TomRicardo said:
God no.
People really need to stop looking directly at the rankings. The rankings get biased towards Latin American position players and away from college position players. This is because talent scouts see guys who get signed at 16 a lot longer and they are far more projectable. Taveras was the #23 prospect in baseball before Betts at 5 professional ABs.
Taveras has a much better bat and more power but Betts has way more plate discipline and is much better on the base paths. Probably they are around equal or Taveras is a bit better on the field at RF though Betts will probably end up with a better arm and range. Betts is a far superior 2B than Taveras is a CF.
Taveras has ridiculous Nomaresque batting skills where Betts has versatility and great speed and good plate discipline.
I think it would be interesting to discuss what other think about prospect rankings being unnaturally skewed towards Latin position players and away from college position players. i think International FA (Bonus Babies) in general get an unnatural bias to drafted players.
In the last 5 years(2009-2013) only 6 International FA made it into the top ten bWAR:
Cano (3), Cabrera (2), Beltre (2), Jiminez, Ramirez, Gomez
So International FAs only took up 9 of the 50 possible spots. 39 were drafted players and Iwakuma (A Japanese free agent).
Yet over the last 5 years the top ten prospects (Baseball America) of baseball 13 Bonus Babies (14 if you count Chapman) took up 20 of the 50 spots. Drafted player took up 28 spots while 2 went to Japanese Free Agents.
Either there is a lot more talent coming out of Latin America now or the prospect lists are skewed.