Baseball America’s Top Ten Prospects

Today, Baseball America released its list ranking the Mets top ten prospects for 2011. Their list is obviously ordered 1-10, and not “A-J,” but if it’s displaying to you as such, technical difficulties and all that. As follows:

1. Jenrry Mejia, RHP
2. Wilmer Flores, SS
3. Cesar Puello, OF
4. Matt Harvey, RHP
5. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, OF
6. Reese Havens, 2B
7. Lucas Duda, 1B/OF
8. Fernando Martinez, OF
9. Aderlin Rodriguez, 3B
10. Brad Holt, RHP

From what I understand, Baseball America’s prospect lists tend to emphasize potential over production, which seems to be the case here. Single-A right fielder Cesar Puello being ranked third is a pretty good example of that. Brad Holt being on the list is weird, seeing that Holt had an epic meltdown in the minors this year (8.34 ERA in 95 innings, 79 BB and 23 wild pitches).

For comparison, John Sickels of Minor League Ball tends to take the opposite approach, valuing production over potential. He released his preliminary list back in October. It’s worth comparing where he ranks the Mets prospects, so his top ten is as follows:

1. Wilmer Flores, SS
2. Jenrry Mejia, RHP
3. Matt Harvey, RHP
4. Aderlin Rodriguez, 3B
5. Fernando Martinez, OF
6. Cory Vaughn, OF
7. Juan Urbina, LHP
8. Reese Havens, 2B
9. Lucas Duda, 1B/OF
10. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, OF

Sickels swaps Puello and Holt for the seventeen-year-old Urbina and Vaughn. He ranks Puello twelve, which is probably the biggest disagreement between the two lists. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same guys in a different order.

Finally, and way more importantly, Baseball America also releases a “Best Tools” section for their list. In case you weren’t already aware of his existence, I present to you the best named prospect ever: