Yankees Farm System - Preseason Top 25

 Well after all the dust settled from prospect season, (which is basically March), and everybody moved on to...say...the big league regular season, I finally got off my butt and put together my organizational top prospects list.  Actually, a big factor for my rankings is the minor league assignments which just started coming out over the past few days.  With no further delay, here is the list:
 

Rank	Name	Position	Grade	Fin. Score	Age/Level	Season	Career
1	Tyler Austin	RF	A	95	94	96	98
2	Gary Sanchez	C	A	91	95	84	85
3	Mason Williams	CF	A	90	89	85	92
4	Slade Heathcott	CF	A	85	86	91	80
5	Manny Banuelos	SP	B	90	96	71	86
6	Ty Hensley	SP	B	90	84	100	100
7	Angelo Gumbs	2B	B	87	94	75	79
8	Rafael de Paula	SP	B	87	79	100	100
9	Jose Ramirez	SP	B	85	87	85	81
10	Brett Marshall	SP	B	84	92	72	72
11	Jose Campos	SP	B	84	84	85	83
12	Mark Montgomery	RP	C	96	94	100	100
13	Corey Black	SP	C	93	89	100	100
14	Nick Goody	RP	C	93	89	100	100
15	Ramon Flores	LF	C	91	96	91	80
16	Greg Bird	1B	C	91	85	100	100
17	Jordan Cote	SP	C	89	81	100	100
18	Corban Joseph	2B	C	88	87	95	87
19	J.R. Murphy	C	C	86	92	79	77
20	Zoilo Almonte	RF	C	86	89	86	79
21	Austin Romine	C	C	85	87	83	82
22	Nik Turley	SP	C	85	86	89	82
23	Dante Bichette, Jr.	3B	C	82	85	68	81
24	Cito Culver	SS	C	79	85	65	70
25	Austin Aune	SS	C	78	80	75	75

For those who missed my 2012 postseason Top 25, here's a quick recap: my system is based on both subjective and objective elements.  The subjective is a Grade Scale from A to C.  A prospects are Top 100 overall type players.  B prospects are worthy of the discussion but fall short (in my opinion).  C prospects are valuable players who either have a chance to contribute to the big club soon or are very young players who have not yet had a chance to prove they're worthy of a higher ranking.  Some, like Ty Hensley, are good enough prospects prior to the draft to be considered a B prospect even with little professional experience.  The objective are based on three areas: (1) where the player is at in relation to his age, (2) how the player performed in the most recent season, and (3) how the player has performed over his career.  All three are numeric figures and averaged to produce a final score.

Our four A grade prospects are the ones that were on basically every major Top 100 prospect list, (click here for a recap).  Austin has the highest objective score and is thus number 1 on the list.  He has unquestionably outperformed the other A grade prospects, both last year and over his career as a whole.  He can hit for both power and average and has a strong throwing arm, (due to his experience as a 3B) to play the field sufficiently.  Sanchez shows both a big-time power bat and a solid hit tool for the position of catcher.  While still not living up to his predecessor Jesus Montero in terms of overall prospect, he is convincing more scouts that he can actually stick behind the plate, which is something few people believe Montero can do.  Williams and Heathcott are both talented fielders with the athleticism to play CF.  It will be interesting, if they both make it to the Bronx, who will ultimately play that position.

I was more stingy with my B's then I was back in the fall.  Two players who actually went from C to B, though, are Rafael de Paula and Jose Ramirez.  Regarding de Paula, the performance was undoubtedly impressive last year, (1.46 ERA, 12.41 K/9, .86 WHIP in 61.2 innings).  Unfortunately, that was in the Dominican Summer League primarily against kids 4 years younger than him.  But he's been promoted to low A Charleston and will be playing against people closer to his age.  This show of confidence by the organization was enough to move de Paula to B status.  Ramirez was pushed up because of reports I've read on him from analysts such as Keith Law, who braged on the velo of his fastball (up to 98) and his slider this prospect season.  Law listed Ramirez as one of ten prospects who just missed his Top 100 overall list.

Of the C level prospects listed, three were drafted last year (Black, Goody, and Aune).  Black will be in Tampa's starting rotation, which is impressive for someone just drafted last year.  Goody was the closer at LSU prior to being drafted and I believe he is next in the organization's great reliever lineage, (behind David Robertson and Mark Montgomery).  Speaking of Montgomery, he had the best all around season last year amongst any prospect in the organization.  The spreadsheet I use forces the objective scoring to cap at 100, but were it not for that Montgomery would be scoring near 110 for his performances the past two years.  Because he is destined for the bullpen, I could not justify grading him higher but I am very excited to see him play in New York, which I believe we will see this year.

Well, that's it...that's the list.  I will update it mid-season after we see some performance and maybe a few promotions.