Why I Hate Baseball America
Baseball America is generally regarded as THE authority on prospects. It is the goal of every farm system to be ranked #1 on Baseball America’s annual -
No wait, it’s the goal of every farm system to produce the best talent to help your major league team. Baseball America doesn’t factor into that at all.
My problem is not with Baseball America. BA is a very fine, knowledgeable publication. My problem is that baseball media, and even more so the fans treat BA as if it is infallible. That is the problem.
When somebody on ESPN or FOX comes out to say that Derek Jeter is the best player in the game, or Randy Johnson will win 30 games, or the White Sox will win the division (hypothetical situations), fans have no problem pointing out the stupidity of these statements. With Baseball America, that is not so.
Baseball fans never tire of using BA as the debate-ender. These are statements you hear all the time:
“Our farm system is ranked 7th overall, the future is bright!”
“Our farm system is ranked 22nd overall, fire the GM!”
“I don’t know anything about this player, but he’s ranked 54th by Baseball America, so he must be pretty good.”
There is something wrong with these statements. Baseball America’s word is not gospel, but the reason it is taken as so is obvious. Fans don’t know any better. When the talking heads on ESPN say something ridiculous, the average fan is familiar with what they are saying and can decide for themselves whether it is true or not. When Baseball America tells people that Andrew McCutchen is the 14th best prospect in baseball, the average fan assumes it’s true.
Baseball America is not perfect. In fact, they are very, very flawed. A full list of their historic top 100 prospects can be found here. It does not take long to realize just how hit-and-miss these opinions are. You could argue that prospects are unpredictable and that Baseball America is doing a relatively good job with what they’re given. However, that is irrelevant, because my point is not that Baseball America is inept, it’s that their opinions should be challenged. If prospects are so unpredictable, why should their rankings be the final say on prospects? Aren’t they as likely to be wrong as right?
To use another quick example, I looked at the NL and AL all-star teams last year, with the exception of John Smoltz, Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. because they debuted before Baseball America’s top 100 prospect list existed. Even taking their exact ranking out of the equation, 18 of the remaining 63 players were not ranked in any year, in any capacity whatsoever. For these eighteen players who were voted as all-stars, as questionable as that voting is, they had been essentially dismissed by Baseball America from the moment they signed to the moment they hit the majors. Not once had BA believed that any of these players were anything special.
There are many places where you can educate yourself about prospects. So, next time anybody uses Baseball America to try to persuade you about a prospect’s worthiness, challenge it! Think! Form your own opinions! You’ll be better off for it.
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The link to the historic top 100 prospects points to wp-admin on this site, not to where it’s supposed to…
Aside from that, a great article… BA really has just become the defacto “truth” about baseball, I do enjoy reading their stuff but their lists are so cyclical that it’s really hard to take seriously. If BA was in fact always accurate, their top 100 prospects would only ever change when new players were drafted and older players moved on to be superstars in the majors… That’s not the case, from year to year “cant miss” prospects are dropped from the list and guys that weren’t considered are added.
Take it with a grain of salt, that’s the best advice I can give.
You fans should hate baseball, because it glorifies all that is wrong with America. Big spending teams gobbling up the titles in a ‘buyfest’ for glory. Sports is about Fair Play and competition, not domination. We should all go to our local teams, media, as well as MLB.com and MLBPA and demand spending limits in baseball now.
wat