisco Martinez
7. Chance Ruffin
8. Tom Wilhelmsen
9. Vinnie Catricala
10. Phillips Castillo

It's coincidentally humorous how little the top five changed, with four players remaining exactly the same and the top spot just getting swapped out for our new catcher-of-the-future. The bottom half though, whew, that saw one great leap and a whole lot of pitfalls. That's why they are prospects. Actually, no, that's not why. But that's why prospects are not to be counted upon. You can count them, just don't count on them. They are not load bearing.