Where would this year's top prospects rank in our current Top 10 list?

[ChaosLex]

Per Tony and the Hangout Staff, the following were the Top 10 O's Prospects heading into the 2009 season:

1. Matt Wieters

2. Brian Matusz

3. Chris Tillman

4. Jake Arrieta

5. Billy Rowell

6. Brandon Snyder

7. Nolan Reimold

8. Chorye Spoone

9. Zach Britton

10. Brandon Erbe

Where do you believe Ackley, Green, Matzek, Gibson, Crow, Scheppers and White would rank on our current list?

[crawdad]

I think Arrieta has raised himself high enough so that pretty much any of those guys would be ranked 5th.

[QBsILLEST1]

Per Tony and the Hangout Staff, the following were the Top 10 O's Prospects heading into the 2009 season:

1. Matt Wieters

2. Brian Matusz

3. Chris Tillman

4. Jake Arrieta

5. Billy Rowell

6. Brandon Snyder

7. Nolan Reimold

8. Chorye Spoone

9. Zach Britton

10. Brandon Erbe

Where do you believe Ackley, Green, Matzek, Gibson, Crow, Scheppers and White would rank on our current list?

IMO Ackley would be #4

Crow, Scheppers and Matzek would rank #5

Green would rank around 6

White would probably also be around 6 with Snyder moving up to 5 and Rowell moving down the list

[ChaosLex]

Obviously, he's not going to fall to us, but just out of curiosity, who would you rank higher in our system? Wieters or Strasburg?

[crawdad]

Obviously, he's not going to fall to us, but just out of curiosity, who would you rank higher in our system? Wieters or Strasburg?

Wieters, of course. More track record and a higher retention rate for position players.

[QBsILLEST1]

Strasburg, he is apparently the best prospect ever. But Crawdad, the ranking systems usually do abide by what you said most especially the track record. So usually a top pick would rank around the top 10 best prospects and start from there. But there has never really been a prospect before like Strasburg, so he may test the tradition here on BA and other baseball sites and possibly end up at #1 right off bat.

[McNulty]

Way too much love for the unproven. I'll take Snyder over Ackley, who hasn't done a thing yet, and has to prove he has power with a wood bat. Green with his question marks over Reimold? No thanks. Crow & Sheppers over Erbe? Erbe is younger than both, throws similar velo, and is ahead on the developmental curve. Matzek should be neck and neck with Zach Britton, IMO. This is a weak draft. Players values are inflated because of it.

Strong words about Ackley. Ever seen him play? I'd take him over Snyder any day, and I'm a big Snyder fan.

[Stotle]

Per Tony and the Hangout Staff, the following were the Top 10 O's Prospects heading into the 2009 season:

1. Matt Wieters

2. Brian Matusz

3. Chris Tillman

4. Jake Arrieta

5. Billy Rowell

6. Brandon Snyder

7. Nolan Reimold

8. Chorye Spoone

9. Zach Britton

10. Brandon Erbe

Where do you believe Ackley, Green, Matzek, Gibson, Crow, Scheppers and White would rank on our current list?

Hmmm. I don't agree with this order as is, so it's kind of hard to just slot in draftees. I'd probably list them all 1-17 like this:

1. Matt Wieters

2. Brian Matusz

3. Chris Tillman

4. Jake Arrieta

5. Nolan Reimold

6. Brandon Snyder

7. Tyler Matzek

8. Brandon Erbe

9. Tanner Scheppers

10. Aaron Crow

11. Billy Rowell

12. Grant Green

13. Alex White

14. Zach Britton

15. Dustin Ackley

16. Kyle Gibson

17. Chorye Spoone

But this isn't the order I'd rate the draftees amongst themselves -- prospect ranking is about current talent and projection, whereas draft ranking has to also incorporate risk. This list has to assume BAL has already committed to each player, so it's solely based on talent/projection.

I'm also not married to much of this list, and could pretty easily switch it around and feel just as good.

[crawdad]

Strasburg, he is apparently the best prospect ever. But Crawdad, the ranking systems usually do abide by what you said most especially the track record. So usually a top pick would rank around the top 10 best prospects and start from there. But there has never really been a prospect before like Strasburg, so he may test the tradition here on BA and other baseball sites and possibly end up at #1 right off bat.

Strasburg is certainly a top 5 talent. I'd put him right at or below Price. Certainly nothing to shake a stick at, but an aggressively offensive catcher is worth considerably more.

[wickedwitch]

Honestly, I'm really underwhelmed by most of this year's potential draftees (sans Strasburg) and wouldn't have any of them in the Orioles top 8, behind Wieters, the big three, Erbe, Patton, Snyder and Reimold in no particular order. Th upsides of the draftees are at the most just a sliver better, so the fact that our players have actually performed at high levels makes me rank them ahead of the draftees.

This thread just reinforced to me how mediocre this draft class is at the top.

[allstar1579]

Honestly, I'm really underwhelmed by most of this year's potential draftees (sans Strasburg) and wouldn't have any of them in the Orioles top 8, behind Wieters, the big three, Erbe, Patton, Snyder and Reimold in no particular order. Th upsides of the draftees are at the most just a sliver better, so the fact that our players have actually performed at high levels makes me rank them ahead of the draftees.

This thread just reinforced to me how mediocre this draft class is at the top.

Is it really how mediocre the draft is or how strong our system is getting?

[ChaosLex]

Is it really how mediocre the draft is or how strong our system is getting?

Hopefully, the latter. :clap3:

[QBsILLEST1]

Is it really how mediocre the draft is or how strong our system is getting?

To me its a mixture of both. Our system is getting very strong. I want to see organizational ranking this year. We have to be higher than 7(the highest I saw us ranked last year)

[allstar1579]

Never in person and I've seen just a little video on him. First off, he doesn't look very big but then again that's not everything. The swing I saw looked like that of line drive, gap to gap type of hitter, not a real power threat. Also, I've read on here that's he's had a lot of trouble with LHP's. Again, that doesn't mean he can't hit them. I know this. Snyder is absolutely clobbering AA pitching at the age of 22. Ackley is doing about the same against college pitching at the age of 21. Ackley might be the real deal but there's been a ton of hitters who looked great in college and didn't translate that well to the pros. Pedro Alvarez was probably a lot more highly thought of college hitter than Ackley and Alvarez is struggling to put up good numbers in the Carolina League.

Ackley is an amazing hitter, and while I think his potential will keep him to 10-15 HR a year, he could turn into a 20-25HR guy a la Youkilis, just depends on how he adjusts to each level.

The arguments you make about him are just the ones that we kept having on here, and honestly they are pretty wishy washy. Most of it was just trying to play devil's advocate and keeping people's expectations tempered.

Whether the power comes or not, his hitting is for real, there is the power scale and hitting scale, while Pedro kills him in the power area, Ackley is better for me on the hitting side of things.

[hoosiers]

If Arrieta status pre-season was around 65th-70th overall, I'd expect the top five picks (perhaps top seven or eight) to be inside there.