ACME Prospect Lists

The ACME Prospect List

There are countless factors that enter into scouting reports. Seeing as ACME doesn't boast much of a field staff, they freely admit to utilizing (stealing from?) other sources. But they give full credit to those sources.

The primary resources they use for actual field analysis are Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and Minor League Baseball.Com. They also include a group of websites that similarly "filter" data and generate their own rankings. The data is presented in a spreadsheet with each resource having its own column.

It's always fascinating to see how little correlation often exists among these resources. ACME digests the various pieces of information and produces its own rankings.

One unique thing about the ACME list is that it completely separates hitters and pitchers. The boys at ACME are firm believers in the old baseball adage that "there’s only one way to develop a blue-chip pitching prospect . . . start with four blue-chip pitching prospects". If your league provides limited roster space for minor league prospects, you’d probably be wise to use that space for hitting prospects. Their success rate is historically higher.

But perhaps the most interesting feature of the ACME list is that contains not only the top minor leaguers, but also incorporates the top amateur players including not only players projected to go high in the next MLB draft but also younger stars. If you're drafting for upside, where would you put that 16-year old superstar relative to that 23-year old minor leaguer? The list also incorporates foreign players considering a move to the major leagues. Since all of those players are eligible for the sequential drafts of the leagues ACME is a part of, they are incorporated in the sequential rankings.

Historically, since hitters are more predictable than pitchers, fantasy teams tend to gravitate towards hitters among their prospects. For this reason, the boys at ACME produce an annual list of the top 175 hitters and only the top 75 pitchers.

Attached to this page are the final 2009 thru 2019 ACME 250's and the most recent version of the 2020 ACME 250.

The rankings also include the minor league stats for each player (per Minorleaguebaseball.com). For hitters the numbers are: batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage. For pitchers, the numbers are: ERA, innings pitched, hits, and strikeouts.

The current 2018 listings include the rankings of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, John Sickels and a composite from various other sources. For a truly complete summary of the various rankings go to the "Links" page and check "fantasyrundown.com."

(NOTE: Since this site also serves as the unofficial site of the WIFL Fantasy Baseball League, the WIFL team status for each player is also reflected. Also included is the status of each player in the Sidd Finch League, a prospects-only league that began actual scoring in 2013.)