{"id":17425,"date":"2022-02-14T09:50:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T14:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=17425"},"modified":"2022-03-21T12:17:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T16:17:03","slug":"keith-laws-prospect-rankings-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=17425","title":{"rendered":"Keith Law’s Prospect Rankings released"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Law is the first pundit to put House as our #1 prospect. By the time he’s done, House may end up eclipsing our current record holder for most #1 listings (Lucas Giolito). Photo via primetimesportstalk.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

February is definitely prospect month, and one of the leading analysts out there is The Athletic’s Keith Law<\/strong>. On Monday 2\/7\/22 he released his system ranks<\/a>, and then on XXX he released the NL East team’s prospect rankings, including our weary Nationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, a couple thoughts on his system rankings. Law’s approach to evaluation definitely prioritizes ceiling over floor, and definitely discounts things you can find in abundance (RH relievers) versus scarcity (Catchers, top-end SPs, Shortstops, etc). And when it comes to evaluating entire systems, I feel like he goes well deeper than the best 3-4 guys in a system. So there’s some wild variations between his system rankings and a place like Baseball America’s, which ill go into briefly here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law’s top 5 systems: LA Dodgers, Seattle, Arizona, Tampa, Toronto.
BA’s top 5 systems: Seattle, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not too far off … until you see where BA ranked Law’s #1 team (they had LA 8th) and where BA had Toronto (19th!). That’s some wild variation. They also wildly disagreed on some middle of the road teams, for similar reasons. I sense that BA is star-driven, Law’s is depth-driven. That being said … both shops had the exact same bottom 7 teams, just in slightly different order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington comes in at #27 for Keith, #26 for BA coincidentally. Law does not include Ruiz<\/strong> as a prospect because he’s exhausted his rookie status per the new rules … this is something BA didn’t bother to adjudicate yet (nor any other prospect ranking shop), so I wonder if that didn’t ding the system a peg or two. Otherwise, Law’s evaluation of our system is this: improved from dead last last year, but two of our best arms got hurt, otherwise might be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OK, lets get to the individual players, which was released<\/a> on 2\/14\/22. I know the Athletic is behind a paywall, so i’m going to be respectful of that and not post his list 1-x. You can glean the rankings though from my comments here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law’s methodology, which I always seem to need to repeat, is as follows: he’s more ceiling than floor. He could care less about fantasy. He discounts relievers. He is skeptical of bad mechanics in pitchers. He is definitely more “conservative” in projections of players. He is skeptical of 16-yr old DSL players and often waits until they perform in a domestic league. So, with those observations … here’s some thoughts on his player rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n