Kevin Goldstein of Baseball America was nice enough to let me bother him with a few questions via email prior to the publishing of the Oakland A's Top 10 Prospects:

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Baseball America has been providing an outlook on MLB organizations Top Prospects for a number of years, both online and in print publications. You do this during the off season around the GM Meetings, the Winter Meetings, 9 billion different Winter Leagues, the Rule 5 Draft, players blowing out their ACL's, with trades and trade rumors billowing about...and this was an election year. I don't think there is a question in there.
Oh, how many people are on your staff and do their families ever worry they might not see them until spring?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
Luckily, I work at home, so my girlfriend does see me this time of the year. I've found that BA is generally thought of as a much bigger organization than we actually are. Our editorial staff is a whopping twelve.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Now, here's the disclaimer that Baseball America provides readers online:

"Baseball America's Top 10 Prospects lists are based on projections of a player's long-term worth after discussions with scouting and player-development personnel. All players who haven't exceeded the major league rookie standards of 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched (without regard to service time) are eligible. Ages are as of April 1, 2005."

Do you ever get the feeling you need to repeat the disclaimer after every other sentence? How many vicious and angry emails do you get from readers, players, player's families and MLB teams after your lists are published?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
Sometimes I want to either do that or put the disclaimer in 48 point font on the homepage. We get many angry emails (but many happy ones too) from readers, player's families (you forgot agents!), etc. But you can't please all the people all the time. I've never gotten ugly feedback from a team, and I must re-state, I get plenty of friendly email.

ED NOTE: I did not forget agents, but as they are not human...

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Now let's look at a team like, I don't know, the Oakland A's. Baseball America may not be high on a player like, oh say, Nick Swisher. Last year he was 'only' the 6th rated prospect in the A's organization. There was probably a bastion of fans crying out for blood. Now, he's penciled in as a starting outfielder with the big league club. The Top 10 Prospects List has nothing to do with circumstances, an organization's approach or how quickly the player will make it to the major league level, or even if the player will be successful, does it?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
We're not high on Nick Swisher? You may be surprised. I would defend the rankings at 6 last year, and he broke out this year and will rank much higher this year. On the most basic of levels, the rankings are done by measuring the difficult combination of a player's ceiling AND his likelihood of reaching that ceiling. The rankings have nothing to do with circumstance within the system at all. For example, if a stud third baseman was in the A's system, we wouldn't rank him any lower just because the A's have a stud third baseman in the majors signed to a long-term contract.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Now, the A's have Huston Street on the radar. How much can you tell about a player from a half-season of pro ball?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
In a guy like Street's case, really, quite a bit. We have three years of high-spotlight pitching at Texas, as well as a number of summers with Team USA, so we have quite a track record to go on. It's the Latin American players who suddenly show up the the Arizona Rookie League that require the real digging.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
How are the lists put together; is it a committee approach at Baseball America or do you let a columnist have carte blanch?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
I can't tell you how much I appreciate you asking this question. The A's top 10 got leaked and I'm already getting ripped on some A's message boards for it. People think we do this in a vacuum and we really don't. I'll just go over how I personally do them. Others do them differently, but the number of people we talk to remains pretty much the same.

1. Make a depth chart of the system. This takes a few days, as I research every player, see where they came from, what they have done, injury status, what we've written about them in the past, including while they were amatuers, etc.
   
   
2. Start talking to people and continuously evolve the rankings. I spent 20+ hours on the phone for the A's Top 10 (and Top 30) for the Prospect Handbook. I talked to nearly everyone in the A's front office, from area scouts to Billy Beane, as well as a number of scouts from outside the organization who saw the A's minor league teams play many times.
   The rankings certainly are bounced off other people at BA as part of a sanity check, and I also bounced them off people within the org to get their feedback more than once.
   
   
3. Finalize the rankings
   
   
4. Write

This is a pretty crappy explanation, as #2 is about 80% of it.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Do you ever feel like an organization is trying to steer you in one way or another with their recommendations? Is there a tug-of-war with over-hyping a prospect they hope to trade, down-playing a player they hope to sneak through waivers, the Rule 5 draft or whatever?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
It depends on the organization. Without going into details, you do need to get a feel for who you are talking to and if you need to grade out what they are saying on a bell curve.
For what it's worth, the A's are NOT such a team.
They were incredibly giving of their time and I felt there was no agenda with them at all.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Now, yesterday I proposed my predictions for the Baseball America Top 10 Prospect List for the Oakland A's:

1. Huston Street
   
2. Dan Johnson
   
3. Nick Swisher
   
4. Joe Blanton
   
5. Jairo Garcia
   
6. Nelson Cruz
   
7. Omar Quintanilla
   
8. Mike Rouse
   
9. Jason Perry
   
10. Shawn Kohn

How close was I?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
7 of those players are in the top 10, none of them EXACTLY match that player's rankings.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Even a tiny bit more of a hint?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
One of those players is not in the top 30.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Fine.

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
Fine!

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
How does the online version of the prospect lists differ from the magazine and the books?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
It doesn't. That is a direct pull from the edited version that appears in the print version of Baseball America. Of course, the full 1-30 appear in our Prospect Handbook, which I will continue to plug as long as I think it's the best baseball annual out there.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
Baseball America gets the label of being old school or scout derivative and being too impressed with toolsy players. Is that a fair assessment?
(The Five Tools = Hitting for average, hitting for power, base running speed, defense, arm)

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
I think it's incredible that we're constantly ripped for thinking tools are important. You know what? Tools ARE important. They really are. But we're not ignorant to performance measures either. Like many of the fans and bloggers out there, many of us at BA grew up with the Bill James abstracts (hell, I can recite the runs created formula from memory) and value those things immensely. But in the end, that's why I love prospects, it's more than just mere numbers, it's about tools AND performance and measuring them both accurately and that's what I love.

ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND:
A's fans and detractors alike think they know everything about the A's organization. You have access to the A's organization. What are they missing?

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball America):
If there's one thing I think most fans should know about the A's it's that they're not nearly as dogmatic about things as most people think.

(END)
Kevin was thanked and made me promise not to bother him for another 11 and half months. At least that's what I read into it.

And now...

OAKLAND A's TOP 10 PROSPECTS

Here's the list (and the link to the article):

1. Nick Swisher, of
   
2. Javi Herrera, of
   
3. Joe Blanton, rhp
   
4. Dan Johnson, 1b
   
5. Huston Street, rhp
   
6. Jairo Garcia, rhp
   
7. Richie Robnett, of
   
8. Omar Quintanilla, ss
   
9. Kurt Suzuki, c
   
10. Nelson Cruz, of

Wow. I was off. I thought Nelson Cruz would be above Javi Herrera. Richie Robnett is a surprise this early. Jeremy Brown slips. As do Mike Rouse, Andre Ethier and Brad Sullivan. It looks like the 2004 Draft will be one to remember for the A's and their Latin American program is paying off in a big way. The most amazing thing is that the A's have a number of outfield prospects.

Well, I have a lot of readng to do.

You can join Kevin Goldstein in an online chat session tomorrow at Noon PST.

I've already added a few dozen follow up questions to the queue. I expect the restraining order any day now...