The Harvest prospect draft is a prospect only, draft and hold competition. We created the draft to help unearth some of the baseball prospects that top prospectors are keeping their eyes for the upcoming season. This season, we are lucky to have a great group of competitors to join us in what should be another fun contest.

You can track the full draft as it is ongoing here.

Here are this year’s competitors, listed in draft order:

Michael Parnell Follow @parnellmichael



Michael covers the Rockies organization for Prospects 1500 and covers the Albuquerque Isotopes for Roxpile from his home base of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Eric Cross Follow @EricCross04



Eric is a lead Fantasy Baseball/MLB writer and the lead MLB Prospect Analyst for Fantrax. Eric also contributed extensively to the Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2019.

Brenden Gorzelski Follow @Big_Gorzey



Brenden joined the Baseball Farm crew in the summer of 2018. Brenden searches for the next hitting phenom in his ‘Next Phenom’ series, breaks down potential future aces in his ‘Crop Rotation’ series, and compiles organizational Top-20s for the site alongside Alex Jensen. Brenden will also be featured on the upcoming Baseball Farm Podcast.

Connor Kurcon Follow @ckurcon



Connor is a prospect writer and list maker for Six-Man Rotation. He also compiles various interesting stats that you can follow along with on Twitter, like this breakdown of the exceptional Keibert Ruiz.

Alex Jensen Follow @jensen_juicy



“Juicy” Jensen of Reddit fame joined the Baseball Farm crew this offseason. Alex teams up with Brenden for the ‘Cream of the Crop’ organizational Top-20s, has put together a thorough early mock draft of the 2019 Rule 4 draft, compiled an excellent player profile on the Blue Jays’ Chavez Young, and is working on his overall Top-300 prospect list.

Nick O’Neal Follow @nick_knack



Nick returns for his second year in the Harvest Draft. He’s an avid Angels fan and dynasty league player, who is representing the prestigious Ultra-D Dynasty League for the second year in the competition.

Marc Rodriguez Follow @MRodProspects



Marc is a dynasty league prospect writer for Prospects365. Marc recently released a detailed look at the Dynasty Top 100 for the site.

Paul Martin Follow @PaulTheMartin



Paul hosts the Real Fake Baseball podcast on Friends With Fantasy Benefits, covers the Yankees system for Prospects 1500, and also compiles the Prospects of the Week each week of the minor league season over at P1500.

Chris Blessing Follow @C_Blessing



Chris is a prospect writer for Baseball HQ and USA Today Sports Weekly. His recent offseason projects include numerous sections of the Minor League Baseball Analyst and wrote the Top-50 Prospects article for the most recent Lindy’s MLB Baseball Preview.

Lance Brozdowski Follow @LanceBroz



Lance is a co-founder of Prospects Live, writer at Razzball and Viva El Birdos, host of the Two Strike Approach podcast, and co-host of the Razzball Prospect Podcast.

Jason Woodell Follow @JasonAtTheGame



Jason is back for his second season in The Harvest, where he narrowly lost out to Chris Williamson, finishing second last season. Jason is a co-founder of Prospects Live where, among his myriad of activites, he co-hosts the “Scouts Have Eyes” podcast.

John Calvagno Follow @SALNotes



John is returning to compete in the Harvest for his second season. John runs “Notes From the Sally”, a scouting site dedicated to getting live looks at players in the South Atlantic and Appalachian Leagues. John is currently previewing every team in the South Atlantic League heading into the 2019 season.

Mike Gianella Follow @MikeGianella



Mike is a fantasy baseball writer at Baseball Prospectus, where the fantasy content is currently coming out at a pace of multiple articles a day, including tiered rankings by position and the landscape for AL and NL-only leagues.

Chris Williamson Follow @GoldyHarpTrout



Chris is The Harvest’s defending champion. He’s a contributor at Baseball Farm, and represents the Farm in The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational.

Phil Goyette Follow @PhilOfSports



Phil is a Baseball Farm contributor and is arguably the biggest minor league baseball fan of French-Canadian descent currently living in Dublin.

Eddy Almaguer Follow @EddyAlmaguer



Eddy is the fantasy baseball/prospects guru over at Prospects Live, where Eddy recently headed up the Top-100 Fantasy Prospects List, a prospects ranking based solely on future fantasy value.

James Anderson Follow @RealJRAnderson



James is the Lead Prospect Analyst and Assistant Baseball Editor at Rotowire. Among the mountain of content James puts out, recently he’s published the 2019 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Magazine as well as his constantly updated Top-400 Prospects list.

Patrick Brennan Follow @paintingcorner



Patrick is the founder of Royals Farm Report and writer/head tweeter for SB Nation’s Beyond the Box Score.

Ralph Lifshitz Follow @ProspectJesus



The man known simply as “Prospect Jesus” returns for his second season in the Harvest draft. Ralph is a co-founder of Prospects Live, regular contributor at Razzball, and teams up with Andy Singleton to create the Baseball Show’s fantasy baseball video draft guide each offseason.

Chip Bourne Follow @ccbournejr



Chip leads the production team at the Baseball Farm, providing us with the stats we all crave. Chip’s personal nomadic team affiliation includes the Rangers/Marlins/Red Sox/Tequila

Ryan Ortiz Follow @ortizme93



Back for his second year in the Harvest, Ryan is a contributor at the Baseball Farm. Ryan will also be hosting the upcoming Baseball Farm Podcast.

Here are the Rules for the competition:

Draft Format

15 round snake draft to fill a roster of:

C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF, DH, SP, SP, SP, SP, SP, RP

Eligibility: any player under 150 MLB ABs and 50 MLB IPs. Position eligibility is flexible. As long as the player played at least 1 game at the position in 2018, he can be drafted there in 2019. For 2-way players (Brendan McKay?), you have to decide whether to slot them in at either SP or their fielding position.

This is a draft and hold format, so once your team has been picked you’re locked into those 15 players for the season. No need to set lineups or make transactions.

Scoring Format

There is a maximum of 66 Harvest Points available to be earned. The general concept is scoring split into: ⅓ based on your team’s roto performance (1-22 points), ⅓ based on your team’s performance in advancing levels (1-22 points), ⅓ based on your team’s performance in a year end aggregated Top-100 prospects list (1-22 points).

Roto: 5×5 roto scoring (points awarded 22-1) for the following categories

Hitters: OPS, R, RBI, SB, HR

Pitchers: QS+W, ERA, WHIP, K/9, SV

If a player makes it to the MLB, he gets credit for his MLB stats.

Based on the final roto scoring, each owner is awarded between 1 and 22 Harvest Points

Levels gained: Total combined net levels gained for each prospect on your team, comparing the level that your prospect began the year at to the level your prospect finished the year at.

For prospects that make the MLB roster out of spring training, they are awarded +1 level for that achievement. However, if they drop back down to the Minors by the end of the season, they are awarded 0 levels.

Prospects placed into Rookie/Instructional ball at the end of the season are considered to have finished their regular season at the level they played in prior to Rookie/Instructs.

Ex. Kim Contreras drafts Jesus Luzardo in the 3rd round. Jesus begins the 2018 season at A+ Stockton. He then advances to AA Midland (+1) and AAA Nashville (+1) before being re-assigned to the AZL A’s at the end of the season on 8/31. Kim gets +2 levels gained for Luzardo, and his end of season placement to the AZL is ignored.

Levels are based on MiLB.com official designations: Rookie (DSL/AZL/GCL/Appy/Pioneer) -> A-Short (NY-Penn, NWL) -> A-Full (Sally, Midwest) -> A+ (California, Carolina, FSL) -> AA (Eastern, Southern, Texas) -> AAA (International, PCL) -> MLB

Each owner is ranked best to worst by levels gained, and awarded 1-22 Harvest Points.

Final Position on Aggregated Top-100: Based on our aggregated ‘Plum Prospects’ rankings at the end of 2019, the prospects on your team will earn points based on which tier the wind up the season in:

1-10 – 10 points each

11 – 20 – 9 points each

…

91-100 – 1 point each

The ‘Plum Prospects’ Aggregated Top-100 list will take several industry lists (including the lists created by several participants in the Harvest!) and aggregate the rankings using equal weights for each list.

Each owner is ranked best to worst by Aggregated Top-100 points, and awarded 1-22 Harvest Points.