Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Spring training is well underway and that means prospect season — for the most part — is over. Here’s now Dodger prospects fared on the Top 100+ lists of the five most prominent publications.
Dodgers’ prospects in Top 100+ lists
| Player | Baseball America | Baseball Prospectus | ESPN (Keith Law) | FanGraphs | MLB.com | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seager | 5 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 6 |
| Urias | 11 | 10 | 9 | 4 | 8 | 8.4 |
| Pederson | 8 | 18 | 28 | 11 | 14 | 15.8 |
| Holmes | 75 | 79 | 79 | 89 | 96 | 83.6 |
Corey Seager is a consensus Top 6 prospect in baseball. The Dodgers haven’t had a guy rank this highly since the days of Clayton Kershaw (not for long since he was quick to the majors) and the failed prospect trio of Joel Guzman, Andy LaRoche and Greg Miller. Keith Law’s ranking of Joc Pederson stands out a little, but he’s still a consensus Top 15 prospect in baseball. That seems about right. Oh, and 18-year-old Julio Urias is a Top 8 prospect. That’s just insane.
Here’s how the prospects stack up within the system.
Consensus Dodgers’ Top 10 prospects
| Player | Baseball America | Baseball Prospectus | ESPN (Keith Law) | FanGraphs | MLB.com | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seager | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1.2 |
| Urias | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Pederson | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2.8 |
| Holmes | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Verdugo | 5 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5.8 |
| Anderson | 7 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 6.6 |
| De Leon | 6 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7.2 |
| Lee | 12 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 14 | 9.2 |
| Sweeney | 15 | 8 | 7 | 12 | 8 | 10 |
| Schebler | 8 | 10 | 11 | 14 | 9 | 10.4 |
For reference, my Top 10 has all of the same players listed above — just not in the same order. That’s fine. We all know how’s right anyway.
And finally, where the Dodgers rank as an organization.
Consensus Dodgers’ Organizational Ranking
| Baseball America | Baseball Prospectus | ESPN (Keith Law) | FanGraphs | MLB.com | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 5.8 |
The system overall is in as good shape as it has been in a decade. With the new front office, it doesn’t figure to take a a major step back. Now, the system probably won’t be this strong after the 2015 season: Pederson will have graduated, while Zach Lee has an outside chance of joining him. After 2016, Seager and Urias will have certainly graduated, while Chris Anderson, Jose De Leon, Scott Schebler, Darnell Sweeney and the like will have either graduated or been traded. That would leave the Dodgers with guys like Grant Holmes, Alex Verdugo, Julian Leon and some unknown future draftees/international signings (Yadier Alvarez? Starling Heredia?) to add to the list. Contending teams don’t tend to have Top 5 farm systems for long, as they’re either graduating players or using them to acquire pieces to add to the MLB roster.We’ve seen some evidence that it plans to go big on the international market and, despite attempts by other teams, it has yet to trade any prospect of significant value. In fact, it actually acquired a piece like Austin Barnes to add to the stable. We’ll see how the draft is run by this new group and scouting director Billy Gasparino, but things are definitely looking up for the Dodgers’ system.
