It's that time of year. The time after the Rule 5 draft, after a lot of the major trades, after the free agent signings where you can, at least for a second, take a step back and see what your farm system has in the way of prospects.
A couple of observations:
1. The Indians still have one of the weakest farm systems in baseball and the top prospects in their system, Francisco Lindor (back), Clint Frazier (strikeouts) and Trevor Bauer (headcase) al have significant warts.
2. There is still very little prospect as most of the high risk/high reward guys are doing badly.
So, when I put this list together, I used 3 criteria:
1. Chances of helping the ML team this year.
2. Projection of best possible performance
3. Injury history
Not too different than most prospect lists except that a lot of people don't look at 1. that much, if at all. I do.
So, with all that in mind, here is my Indians' top 100 prospect list.
1. Trevor Bauer - a headcase but a chance to really impact the 2014 ML team
2. Fancisco Lindor - a lock for #1 until he hurt his back. If healthy is clearly #1 on this list. IF!
3. Clint Frazier - People said Ks didn't matter with Brad Snyder. Remember how that turned out!
4. Kyle Crockett - A tall lefty who could have a significant impact on the bullpen this year.
5. Tyler Naquin - He needs another besides his strong arm to avoid being a tweener
6. Francisco Mejia - Catchers who can hit are few and far between
7. Luis Lugo - My pick to zoom up the system ala Mr. Salazar
8. Jesus Aguilar - I am still not a true believer but this guy is growing on me. I know everyone may think I am crazy but in my wildest dreams I envision Albert Pujols lite.
9. Cody Anderson
10. CC Lee
11. Ronny Rodriguez
12. Tony Wolters
13. Dorsyss Paulino
14. Carlos Moncrief
15. Bryan Price - A reliever but one with a good chance to impact the big league team this year
16. Jose Ramirez - A top 10 guy in this organization but his serious thumb injury pushes him down
17. TJ House
18. Austin Adams
19. Joe Wendle
20. Dace Kime
21. Erik Gonzalez
22. Adam Plutko
23. LeVon Washington - I may be the only blogger who still believes in this guy
24. Elvis Araujo
25. Jordan Mibrath
26. Matt Packer
27. Sean Brady
28. Shawn Armstrong
29. Leonardo Linares
30. Dylan Baker
31. Giovanny Urshela
32. Preston Guilmet
33. Enosil Tejada
34. Carlos Melo
35. Nellie Rodriguez
36. Tyler Sturdevant
37. Scott Barnes
38. Luigi Rodriguez
39. Hector Caro
40. Jordan Smith
41. Joseph Colon
42. Shawn Morimando
43. Giovanni Soto
44. Caleb Hamrick
45. Kenny Mathews
46. Jeff Johnson
47. Casey Shane
48. Francisco Valera
49. Benny Suarez
50. Alex Monsalve
51. Louis Head
52. Anthony Santander
53. Colt Hynes
54. trey Haley
55. Matt Whitehouse
56. Luis Gomez
57. D'Vonne McCluer
58. Alex Lavisky
59.Dillon Howard
60. Bryson Miles
61. Johan Puello
62. Mitch Brown
63. Logan Vick
64. Tim Fedroff
65. Juan Diaz
66. Kieran Lovegrove
67. Jacob Lee
68. Rob Nixon
69. Ryan Merritt
70. Yoiber Marquina
71. Chun Chen
72. Roberto Perez
73. Will Roberts
74. Eric Haase
75. Joe Sever
76. Josh McAdams
77. Robbie Aviles
78. Jake Lowery
79. Bryce Stowell
80. Brett Brach
81. Willi Castro
82. Tyler Holt
83. James Roberts
84. Jerrud Sabourin
85. Emmanuel Tapia
86. Jake Sisco
87. Paul Hendriz
88. Cole Sulser
89. Junior Soto
90. Jordan Cooper
91. Thomas Pannone
92. Luis Dejesus
93. Trevor Frank
94. Yu-Cheng Chang
95. Groffi Cruz
96. Felix Starling
97. Mike Rayl
98. Cody Penny
99. Grant Sides
100. DJ Brown
And there you have it. I know it may sound weird but I could see as many as 70 of these guys making it to AAA and maybe 25-30 at least having cups of coffee in the majors. For any farm system that is a lot. Still, this system is weak on star power. Maybe some of these guys will exceed expectations...or that is the hope of every Indians' fan everywhere!
