REVISED - The MLN FAB50™ Baseball 2005 is the ultimate list of developmental baseball players. It all began in 2002. The FAB50, in its fourth year, is an annual ranking of the top talent in minor league and independent baseball that has generated one of the most accurate bellwethers of player performance of any such list.
The reasons are quite simple: MLN's list is compiled at mid-season, when players have established a clear track-record that gives us a clear picture of their destiny for the year, and we take into account the political realities of the player's farm system.
From our 2004 list, all of our top ten players saw major league time. 80% of them stayed up. With one post-season injury, Jason Kubel, who was sidelined this season, it would have been 90%. Only B. J. Upton, our No. 1 pick last year, returned and is still in the minors.
All but nine of our players moved up two divisions. Some, like Brad Thompson and Ryan Howard, soared straight through to the majors before mid-season.
Who Makes the List?
To make the FAB50, an athlete has to play in professional minor league or independent baseball for some or all of the 2005 season. They have to possess good to great records, be highly touted by their development systems, or have been paid some premium to sign on the dotted line. Ability or able agent, they are represented here.
How does our list differ from ones compiled by Baseball America, or the new mid-season top fifty digest at MiLB.com?
The BA list is a pre-season snapshot, and is heavily based on the technical merits of the players. Ours is a mid-season report that weights the player's work with half a year of track record, and the buzz that shifts gears as teams make moves to improve their major league rosters. Relative to the MiLB list, ours is built on a solid year of research, and development of the concept from the experience of having done preperatory reasearch for four years to bring you the FAB50. We put a team of people on it year-round, not just one writer.
It's not been unheard of that executives and scouts couch their lists of players a bit. No one wants to tip their hand. So we ask those people who work with them, see them, and watch the minor league fans interact with them as well: Managers, coaches, trainers, media relations staff, general managers, and a select few owners. We also check the independents for "parked" players who may be trying to make a career move by going outside of affiliated baseball (Something those organizations tied to Major League Baseball can't do.)
MLN does one more thing: Evaluate the farm systems themselves. Not all farms are created equal. Some operate better one year than the next. Some offer more opportunities for advancement, and some are just plain better managed than others. We include this in the rankings.
There is nothing cut and dried about doing a ranking review. A lot of what happens to players is political. Favored sons of the farm director, the general manager, or a major league skipper have much smoother sailing through the farm system. Ours is a politically sensitive ranking, even when those politics occasionally promote someone whom the average Joe on the street would shake their head in wonder (or disgust) at.
Many young men put up great numbers. Those who electrify both the baseball elite and the casual fan develop what we call "the buzz."
Players with the buzz make the FAB50. So it will differ in many respects from other lists, with many fresh faces that you may not have heard about yet, because those who excite fans in minor league towns often ignite major league clubs with the same magic.
Timing Change
We moved this year's FAB50 list to August rather than June to allow for the June MLB draft, the blending of independent leagues that start later into our evaluation of the FAB50, and some opportunity to canvas a wider swath of those in-the-know closer to our release date.
Farm Factor
We'll usually get an earful from talent and agents with players in the Yankees and Braves farm systems. Remembering that this is not purely a skills ranking, like the BA Prospect Handbook, but a movement ranking that weighs in the farm systems into how quickly a player will progress to the majors in their organization.
The Braves' farm system is choked with great pitchers. Their inability to move keeps many off of the FAB50 list. The Yankees have great players. The high-dollar players over many of them act like a cement ceiling to the farm system. Yankees players that are being kept, not traded behind multi-million dollar athletes are considered "parked" and don't make the FAB50 list either, although some will make the Ones2Watch™. To us, it doesn't matter if they are the no. 2 prospect in America or the 200th on the skills rankings, because, no matter how good they really are, they have no real opportunity to advance.
Some players are pushed too quickly. Some are nutured too slowly. The FAB50 reflects both the realities of the system in which these players play, and the job that the farm systems are doing in shaping their highly ranked prospects.
We Are The World
As part of our 5th year celebration of minor and independent sports, we are opening our publication to the world. On selected Latin players, we offer translations in Spanish. Click on the link below each player photo.
Scouts and Touts
Frequently in this guide, you will see our evaluators refer to the 'scouts and touts.' We take in a good deal of input from scouts and others in organizations, both with a player's club and without, who have their two cents to contribute. Some of their observations are right on the money. Some are made earlier in the year and may be disproven by the player's performance. Most are based on skills evaluation rankings. We try to factor how these opinions on a player will weigh into their movement into the major leagues.
Player Props: Beyond II
Unlike most of the minor league lists, which are just names and stats, or the generous thumbnail of the player's head, we give you dazzling large layouts and page summaries of every player on the list. Great action shots and big graphics that life in the broad-band age of the internet make possible.
We break down the list for you by position, major league club (if any), minor league or independent team, and by position.
The FAB50 Baseball 2005 also honors, for the first time this year, our FAB50 Farm System of the Year™ 2005. You'll see this designation on the bio of every player from their farm, honoring the achivement:
The Bridesmaids
Don’t see your favorite player? Wonder why your local hero who got called up two weeks ago is still on the list? There are many, many able and great players who don't make the FAB50. Here's why:
Those who were called up earlier in the season and did not come back to the minors by the All-Star break are eliminated from the list. Those called up between the break and the list’s publication are reviewed by the editors. Players called up for injury replacement, or players that sources tell us are on evaluation or short call-up, stay on the list.
If you have great numbers, but none of the other buzz factors that indicate a career on the move as defined by the FAB50, you don't make the list.
Players burning up the turf post-all-star break get additional consideration as adjustments to the final list is made, but, if you haven’t wowed us by now, it’s a harder sell from June/July onward. Catch us for Player of the Year honors.
Previously, if you had 150 at-bats in the majors, you were eliminated from the list. The Parking problem of more and more talented careers in the Triple-A has caused us to eliminate the elimination. Time spent trapped on a farm system will diminish players’ value in the FAB50 instead.
Still maintained is our Ones2Watch™ section of players who did not make the list for various reasons, including being so good that there's nowhere to go at the moment in their farm system.
Oddities & Interesting Notes
The list has changed daily, with assessments of major league call-ups that become permanent dropping players from the list. This has resulted in two pairs of teammates ending up next to each other within the top ten. For all of our readers from Venezuela, and fans of Venezuelan baseball, you'll be pleasantly surprised to see all of your countrymen who broke the top ten this year.
Hurler Goes Highest
We think that you will find this to be a superior ranking in every regard. This is the first FAB50 that features a pitcher as our number one pick. Last year’s number one is still with us. All of the faces from the FAB50 2004 have moved up. Some will be familiar, as they have progressed well. Ten have been passed by because they've lost the buzz.
And the winners are…
Brandon Wood, mentioned in this article previously as an indy player, was in error. The indy player is another Brandon Wood whose information was mis-entered in our sytem of over 14,000 players due to a clerical error. We apologize for the mistake. -ed.
