Brett Baty, Photo by Ed Delany, MMO
At FanGraphs, Dan Szymborski used his ZiPS projections to amass a Top 100 prospect ranking. As noted by Szymborksi, these rankings are based upon “data from a player’s professional career.” Moreover, he does note this is not something which should be used as a substitute for scouting. While ZiPS is featured on FanGraphs, this list is different from the general one they recently released.
Rather, this is an analysis of players production and how it relates to their ability to play in the majors. As noted by Szymborski, Zips “does a decent job of identifying future major leaguers.” On that note, here are the Mets prospects ranked by ZiPS:
10. Francisco Alvarez, C
FanGraphs Ranking: 7
17. Ronny Mauricio, SS
FanGraphs Ranking: 77
32. Brett Baty, 3B
FanGraphs Ranking: 63
66. Mark Vientos, 3B
FanGraphs Ranking: 64
Like all publications, including FanGraphs, Alvarez is deemed not only the Mets top prospect, but he’s also determined to be the second best catching prospect in the game. He also remains the top NL East prospect. What is interesting here is that this is where the scouting and the data actually meet because both are extremely high on Alvarez as a prospect.
What is really interesting is Mauricio. While most projections are down on him and are actively debating his major league viability, ZiPS is actually quite high on him. Looking at the data, Mauricio moves from outside the top 10 shortstop prospects to firmly entrenched as the fifth best overall.
Like the other outlets, ZiPS has Baty as the better third base prospect than Vientos. In fact, according to ZiPS, Baty is the fifth best third base prospect in the game. For his part, Vientos is actually right outside the top 10 standing at 11.
You’ll note that these rankings are not accompanied by any scouting reports or analysis. Of course, that is because, as was provided in the disclaimer, this wasn’t an outwardly scouting endeavor. Rather, this was purely a data driven exercise, one which has had some success predicting future success.
On that note, it is encouraging to see Mets prospects performing quite well. Here, we not only see that the scouts are high on these Mets prospect, but the data also provides a basis for that enthusiasm. All told, this should serve to bolster belief in the Mets emerging farm system and the promising prospects in the system.
