The World of Prospect Writing
It’s Friday and I feel like doing something a little bit different this morning. If you read my stuff even on a semi-regular basis then you probably know that 90% of my writing is about minor league baseball, prospects and rookies. One of my favorite things to do is surf the ‘net to see what other prospect scribes are saying or doing. So, let’s give a shout out to some of the best in the business.
Baseball America
This publication is the King of Prospect Analysis. Working like a well-oiled machine, Baseball America makes use of a large staff of insightful and passionate baseball writers, which helps it cover every avenue of minor league baseball, as well as college and high school baseball. The staff has taken a number of hits over the years as other larger companies have stolen some of the writers, but The Big Three remain the same at the top of the chart: Will Lingo, John Manuel, and Jim Callis. Callis is probably the best-known writer as he does a weekly chat for ESPN.com and also helps cover the amateur draft for Major League Baseball’s draft-day television coverage. I am also a particular fan of the work done by Ben Badler, Matt Eddy, and Aaron Fitt. I’ve really enjoyed Nathan Rode’s work as of late. Right now BA is producing Top 20 lists for every league in Minor League Baseball beginning with the Gulf Coast League.
Keith Law at ESPN.com
Perhaps the most entertaining baseball personality on the Web, Law is a well-educated prospect analyst who entertains me to no end with his (usually) weekly chats. He brings an interesting perspective after spending time as an assistant general manager with the Toronto Blue Jays, and he obviously has some scouting education/experience. Law also does good work on the amateur baseball draft. The only knock I have on his work is that there is not enough of it. I’d love to see him do even more… like The Klaw Top 10 lists. Feel free to ask him a question during one of his chats… and don’t worry… if it’s a stupid question, he’ll let you know.
Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus
Goldstein is the main reason why I have a subscription at BP.com… and so I can read Eric Seidman’s weekly analysis. Goldstein is a former Baseball America staffer who has made good on a solo career. His annual Top 11 Prospects lists are a must-read for every minor-league fan; he has connections in the industry that would make you drool. The weekly Monday Ten Pack is a great way to start the week, and his new daily Minor League Update has been the best thing to happen to BP.com since Mr. Seidman arrived. The only downside to his work is the aforementioned subscription.
John Sickels at Minor League Ball
Sickels is probably not as widely known as the Laws and the Goldsteins of the baseball world, but he has been around for a long time and you’ve probably read his stuff as some point or another. A glance over to my baseball bookcase shows a Stats Inc. 2001 Minor League Scouting Notebook that Sickels wrote. He did a bunch of them before branching out onto his own. Sickels does his own website, he contributes to Rotowire.com, and he publishes his own prospect annual called The Baseball Prospect Book. Be sure to order the 2010 version when it’s available.
Lisa Winston and Jonathan Mayo at MiLB.com
One of the best things to happen to the minor leagues and prospect coverage has been the growth of the official site of Minor League Baseball. On the downside, I think so much more could be done with the type of revenue that is being generated by MLB.com and MiLB.com… Each minor-league system should have at least one full-time reporter devoted to it with massive amounts of material written for each one on a daily basis. That hasn’t happened yet, but we do have Winston and Mayo. Of particular value is the work that they do leading up to the draft, as well as their annual organizational previews and reviews.
Is there anyone else out there that you read on a regular basis?
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Andy Seiler (http://mlbbonusbaby.com/) did some solid work during this past draft year. A good guy to keep your eye on.
I also read Project Prospect every now and then; their articles and rankings are often unorthodox, but many of them have roots in sabermetrics.
Ironic that the two with the biggest budgets (milb.com & baseball america) are the two worst in analysis. Maybe it’s just my opinion, but I think we could take ten people who frequently comment on fangraphs and, with Baseball America’s budget and resources, produce a publication twice as good as Baseball America.
He usually only writes on the Twins’ minor leagues, but Seth Stohs does a pretty good job on his blog: http://www.sethspeaks.net
With the minor league season over, Seth now has been focusing mainly on the major league team though.
Hell, he wrote the 2009 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook.
It’s not any kind of prospect rater, but Chad Jennings does an excellent job covering the SWB Yankees.
Jason Churchill. Jason does Prospect Insider (mostly Seattle Mariners) but also does some gigs on ESPN with Keith Law.
If we’re mentioning the drawback that a subscription is required to read most of Goldstein’s stuff, we should probably mention that the same goes for BA. And BA is pricier. I’ve been toying with the idea of joining, but it’s a bit steep for someone like me who is interested in prospects but not into it hardcore.
And I agree on Goldstein. The last couple of years I subscribed to BP, he was the main draw for me.
+1 for me on Project Prospect. Some good stuff there, tons of great chatter on the forums as well.
Goldstein is good, albeit a tad subjective. BA’s yearly handbook is a must buy, if only for the great depth of their scouting reports on the top 30 from every organization.
the best stuff on the mets is done by toby hyde, at http://www.metsminorleagueblog.com
i have problems with sickels, most notably his system top 20s. i like his scouting reports for the games he sees, but there are simply far too many players to cover for him to do an adequate job with ranking 20 prospects in every system. more often than not, the top 20 is just numbers analysis that anyone could do.
I’ll second that, Toby Hyde is by far the best Mets only prospect guy.
I’ll second Teej as well, Goldstein is one of the few reasons I still subscribe to BP. Although this might be my last year … just too much good analysis out there for free (ahem Fangraphs!) to keep paying.
I peruse Project Prospect with semi-regularity
For Washington Nationals prospects, the #1 source is Brian Oliver @ Nationals Farm Authority http://www.natsfarm.com
Brian consistently scoops both the WPost and the WTimes and is comprehensive for the system. When you see a post about Ian Desmond or Ross Detwiler by “Brian,” just say thank you. Excellent.
Third this. It’s reason for optimism (or occasionally lack of) to read some of the in-depth stuff there.
Don’t forget Jason Grey, also at ESPN.com. His stuff tends to be more geared to fantasy play, but he went to scout school and knows his stuff.
Agreed on Grey. Even if you don’t play fantasy, he always has good information and seems very thorough in his scouting, especially on the lower-level guys.
I like Ben Badler and Kieth Law the best by a large margin. Law just cracks me up and tells it like it is. Badler is on Twitter and is open to answering any question you throw at him.
How about Alex Eisenberg of Baseball-Intellect.com, who does great work breaking down hitting and pitching video of prospects and established big leaguers
I read FanGraphs on a regular basis. I’ve read some great articles from an analyst by the name of Marc Hulet.
Thanks, I just added those Mets, Nationals and Twins pages to my pre-draft for next season.
Agreed on all those listed in the original piece.
Leading up to the draft, PGCrosschecker is another great resource if you enjoy the scoutier side of life.
As a Red Sox fan, there’s no beating soxprospects.com. The message board maintains a high level of discussion, including a lot of first-hand scouting reports. Chris Mellen in particular does great work for them scouting the Sox system – I believe he’s also on Twitter. The site’s wiki, news blog, and other features are all great.
Erik Manning and about 10 other writers do a great job of covering cardinals propects at http://www.futureredbirds.net.
BaseballAmerica seems to go to this guy’s site alot:
http://www.scoutingthesally.com
Mike Newman’s writings of prospects are no flamboyant as you see on many sites. He reports it like he sees it. For instance, Trevor May of the Phillies, was a guy Mike wanted to see. What really caught my eyes was that Mike doesn’t just look at on-field abilities, he reports it as he sees it from the stands too. Go read the articles, it’s enlightening to see someone who ‘can’t’ be sold on a player because of draft slot or bonus (ie. Baseball America), or statistics, but actually physically sees the players, talks with them and then reports on them.
Fortunately, Mike is located in Savannah and got to see some prospects in the Mets organization (Allen, Familia, Flores, Marte etc etc) on several occasions. But, he also got to see Casey Kelly, Brett Devall, Dimaster and Randall Delgado, Teheran, Minor, etc etc.
http://www.scoutingthesally.com
That’s exactly the approach Grey takes in his ESPN articles, which is why I mentioned him.
Lane Meyer of NoMaas.org
I imagine that each team has at least 1 blogger who focuses on the organization’s minor league system and is extremely devoted. For the Reds, Doug Gray (http://redsminorleagues.com/) does an excellent job including daily reports on all of the games, feature articles, interviews, and an annual top 40 list.
I imagine that at the minor league level, bloggers represent a large portion of the in depth, thoughtful analysis and commentary.
I 2nd the John Sickels mention, the guy knows his stuff and runs a great website.
Sickels site is fantastic. I also enjoy Project Prospect. Firstinning.com has some interesting content as well.
As for individual teams I find soxprospects.com to be the most informative.
John Sickels is one of the best around.
I look for scouts/writers who pay close attention to a player’s presence on the mound or at the plate, their work ethic, and their general intelligence. The statistical side is pretty well covered by sites like this one, so I don’t want a scout to regurgitate stats to me when I can easily find them myself. Sickels does a great job of balancing the statistical and “empirical” aspects of scouting.
MLB.com recently expanded its Minor League/Prospects coverage here, too: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/minorleagues/affiliates/
Each team has an affiliate site now. Pretty good stuff.
phuturephillies.com is by far the best phillies prospect resource.
Conor Glassey deserves a mention at Baseball America as well.
Thanks for the mention. Project Prospect is going to be working on a big new project this offseason. We’re hoping that it will grab a lot of attention.
Adam Foster
Project Prospect Founder
Here is another vote for Project Prospect which I check daily.
I imagine most if not all teams have blogs devoted to their own prospects. I read Rays Prospects regularly and find it very informative. Other teams must have similar bloggers. And minor league teams, such as Durham and Montgomery have their own bloggers as well.
I also check Baseball-Intellect and hot-prospects.net periodically.
Baseball Beginnings is a great blog by a guy named John Klima. He just finished up his HS 2010 follow lists.
Jon Heyman isn’t a prospect writer, but he is an idiot. Today on Twitter he said Porcello should be the AL ROY, which is fine, but his reasoning was that he has 14 wins for a team that is a playoff contender. To top it all off, he said that you shouldn’t even look at his other stats. It’s sad that Sports Illustrated has him as one of their “top” baseball writers.