Yesterday, John Sickels released his preliminary prospect list — a precursor to the release of his Top 20 list, which should come this week.
Since last year he released his preliminary list prior to the selection of our 2012 Watchlist, I’ll list the omissions instead of the overlap:
| Paul Applebee | Joel Barrientos | Corey Brown |
| Paul Demny | Wilmer Difo | Diomedes Eusebio |
| Marcos Frias | Matt Grace | Junior Geraldo |
| Neil Holland | Greg Holt | Hendry Jimenez |
| Taylor Jordan | Nathan Karns | Jose Marmolejos-Diaz |
| Estarlin Martinez | Gilberto Mendez | Narciso Mesa |
| Christian Meza | Justin Miller | Adrian Nieto |
| Bryce Ortega | “Fred” Ortega | Arialdi Peguero |
| Ivan Pineyro | Wander Ramos | Caleb Ramsey |
| Manny Rodriguez | Adrian Sanchez | Steve Souza |
| Hector Silvestre | Matt Swynenberg | Jean Carlos Valdez |
Not too difficult to see the pattern here: Too old for the level by his standards or players from the Dominican Republic that haven’t played north of Florida. Omission may also be too strong a word — if I were to slice our watchlist in half, I’d probably do the same, especially if I had to put a few hundred of them in a book that’s going on sale next month.
The only name that was on his list but not ours was Deion Williams, a.k.a. the lone HS position players signed from the Nats 2011 draft.
This year, you’ll recall, I made a conscious effort to be more exclusive than inclusive and one of the areas in which I thought that I was too “easy” last year was the three-letter leagues (DSL, GCL). It’s a balancing act between identifying guys that caught my eye while doing the season reviews and being a homer. So if I get kudos for picking out “For The Weekend,” I deserve the Red Foreman treatment on the likes of Nick Serino.
I did, however, make the case on his board for the Adrians (Nieto and Sanchez) and Taylor Jordan, with an honorable mention for Justin Bloxom. I’m sure most of you can make the case for others, and encourage you to comment both here and there.