based on statistical production?

This list is probably the most scouting-heavy list we’ve ever published.

Numbers were used to filter through some of the lesser known minor leaguers and decided who should be considered. Scouting was used, in large, over numbers to determine who made the list and where they ranked.

1. Project Prospect is a scouting and statistical analysis baseball publication focused on evaluating prospective big leaguers.

We pride ourselves on providing high-quality, first-hand analysis. Our staff travels thousands of miles every year to see hundreds of baseball prospects with our own eyes. We also love numbers and have put a lot of energy into exploring and understanfing the intricacies of statistical analysis. Combining our scouting knowledge with our statistical knowledge, we believe our work offers a one-of-a-kind look at elite amateurs, minor league talents and young big leaguers.

I’ve been published by MiLB.com, Baseball America, ESPN, Rotoworld and more.

2. As previously mentioned, we had him pretty high last year at 41st. BA had him 36th and Law had him 57th. Goldstein and Pilierre didn’t rank him in their top 100s.

He’s an upper-body swinger with little lower-half involvement. That’s the primary reason why his strikeout rate jumped by about 8% from Low-A to High-A/Double-A. Check out this video:

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

Watch the swing at the 11 second mark. Note how upright he is and how little he used his lower body. He starts from a pretty wide base, which gives him room to adjust to breaking balls that he identifies. But the better off-speed stuff he sees, the more trouble he’s going to have making contact. Note that he does hit a no-doubt home run later in the video. He has power and he is going to hit a good number of balls out in the big leagues.

D’Arnaud’s also an aggressive hitter. He could end up being a low-walk, high-strikeout catcher with above-average power for the position but below-average at the plate overall.

My hesitations with Lawrie were largely about his defense. And I wanted to see more power before I got too excited. I was focused on his aggressive approach and a frame that was already pretty muscular, and didn’t see him taking a big jump forward with his power.

Lawrie has changed the way I scout. I’ve discussed him with over a dozen scouts since. Some admitted to writing off Chase Utley in large in college because they didn’t think he would provide much defensive value or hit for a lot of power.

I feel fortunate to be in a position where I can document opinions that are seen by many and learn from them. Most people will never interact with an amateur scout who didn’t write up a big leaguer from their area who they saw multiple times — Brandon Belt was missed by a lot of people. And we’re finally getting to the point where enough media members with a good amount of experience are throwing together top 100s that can be compared to each other.

I’ve been scouting prospects and ranking them for over five years now. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a fair amount of scouts and front office members reach out to me over the years and speed up my learning process. I’ve also gone from almost entirely numbers-oriented to pretty balanced between numbers and scouting, as I’ve taken in hundreds of games at this point.

I’ll be tracking Lawrie’s progress closely and continuing to try to learn from talented big leaguers that I saw and was wrong about.