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Jordan Lyles Named #64 Prospect On FanGraphs Top 100

One last pile-on to the busy Top 100 prospects lists in baseball today: FanGraphs finally put out their top 100 list. A lone Astro sits on it: Jordan Lyles, unsurprisingly, is that Astro. FanGraphs has him as the #64 overall prospect in baseball.

What is a bit surprising, to me anyway, is Lyles is ranked higher by Baseball America than he is by FanGraphs. You would think that the sabermetric crowd would fall a bit harder for Lyles considering his statistical dominance and his youth, and that the scouting community would say "sure, but he's a short right-hander without dominant stuff." Of course, FanGraphs doesn't necessarily use minor league stats to project major league performance, and projection factors into the lists. 

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It's just interesting to me how far we've come from the old-time "stats vs. scouts" arguments that a prospect of Lyles tools is now being rated higher by the scouts than he is by the sabermetricians. 

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Lyles, 20, will likely open up in the Oklahoma City RedHawks rotation, and should be first in line to get a crack at the starting rotation should injuries occur. As long as said injuries don't interfere with the Astros plans of keeping his rights an extra year through service time manipulation.

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