Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus both released their top 100/101 prospect lists on Wednesday, and they met my expectations in a couple respects. Perhaps the quickest gauge of a website's sanity is to look for Eloy Jimenez in the top five, and Michael Kopech somewhere around No. 20. Both checked out.
After those two, it's one battleground after another ...
| BA | BPro |
| Eloy Jimenez (3) | Eloy Jimenez (4) |
| Michael Kopech (21) | Nick Madrigal (15) |
| Dylan Cease (38) | Michael Kopech (24) |
| Nick Madrigal (43) | Dylan Cease (26) |
| Luis Robert (76) | Luis Robert (45) |
| Dane Dunning (76) |
... and while you may find yourself more aligned with one column, White Sox fans are at least familiar with the sources of the high and low arguments.
*Cease: He wasn't even in BA's Top 100 last year due to Tommy John surgery followed by limited in-game durability. The fact that he went from off the board to No. 38 shows what kind of year he had. BPro was the high site on Cease last year, ranking him 47th, so they had less correcting to do.
*Robert: All the injuries either make it hard to get a good look at him, or trust that good looks will be in abundant supply down the road. Some question his swing, but nobody questions the tools.
*Dunning: He somehow went in two different directions, climbing from 89th to 76th on BPro's list while falling off the board from No. 82 on BA's. The elbow injury that truncated his otherwise successful season looms large, especially for those who aren't floored by his stuff.
Madrigal is the new one, and I'd expect somebody with such an unusual profile to divide the electorate, but I didn't expect him to make this noteworthy of an entry.
BPro is taking the highly aggressive stance by ranking him ahead of Kopech (and Cease), and that No. 15 spot actually reflects the staff's attempt to temper its enthusiasm to due to the lack of pro production. Meanwhile, BA's top 100 list came with a series of articles, one of which focused on Madrigal's avoidance of the pull field. J.J. Cooper said that only one of Madrigal's 47 hits ended up in left field last year, and as we saw firsthand with Avisail Garcia, that's a tough way to make a living.
I saw the article before the top 100, so it surprised me a little that Madrigal was in the top 50 despite that flaw. The rest of his game is sound, and nobody questions his makeup, so he wins some benefit of the doubt for the time being. BPro won last year by going out on a limb for Cease, so maybe Madrigal will get the same bump. We'll find out which one is weirder starting Saturday, when MLB.com's list has the opportunity to serve as a tiebreaker.
