MadFriars.com (Padres) Top 20

[TooLiveBrew]

Very similar to our very own Power 50, but less breadth and a bit more depth. I know this isn't related to the Brewers at all, but it's a stellar breakdown of some of San Diego's top minor-league talent. Since I live in Portland (AAA afilliate), I've been looking for something like this as a primer for the coming season. Very well-done piece, though it seems that's simply par for the course for Denis Savage & John Conniff.

 

MadFriars.com Top 20 Padres Prospects (2008)

 

 

Rank	Name	B/T	Pos.	Height	Weight	How Acquired
1	Chase Headley	S/R	3B	6'2"	215	2005 2nd Rd.
2	Mat Latos	R/R	SP	6'6"	215	DFE 2007 (orig. 2006 11th Rd.)
3	Matt Antonelli	R/R	2B	6'1"	195	2006 1st Rd.
4	Cedric Hunter	L/L	CF	6'0"	190	2006 3rd Rd.
5	Chad Huffman	R/R	OF	6'1"	205	2006 2nd Rd.
6	Wade LeBlanc	L/L	SP	6'2"	180	2006 2nd Rd.
7	Kyle Blanks	R/R	1B	6'6"	285	DFE 2005 (orig. 2004 42nd Rd.)
8	Yefri Carvajal	R/R	OF	5'11"	200	2006 Signed in D.R. (at age 16)
9	Kellen Kulbacki	L/L	OF	5'11"	190	2006 Supplemental 1st Rd.
10	Drew Cumberland	L/R	SS	5'10"	175	2007 Supp. 1st Rd.

 

Of the remaining 10 players on the list... 7 P (6 SP/1 RP), 2 C, 1 IF.

 

Only Joe Thatcher (#13) made the cut from the three pitchers sent to the Padres for Scott Linebrink in 2007. Thatcher's 27, so not exactly a prospect anymore. The MF guys think he could be the second setup man/7th inning specialist, but also point out that he may never become more than a LOOGY.

 

 

EDIT: The following is from a Ducksnorts.com (Pads blog) interview with Savage & Conniff:

 

"Ducksnorts: You have Cesar Ramos ranked #20. Who missed the cut because of him, and why?

Savage: The most unpopular decision John and I ever made - Will Inman.

When we first started this roundtable, I mentioned that nothing replaces what we see with our eyes. We saw Inman throw once - and we were not as impressed as we thought we should have been. His velocity was way down. His location wasn't good. We expected to see more. We admitted it was a bit unfair to count one bad start against him, but it is all we had to go on. Even in a bad outing, certain traits of future success are evident. Inman didn't have that this time around.

Having said that, I expect Inman to have a tremendous year in 2008. Very reliable people I have spoke with say he was a far different pitcher in the Milwaukee system, and they admit to being surprised at how different he appeared in the Texas League. Unfortunately, we could not weigh what he did in the Milwaukee system fairly without seeing him. Our steadfast rule has always been not to rank any player we have not seen. That is why Nick Schmidt only appears on our All-Injured team and not anywhere in the top 60. Inman will find it again. and we will be there to applaud his efforts."

[DrWood]

I had thought that both inman and garrison were in SD top 10's by other sources.

[TooLiveBrew]

Doc my guess is that this is equivalent to the P50, where what you're citing is more akin to Haudricourt's rankings or BP/BA ranks. Not that the other ones are wrong, but these guys follow the Pads' minor leagues like Mass Hass / CJ / etc. I got the impression that they both kind of expect Inman to be in the top 20/10 this season, but are waiting to see it with their own eyes.

[colbyjack]

There list is somewhat incomplete based on this comment:

 

Our steadfast rule has always been not to rank any player we have not seen.

 

I'm guessing they haven't seen Garrison. And they also admit that Inman is so low because they have seen him only one time and that time he didn't look very good. They do mention that they recognize seeing a prospect one time should not produce a concrete opinion on a player (something I warn about frequently), but that does give some insight as to how they assemble their list, which is actually quite different from the P50.

[TooLiveBrew]

How do you mean it's very different from the P50? Just that BF's is updated more frequently? I know the two are not identical, but I thought the MadFriars' was similar, obviously since I mentioned that.

[homer]

What the heck happened to Matt Bush? Other than the whole getting arrested thing.

 

EDIT: Thank goodness for Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bush

[colbyjack]

How do you mean it's very different from the P50?

 

Because they said quite clearly that they only rank prospects that they have seen, omitting those they have not. Plus, as noted with Inman, while they appropriately state that one appearance shouldn't effect their judgement, it obviously did if they not only left Inman off of their top 10 list, but the top 20, and the Padres system just isn't that deep.

 

We here at Brewerfan rank every prospect, even if for the most part we don't get to see these players play on a regular basis, but we do have enough resources to more than fill in the blanks. I'm not saying that one ranking is better than the other, but they are different.

[TooLiveBrew]

Because they said quite clearly that they only rank prospects that they have seen, omitting those they have not.

 

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I'd assumed those who ranked here had seen enough of the prospects... though I think that is likely still very, very true. I respect the style of MF's ranks, because I understand why you'd want to see for yourself, but if the talent is as thin as you're hinting, then Inman should probably be on the list. As they mentiond, Will's pretty darn likely to transfer that Brewers-org. performance over to SD.