Why 'Top Prospects' lists mean nothing

Depending on who you believe, what service you subscribe to, or the whims of your very own Magic 8-Ball, the Giants minor league cupboard is filled with goodies, in need of restocking, or falling off the wall.

Prospects are just that. The number of “can’t-miss” guys who fail in epic fashion grows every year, and no team is immune. So when you evaluate the Giants’ latest group of up-and-comers, it’s good baseball talk but with about the same level of accuracy and sophistication as a cow-chip toss.

MLB Pipeline recently released its Top 100 prospects list, and it included one Giants farmhand. One. Uno. To put that in perspective, the Giants had one more Top 100 prospect than the rural Pony League team coached by an alcoholic that went 0-28 last season.

There are as many Top Prospects lists as there are GOP Presidential hopefuls, and each of them has about the same level of accuracy. Some use scouting reports, some rely on analytics, others a combination thereof. There are team biases, regional biases, and people who don’t like someone just because he declined to sign an autograph after a bad night at Adelanto. Some lists literally look like someone took minor league trading cards and threw the lot into the air, ranking players on the order in which they hit the ground.

Now it’s the goal here at SSFGF to be fair. Having one representative, (A-league shortstop Christian Arroyo at number 82) isn't the best or worst of the published reports: it's the middle ground. FanGraphs, which is stat-dependent, paints rosier picture with AAA righty Clayton Blackburn at number 28 to go along with Arroyo’s number 78.  The “professionals” who troll Baseball Prospectus are so down on the Giants farm system that Wil Arnett has a higher Q Rating; no mentions in their Top 101. 

And if you want to get away from ranking, easy to imagine since these lists are pretty rank, the blog Minor League Ball gives no Giants prospects an “A” grade an only three with a “B” or “B-plus” (Arroyo, Blackburn, RHP Phil Bickford).  

The dearth of mentions on list after frustrating list is troubling, but the seemingly-random nature of the picks is the silver lining -- all clouds have silver linings except for the mushroom-shaped ones, which are lined with iridium and generally accompany Dodgers postseasons. Giants fans have reason for hope because these lists are wrong a lot more than they’re right.

For every Ken Griffey or Bryce Harper who lives up to the hype, the landscape is littered with Todd Van Poppels and Brien Taylors. San Diego once drafted Matt Bush number one, ahead of Justin Verlander, and he was on every list. How'd that work out? The Giants had Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey as locks for stardom, but they also had similar assessments of Kurt Ainsworth and Gary Brown, and I won’t even mention Tony Torcato; and I just did. It's a guessing game.

Remember Mike Olt? Neither do we.

The adage says a monkey banging on a typewriter (back before iPads) will eventually write the collective works of Shakespeare. Drafting and developing ballplayers offers about the same rate of success. Jeremy Renner had a better record in “The Hurt Locker”. It’s a crap shoot, and sevens usually come up at the wrong time.

Giants top prospects - 2016

This is why Giants fans should take heart. The prognosticators don’t think much of the Giants farm system. Fine. Where were they in 2012 when Joe Panik was ranked sixth just among Giants prospects by MLB, behind Brown, Francisco Peguero, and two pitchers (Blackburn, Kyle Crick) still toiling in the minors? No Giants made the 2012 Top 100, but perennial “who?”  standouts like Jamison Taillon (Pirates), Bubba Starling (Royals) and Manny Banuelos (Yankees) cracked the top 30.

Brandon Crawford went in Round Four back in 2008. Colby Rasmus and Gordon Beckham were in the Top 20 prospects the following year. Crawford? Nope. But he's the one with a silver slugger, a gold glove, and two championship rings.

Need a further example of this capricious nature of these lists? Twins OF Byron Buxton topped the list in 2014 and 2015 and was pegged a future star. He may still be one but he's also still in AAA, replaced at number one this year by The Hated Dodgers' Corey Seager. 

So screw rankings. The Giants front office is doing just fine, thank you.

The infield (Posey, Panik, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Matt Duffy) is home grown, as is the staff ace and resident tree chopper (MadBum). Throw in Matt Cain and what seems to be a good crop of young arms on the horizon and you can hardly call it a failure.

Figure in those three rings since 2010, which the prognosticators also failed to predict, and the ledger swings decidedly toward the Bay Area.

So you wanna predict what the next big thing will be, try Wall Street or grab an Ouija Board. Toss darts at a board. That’s about what lists are worth. It’s amusement; fodder for guys like us to fill the time until pitchers and catchers report.  

At that point, the talking heads mean nothing. It’s all about what happens on the field.