Last Thursday, ESPN colleague Keith Law released his Top 100 prospects, his ninth such annual ranking for ESPN. This means it's time to put Keith's selections through the ZiPS wringer, testing his prospect rankings against the ZiPS projection system's data-driven, emotionless algorithms. I've outlined the biggest sources of disagreement between Keith and ZiPS, which tend to be the most interesting conflicts between humans and machines that don't involve evil computers subjugating humanity.
As one might expect, there is a lot of common ground between ZiPS and Law, with 71 players in common to both lists. Among Keith's top-10 prospects, none rank lower than 19th in ZiPS, and of his top 50, all but three are ranked (in the Top 100) by ZiPS. Data and scouting overlap more than you think, in no small part because Keith knows how to read and draw conclusions from minor league data, not to mention there's a surprising amount of tool quantification that can be found even in minor league data.
That said, there are several players Law and ZiPS greatly disagree on, and those, of course, make for the more interesting debates. Let's highlight those players below, with ZiPS taking the podium to explain the disparity.
Note: Full Top 100 ZiPS prospect rankings are at the bottom of this column.
Steven Matz, LHP, New York Mets
Law's Top 100 rank: 37 | ZiPS rank: 10
Just like last season, ZiPS is a bigger fan of the Mets pitching prospect than Law is. Last year, ZiPS ranked Matz favorably (No. 32), while Keith didn't rank him. After a 2.05 ERA in 19 minor league starts and a 2.27 ERA in six starts in the majors, ZiPS obviously isn't going to like him less than it did last year; he has jumped all the way to the 10 spot. Yes, there are concerns about Matz's health record -- ZiPS isn't giving him a large number of career innings due to the uncertainty -- but he also has pitched very well in the high minors and now in the majors. Getting through the minor league Gauntlet of Sadness that is the fate of a pitching prospect to endure, Matz is one of the safer bets, even if he lacks the very high-end upside that pitchers like Julio Urias and Lucas Giolito possess.
Shortstops Gleyber Torres (Cubs) and Brendan Rodgers (Rockies)
Torres -- Law's Top 100 rank: 15 | ZiPS rank: 45
Rodgers -- Law's Top 100 rank: 11 | ZiPS rank: 51
While ZiPS hardly dislikes either player, there's an extra note of conservatism here, with projection systems tending to give more relative consideration to the floor rather than the ceiling, which human evaluators tend to focus on. I probably side more with Keith on Torres than ZiPS, but I can understand the projection system's conservative approach with Rodgers. While he's a terrific prospect, he's still largely untested in the minors (though he did have an excellent 37 games, which is why he still ranks well).
Fellow 2015 draft pick Dansby Swanson, on the other hand, still ranks highly, because while he also has very limited professional experience, it was so overwhelmingly good that ZiPS doesn't give Swanson the same penalty as it does Rodgers.
Jon Gray, SP, Colorado Rockies
Law's Top 100 rank: Unranked| ZiPS rank: 33
Gray has been one of ZiPS' favorites for a while now, even outranking Mark Appel back when Appel was highly coveted. While you absolutely should not ignore Keith's past evaluations about Gray's mechanics, which are a serious concern, he still eked out enough good performances -- his FIP was actually pretty solid in his limited MLB time -- that ZiPS remains a believer.
A.J. Reed, 1B, Houston Astros
Law's Top 100 rank: 44| ZiPS rank: 7
Easily the lowest-rated player by Keith among the top 10 in ZiPS, Reed doesn't play a crucial position, doesn't add much defensive value and isn't young enough to have a crazy upside. What he can do is hit, and even with adjustments for playing in the hitter-friendly California League, a player hitting .340/.432/.612 in high-A and Double-A is a serious offensive prospect. The Astros won't start the season with Reed in the lineup -- service time issues are in play there, and it certainly doesn't hurt to give him time at Triple-A -- but Reed intrigues ZiPS in a way that Chris Carter and Jon Singleton never did. There's certainly some bust potential here; Reed's closest ZiPS comparison, Jason Thompson, made three All-Star appearances, but the next two similar ones, Dave Clark and Calvin Pickering, were disappointments. I still think Pickering would have been fine with some patience and a full-time DH spot, but that's an old argument I won't get into here.
Archie Bradley, SP, Arizona Diamondbacks
Law's Top 100 rank: 84| ZiPS rank: 127
Now here's a player who has lost ZiPS' faith. ZiPS was never big on Bradley in the first place, and a rather terrible stint in the majors pushes ZiPS off the Bradley bandwagon, possibly for good.
Alen Hanson, IF, Pittsburgh Pirates
Law's Top 100 rank: Unranked| ZiPS rank: 38
Sure, Hanson's .263/.313/.387 line at Triple-A is hardly what you want to see from an elite prospect. But the rough minor league data reflects the notion that he's a competent second baseman and Victory Field in Indianapolis is a neutral offensive park in the non-crazy International League, so his translation drops his .700 OPS to .660. ZiPS still believes that there's some power upside remaining and that Hanson will remain a triples machine in the majors.
RHP Jeff Hoffman, 3B Ryan McMahon and OF Raimel Tapia
Colorado Rockies
Hoffman-- Law's Top 100 rank: 90 | ZiPS rank: 21
McMahon -- Law's Top 100 rank: 62 | ZiPS rank: 24
Tapia -- Law's Top 100 rank: 78 | ZiPS: 37
Gray isn't the only Rockies prospect that ZiPS like better than Keith does. ZiPS likes Hoffman's competence at moving up levels quickly and keeping the ball down, and the minor league translations include hit-location data that gives Tapia some ZiPS love. McMahon's defensive data is as good as his general reputation -- with all caveats about minor league fielding data noted -- though being behind Nolan Arenado in the pecking order leaves him without an obvious home in Colorado for now.