Gonzales: Are player, team rankings all they're cracked up to be?

A former editor once said you can always sell hope.

So with frigid temperatures relegating us to televisions and computers, it's intriguing to find out how good are these eight South Florida high school football recruits that were offered scholarships by Illinois, according to the Palm Beach Post.

With a 20-0 record, will Glenbard West's boys basketball team be ranked higher than 15th when MaxPreps releases its latest national rankings this week?

MLB's lockout threatens the start of major league spring training and the regular season. But have no fear. Former Cary-Grove High School standout Quinn Priester will have a chance to display whether he's better than his recent distinction as the 88th best prospect (according to Baseball America) in the minor leagues, which won't be affected by the lockout and is expected to start its season on time.

And once the weather starts to thaw, major league scouts will migrate to Oswego East High School to see whether 6-foot-9 left-hander Noah Schultz, is worthy of his 27th overall ranking (by BA) in the June amateur draft.

There's a fascination by rankings, which have swelled in notoriety over the last three decades. If our favorite teams have a subpar season, a strong recruiting class or star player who can address a specific need can pull some people away from the ledge.

The increasingly popular transfer portal has allowed successful programs to immediately fill spots and maintain the hype. But it also can put a dent in a program, as Northwestern took a hit when All-America safety Brandon Joseph elected to transfer to Notre Dame.

The interest in rankings has increased in part due to the coverage, which started from a cottage industry to a robust business. If you can't watch a prospect in person or on television, the recruiting services provide their evaluations and rankings - often for a price.

Some recruiting businesses have consolidated or gone out of business, but strong interest persists. And the advent of social media, such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, has provided an outlet for recruits to publicize their achievements and/or announce their college intentions.

Summer basketball camps allow college coaches to more accurately gauge prospects from across the nation against top talent, rather than rely on grainy video or a report from a high school coach or alum.

Longtime UCLA basketball fans giggled when Tom McMillen (who went to Maryland) was ranked as the top high school player in 1970, ahead of Hall of Fame center Bill Walton.

But a decade later, those laughs turned to frowns after center Stuart Gray never crystallized into an All-American or a first-round pick after outplaying Patrick Ewing, the first pick in the 1985 NBA draft, en route to earning most valuable player honors at the 1981 National Sports Festival.

Thanks to the popularity of travel ball tournaments, evaluators and scouts in basketball and baseball have more opportunities to watch prospects. The judgments have become so sudden that some high school baseball players are orally committing to colleges before their junior seasons.

Football provides a smorgasbord of summer evaluations, from kicking camps to Elite 11 quarterback camps to 7-on-7 tournaments to "The Opening" showcase camp sponsored by Nike.

A prospect's stock can rise merely with an impressive showing and subsequent offer by a major college power. And that can be a dangerous, since some suffer injuries, struggle academically or peak too soon.

A closer look at the Cubs and White Sox reveal how volatile ratings can be. The Cubs ranked first in BA's 2015 organizational rankings and won the World Series the following year, only to fall to 24th last August even after their flock of trades restocked a parched farm system.

Unpaid advisers have griped about the White Sox dipping to 30th in the latest rankings. But their top prospects that allowed them to be ranked as high as fourth in 2018 have graduated to the majors.

Barring a season-long lockout, the Sox will compete for an American League title and perhaps their first World Series appearance since 2005.

Meanwhile, Cubs fans can look forward to the expected summer arrival of outfielder Brennen Davis, the 16th overall top prospect.

Can Davis become the right-handed run-producing outfielder the Cubs have lacked since Alfonso Soriano? Fans will find out this summer.

@MDGonzales