Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects

Twins have:

HIcks at 25
Revere(!) at 45
Ramos at 64
Gibson at 71

Interestingly, both BP and BA like a catcher for the Nats named Derek Norris a lot more than Ramos (in the 20s for BP, 30s for BA).

the Twins’ prospects are good and young. Considering that the team is good right now and don’t particularly need these guys, by the time they are needed there is a good chance they will be much higher than average.

Well, if it was evened out, everyteam would have three, we have four. (Last year we had three and John Manuel said that Revere was the toughest cut this year). I think the Twins generally rank in the top 10-15 range or so overall by most analysts which is a lot higher than where we have been. I think what’s good is that our minor league talent level is improving a lot the last few years. We had a bit of dry spell (b/c of the draughts of the 04/05/06 draft classes) but the last few drafts have been very good.

I’m not saying that it’s bad, I just think we’re over-reacting. The twins, on the whole, are usually considered to have a deep farm. Lately, we are getting more credit for the top couple of guys, which is nice. It means we have a better shot at producing a couple of starts to complement or replace our current batch. Again, that’s good. On the other hand, I don’t think that it’s better because they are young. I’d rather they be on the verge of making the team, so they could improve our team now, instead of replacing the talent we have, Nathan, Cuddyer, etc.

Anyway, the point was just that this is nice, but nothing special. Also, the best teams still have some good prospects.

I’m guessing there are about 150 (wild guess) prospects in every team’s system. That makes 3,000 minor league baseball players. That makes 1400 above average players that are not in the top 100 prospects.

Thus, the 100 prospects is only a gauge of top talent. The Twins are average in that respect, according to these rating resources. We can say we have depth, which I believe (though I wouldn’t have the experience to know), you can say that our players are under-rated, you can say that ours are in better levels (younger), etc. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t read THESE studies as indicating that we’re significantly above average. What do the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Dodgers, Angels, Cardinals, etc. have? That is how we would have to compare.