2015 Arizona Diamondbacks Top 10 Prospects

Every year there are multiple outlets who come out with top ten prospect rankings for MLB teams and it is interesting to see how they differ.  Some put an emphasis on the ceilings of the players while others favor players who seem to be safer bets and closer to the big leagues.

There are five major prospect rankings so I thought it would be fun to make a composite list for my favorite teams.  The first team I will rank is the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The five major prospect rankings are the following:

1. Baseball Prospectus (BP)
2. FanGraphs (FG)
3. MLB Pipeline (Pipeline)
4. Baseball America (BA)
5. Keith Law of EPSN (Law)

If a player receives the number one ranking, it is worth 10 points.  A number two ranking receives nine points and so on and so forth.  I think you can understand the point if you've made it this far into the blog.

I won't include any scouting reports as I haven't seen all of these players live yet and don't want to give away the hard work these others have done to scout the players and if you wish to find out more about them I encourage you to go to all of these sites and look around.  They're all well done and they're the result of hundreds of hours of work.

Due to the signing of some players and acquisitions after the publication of certain lists, the player may have been completely left off even though he is an obvious top 10 talent.

So enough chit chat and let's get onto the rankings.

Arizona Diamondbacks Top 10 Prospects 2015

1. Archie Bradley, RHP - 49 points
BP=1; FG=1; Pipeline=1; BA=1; Law=2

2. Braden Shipley, RHP - 46 points
BP=2; FG=2; Pipeline=2; BA=2; Law=1

3. Aaron Blair, RHP - 39 points
BP=3; FG=3; Pipeline=4; BA=3; Law=3

4. Touki Toussaint, RHP - 32 points
BP=4; FG=5; Pipeline=5; BA=5; Law=4

5. Jake Lamb, 3B - 28 points
BP=6; FG=6; Pipeline=3; BA=6; Law=6

6. Brandon Drury, 2B - 27 points
BP=5; FG=4; Pipeline=7; BA=7; Law=5

7. Yoan Lopez, RHP - 9 points
BP=NA; FG=NA; Pipeline=6; BA=NA; Law=7

8. Yasmany Tomas, 3B/OF - 7 points
BP=NA; FG=NA; Pipeline=NA; BA=4; Law=NA

9. Peter O'Brien, C/1B - 6 points
BP=NA; FG=NA; Pipeline=8; BA=8; Law=NA

10. Nick Ahmed, SS /Robbie Ray, LHP - 5 points each
Ahmed: BP=NA; FG; 7; Pipeline=NA; BA=10; Law=NA
Ray: BP=NA; FG=NA; Pipeline=9; BA=NA; Law=8

Also receiving votes: Jimmie Sherfy, Sergio Alcantara, Marcus Wilson, Kaleb Fleck, Andrew Velazquez (Now with the Tampa Bay Rays), Justin Williams and Domingo Leyba

The next list will be the Minnesota Twins after MLB Pipeline releases their top 30 players later this week.

Scouting Archie Bradley

I haven’t had the opportunity to see Archie Bradley in person yet so I’m relying a lot on YouTube clips and word of mouth.  Here is one clip that the Google machine brought up that shows his mechanics very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc4lsQifI08

As an avid Diamondbacks fan, I’m excited to see what Bradley could bring to the table as soon as this spring.  The Diamondbacks rotation, which could change in the coming days with the Winter Meetings tomorrow, looks like it will be Patrick Corbin, Brandon McCarthy, Wade Miley, Trevor Cahill as the shoe-ins and there will be a battle between Tyler Skaggs (assuming he isn’t traded), Randall Delgado and Bradley.  

When I look at this rotation, I see a lot of mediocrity and middle-of-the-rotation arms rather than a first-division player who could lead a pitching staff.  With what scouts have said about Bradley, he could be the type of arm to do just that.  

Now, onto the actual scouting of Bradley.  I’ll start from the bottom and make my way to the top.  His high leg kick is what sticks out first when you see him pitch.  His lead knee comes up to his chest level (I’d say the typical pitcher raises his knee to his belly button) and his toe is pointed toward the sky when most pitchers are taught to let the foot relax at the top of balance.