Thanks to Pistol for alerting us to Baseball America's ranking of the NY-Penn League's Top 20 Prospects. Non-subscribers can read this tidbit about the amazing Auburn Doubledays:
The Blue Jays stocked Auburn with a plethora of college talent, and the team went 56-18 to run away with the league's best record despite the promotions of first-round shortstop Aaron Hill and righthander Jamie Vermilyea. Hill ranked second in the top 20 on a list that included four of his teammates: righty Josh Banks, lefty Kurt Isenberg, shortstop Juan Peralta and first baseman Vito Chiaravalloti. Four other Doubledays -- Vermilyea, third baseman Ryan Roberts and righties Shaun Marcum and Bubbie Buzachero -- also received strong consideration.
I won't reproduce what BA says about each of these players in the subscriber-only section, of course -- though I do recommend buying such a subscription to anyone with a strong interest in minor-league and college baseball; it's an invaluable resource. But what I will do is reproduce the positions at which these junior Jays appeared on the Top 20, in order to vent a little about a publication I otherwise really like:
2. Aaron Hill, SS
5. Josh Banks, RHP
7. Kurt Isenberg, LHP
16. Juan Peralta, SS/2B
19. Vito Chiaravalotti, 1B
Now, does anyone else think it's strange that the guy who won the league's first-ever Triple Freakin' Crown ranks 19th on the list of league prospects? Behind 3B Claudio Arias of the Lowell Spinners, who batted a robust .262 with a 7/55 BB/K rate? Big Vito comes with caveats, of course: He's a big ol' slugger with questionable defensive skills who hasn't yet faced really sharp pitching. But the NY-Penn was the toughest hitters' league in all of organized baseball last year; its batters posted a circuit-average line of .245/.325/.348 (according to Mike Wolverton's minor-league EqA charts); Vito went .351/.469/.605. Don't you think that ought to be worth something more than 19th place?
The reason, of course, is that despite promising progress over the last couple of years, BA is still largely the domain of analysts who rate athleticism and potential equal to, if not higher than, performance. Chiaravalotti had a tremendous college career at Richmond; even in his injury-plagued senior year, he did very well. It's not like he came out of nowhere. But because he's not athletic, toolsy or a high draft pick, some folks are unable to look past their own assumptions and appreciate that this guy owns the strike zone and can mash the ball.
Vito will of course not carry a 1.074 OPS through his minor-league career, and maybe he'll only ever be a bush-league slugger who can't hit a AAA curveball. But I don't understand why his performance thus far doesn't rank him higher in the minds of prospect predictors. Tell you what, I'll take Vito against Claudio for the next few seasons and we'll see who does better.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030923013206999