Feature Photo: J.P Crawford (SS, Phillies) takes the #4 spot on this year’s list.
2080 Baseball is proud to present our 2016 Top 125 Preseason Prospect Rankings! Our list reflects the unique approach the 2080 team took to rank prospects in a way that demonstrates the player evaluation principles and prospect profiles that we value most. First, we took advantage of live spring training views of players (news, injuries, notable standouts, and surprises) and incorporated that information into our ranking decisions. Second, we expanded the list to encompass 125 players to give our readers a more complete look at some notable prospects we’re watching in the forthcoming season — players who may have not made a traditional hard-lined Top 100 cutoff, but who may be in that category in the near future.
Click here to go right to the list, which can also be found by going to the Rankings tab at the top of this page.
Beyond our scouts’ views of the players, what other criteria did we use to arrive at our individual rankings? Our team used four grading areas to determine where a player fit in the 1-to-125 hierarchy: future role, positional value, player type, and risk profile. Future role and risk profile were given more weight than positional value and player type for purposes of individual rankings, so as not to give undue credit to players with limited future potential who are considered low-risk prospects. We also placed more weight on the risk profile, so that we didn’t rank players with high future roles — but still in the low minors — too high on the list.
None of this took priority over the eyes of our evaluators, however. Above all else, a scout’s work has huge value here at 2080.
Of course, all lists are ultimately subjective exercises, and their constructions are unique to the people who put them together. We can tell you we had a lot of fun getting this assembled. Our group of talented evaluators and contributors argued a lot, in the spirit of getting it right, and the process has led to a finished product that we’re proud to publish. We hope you’ll have as much fun reading through our list as we did creating it. Enjoy!
