Oscar Taveras

There are an endless number of sites devoted to baseball prospects, and while I think it’s safe to say our personal favorite here at CFB is Baseball Prospectus, the other giant in the internet world of prospecting, Baseball America, does something extremely fascinating every year to go along with their Top 10 lists. They take 15 tools, from Best Hit Tool to Best Outfield Arm, and assign one player from each organization one of these distinctions. Over the past few months, I’ve been compiling them in a spreadsheet as the team lists have come out. They concluded with the San Francisco Giants last week, so all the Best Tools have been handed out. It should be noted that some of these lists came out before certain trades, so you will see some players (new Met Travis d’Arnaud, for example) on teams that they no longer play for. However, I think a general compilation of these tools is helpful and interesting to look at.

We’ll start with the offensive tools: Best Hit, Best Power, Best Strike Zone Discipline, Fastest Baserunner and Best Athlete. Enjoy !

A positional breakdown:

Best Hitter for Average:

• 11 outfielders
• 9 third basemen
• 4 shortstops
• 4 second basemen
• 1 first baseman
• 1 catcher

Best Power Hitter:

• 12 outfielders
• 7 third basemen
• 6 first basemen
• 3 catchers
• 2 shortstops

Best Strike Zone Discipline:

• 12 outfielders
• 6 shortstops
• 5 third basemen
• 5 first basemen
• 2 second basemen

Fastest Baserunner:

• 24 outfielders
• 5 shortstops
• 1 second baseman

Best Athlete:

• 26 outfielders
• 2 third basemen
• 1 shortstop
• 1 right-handed pitcher

AL EAST

AL CENTRAL

AL WEST

NL EAST

NL CENTRAL

NL WEST