Baseball’s 50 Top Prospects: 50-41
Who are the top prospects in all the land?
It’s that time of the summer. Minor League All-Star games are completed or soon to be completed, the Futures Game rosters have been announced, and the short-season leagues are all now playing, so all teams that will be playing this season have played at this point.
You’ll see a number of various publications come out with their top prospect lists over the next few months, and each of them bring a different perspective. I’m going to put forth a top 50 today in groups of 10 throughout the day.
A few things, I won’t be putting any players drafted in the 2016 draft in this list. There is simply too much yet to be known about those players to grade them against players with professional experience at this point.
I think you’ll enjoy the list, and I’d love to hear any comments about where you disagree or where a player could have been rated differently. Thanks for the read!
Next: #50 & #49
50. Aaron Judge, OF, New York Yankees
Judge is a guy who coming into the season had a wide array of opinions. Baseball America ranked him #76 in the game. MLB.com ranked him at #31. Baseball Prospectus ranked him at #18.
Judge was originally selected in the first round of 2013 by the Yankees, and he’s moved quickly through their system, showing power at every step, but he’s also showed a very high propensity for striking out and difficulty with high quality breaking pitches. This year I’ve seen some worries with Judge possibly out-growing the ability to last in the outfield in the major leagues.
Judge is 6’7 and is listed at 275 pounds, and that seems to be an accurate number. Previously he showed ability to move well at that size, but this year, he’s seemingly lost a step, and at 24 years old, it’s only going to get worse as he ages.
While that sounds rough, Judge does have incredible power and a swing that is fun to watch in batting practice. A recent surge has brought up his numbers to .266/.353/.490 with 16 home runs and 5 stolen bases for AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
49. Reynaldo Lopez, RHP, Washington Nationals
Lopez got a ton of attention coming into the 2015 season, ranking #49 with Baseball America and #72 with Baseball Prospectus. After an okay, but not great, season for high-A, he dropped to #92 for Baseball America and #75 for Baseball Prospectus.
Lopez was an under the radar signee that slipped through the 16 year old signing period, not signing until he was 18. As such, his arm still is raw and developing. This season, he’s taken a monster step forward with AA Harrisburg at age 22.
Lopez currently sports a 3.18 ERA and 1.23 WHIP with a 25/100 BB/K ratio in 76 1/3 innings. His career high in innings thus far is 99. He’ll likely only have about 30-40 more innings to throw before the team shuts him down to save his arm, so if you want to get a view, go soon!
Lopez carries a three pitch mix with a fastball, curve, and change. The change is still a work in progress, but he’s made a mechanical adjustment to gain movement on his 99-mph fastball that he can both cut and sink, and his curve has found a more sharp drop with the mechanical adjustment as well, making it play up to a possible plus pitch.
Next: #48 & #47
48. Nick Gordon, SS, Minnesota Twins
Gordon was the #5 overall selection in the 2014 draft, and as such, he’s been on the prospect radar from day 1, ranking as a top 100 prospect by the “big 3” (Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com) in pre-season – #53 at BA, #91 at MLB.com, #62 at BP.
This year has seen Gordon take another step forward at high-A Fort Myers. He’s flashed more power in his swing, though the discipline still hasn’t improved at the plate, walking only 14 times in 248 plate appearances, not a ratio that’s great for a guy who’s projected as a speedster up the middle type of player.
Like his brother, Dee Gordon, Nick has incredible speed, but unlike his brother, he also has some very good natural baseball instincts. Gordon will likely get a taste of AA this season at 20 years old, which is a very tremendous progression.
He’s listed at 6′ and 160 pounds, but I’d wager he’s more like 175-180 now with good fill to his athletic frame.
47. Amir Garrett, LHP, Cincinnati Reds
Garrett is an incredible story – a 22nd round selection from St. John’s University that’s worked his way into an elite prospect. Now, the draft position is somewhat misleading as he was an incredible basketball talent that many felt wouldn’t sign at all due to his basketball commitment, which is why he fell in the draft. The Reds allowed him to play basketball while playing baseball in the summer and have reaped the rewards. Coming into the season, he was ranked as the #73 prospect in baseball by Baseball America, #69 by MLB.com, and #77 by Baseball Prospectus.
At 6’5 and 210 pounds listed (maybe even a touch lighter than the 210, but that looks about right), Garrett uses his long legs and long legs to generate a ton of velocity, reach, and incredible sink and depth in his pitches.
He moved up slowly until 2014, when he gave up basketball completely, and this year, he’s worked his way all the way to AAA. Combined between AA and AAA, he’s got a 1.81 ERA, 1.03 WHIP (interestingly enough, exactly matched 1.026 WHIPs at AA and AAA), and a 36/87 BB/K ratio in 89 2/3 innings. He has not allowed a single home run the entire season.
Garrett works with a fastball that sits in the low-90s, but it runs up to 95-96, and it looks even faster due to his long limbs and long reach toward the plate before he releases the ball. He has a great slider that breaks hard toward a right-hander’s toes, and the big step forward this year has been in his change, which has added sink that breaks toward a lefty hitter’s toes.
Next: #46 & #45
46. Gary Sanchez, C, New York Yankees
While many fans have possibly developed some prospect fatigue on Sanchez since the Yankees signed him out of the Dominican Republic as a highly regarded player in 2009, he still remains one of the top prospects in the entire game due to legit skills. He’s been on the Baseball America top 100 offseason list for 5 years running now, sitting at #36 this past offseason. He was rated #59 by MLB.com, and Baseball Prospectus had him at #92 in the entire game.
The main difference among the various sites is the belief on whether Sanchez can stay behind the plate. He’s always had the bat to play as a catcher, but perhaps not enough bat to profile as a first baseman, so he really needs to keep the catching profile to have big time value as a prospect. His hitting has been solid this season, albeit not elite outside of the catching position, at a .277/.318/.481 clip with 8 home runs over 220 plate appearances.
Thus far, Sanchez has only had a handful of major league plate appearances, all at DH, but in the fall of 2015, he played in the Arizona Fall League, and scouts that were present throughout the league’s run raved about Sanchez’s play through the whole season. He had a rough Future Stars game behind the plate, and that could skew those who only saw that appearance, but his catching has improved quite a bit, so much so that he’s quite likely to stay at the position.
At a listed 6’2 and 230 pounds, Sanchez is not a tiny guy, but then again, he’ll be eventually taking over for
, who himself is 6’3 and 225 pounds, and recent “legend”
was 6’2 and 215 pounds, so the Yankees are used to this solid build behind the plate with a big stick. McCann is signed for two more seasons, but at age 32, he may begin to transition more to first base as soon as the second half of this season, allowing Sanchez to move in to his role behind the plate for the pinstripes.
45. Sean Newcomb, LHP, Atlanta Braves
Newcomb was the centerpiece of the Braves trade of fan favorite shortstop Andrelton Simmons, so he had quite a bit of pressure on his shoulders coming into the Braves organization, but those are some broad shoulders, and he’s really turned it on as he’s taken to the Braves instruction.
Newcomb is a prototypical cold weather pitcher who grew up in Massachusetts and went to college in Connecticut before being drafted 15th overall by the Angels. He’s got minimal mileage on his arm, but he also has a lot of raw arm yet, needing more refinement as a pitcher, in spite of being 23. Coming into the season, Newcomb was ranked the #24 prospect by Baseball America, #21 by MLB.com, and #32 by Baseball Prospectus.
Based on those rankings, one would assume that Newcomb may have slipped some this year, and a look at his full season statistics, you’d see that his ERA (3.78) and WHIP (1.36) aren’t all that impressive, especially for a pitcher’s park like AA Mississippi is well-known to be. However, a deeper look would change that opinion.
Newcomb is a big guy (6’5, 255 pounds), and he works with an easy delivery that generates 97 MPH on the top end of his fastball, but the Braves helped to dial him back to more like 90-93 consistently, using his natural movement and sink on the fastball to generate weak contact by hanging low in the zone, and dialing up the 97 when he needs to finish off a hitter. That’s allowed his curve, previously more of an average pitch, to really play up as well.
While I have to put Newcomb here based on his season-to-date performance, his performance since his last start of May has been just a different pitcher. He had one game in June where he got into trouble and tried to go back to his old ways, and he quickly found out why the Braves were working the way that they were with him. I could see him working his way up to the top 25 by the end of the season.
Next: #44 & #43
44. Jorge Mateo, SS, New York Yankees
Mateo was signed in January of 2012 for $250K, a rather under the radar signing 6 months after the July 2 period for his age group. From the get-go, Mateo’s speed has been his calling card, as he stole 49 bases in 64 games in his first full season with the Dominican Summer League, and then followed that up by stealing 82 bases last summer between low-A and high-A in the Yankees system at only 20 years old.
Mateo’s speed being his calling card, many wondered what else he would bring to the game. He struck out plenty for a guy who’s supposed to live heavily off of his contact skills, and his walk rate has gone down with each advancing season. This season, the line sits at .269/.328/.406 at high-A with 26 steals in 70 games.
Mateo’s biggest struggle all along has been the glove. The Yankees in mid-May began playing Mateo about 50% of his time at second base, and frankly, he’s INCREDIBLE at second. They’ve tried to slip him back to short just because he’s been so good at second, but he’s just not able to translate it to short.
If he can keep up the elite speed and play the elite defense at second base, that’s an extremely valuable player, and a guy that will keep people in the Bronx entertained for some time!
43. Willson Contreras, C, Chicago Cubs
At the end of the 2014 season, Contreras was a former 16 year-old signee by the Cubs, who 6 years after his signing hadn’t broken out of A-ball at age 22. He then spent the winter, as he usually did, playing winter ball in his native Venezuela. He states that something clicked and he crushed the ball, and he started seeing the ball better than he ever had before.
He came back, and his results on the field showed him certainly to be no liar. He was a guy who was in the range of a .660 OPS, and he came back with an .891 OPS at AA in 2015, with a line of .333/.413/.478. He hammered a ton of doubles (34 in less than 130 games).
I’ll admit that I was never a believer, seeing that his 2015 also carried a high BABIP and when I watched him, it seemed to bear out as every hit seemed to fall between two fielders, where it’d have been an out just a couple of feet any other direction. While Baseball America ranked him #67, MLB.com #50, and Baseball Prospectus #57 among all prospects in baseball, I was not alone in my skepticism.
Needless to say, I’ve been sold in 2016. Contreras has taken yet another step in 2016, adding more power to his increased contact rates. He’s also now catching much, much better. He’s always had a great arm and worked well in the run game, but his framing and pitch handling left a lot to be desired, but he’s taken leaps forward this year.
He’s been getting his feet wet in the majors, and he may not make it on the offseason lists as he very well may play out his rookie eligibility with the Cubs at the major league level.
Next: #42 & #41
42. Brett Phillips, OF, Milwaukee Brewers
The Astros drafted Phillips in the 6th round out of high school in Florida, and he was under the radar until a breakout 2014 season between low-A and high-A launched him onto the season where he combined for a .905 OPS, 17 home runs, and 23 stolen bases. The Brewers used Phillips in a deal to acquire Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers amidst a season where he was hitting for a .901 OPS with 16 home runs, 17 stolen bases, and 14 triples between high-A and AA.
Phillips has a tremendously powerful swing that belies his 6′, 185 pound frame. That’s shone through this year, as he’s pounded out 11 home runs in 64 games. Phillips has always been a center fielder along the way, and he’s got great range in center field.
Coming into the season, Phillips was #57 by Baseball America, #32 by MLB.com, and #61 by Baseball Prospectus. I think he’ll be a guy that we’ll be seeing leap forward in the offseason lists. He also has one thing going for him – he’s got arguably the best middle name in the minor leagues, Maverick.
41. Josh Bell, 1B, Pittsburgh Pirates
Bell was drafted in the 2nd round in 2011 by the Pirates, who gave him a big bonus to buy him away from college. Bell came from a very well-educated family, and he was rumored to have a great head on his shoulders at a young age.
Bell hit well in multiple stops, but it seemed that his natural build had added size and that size had grown him beyond the outfield and forced a move to first base. Bell is now 6’2 and 245 pounds, but he’s certainly not out of shape by any means. Many wondered whether his bat would be enough to carry him as a first base prospect, which requires a pretty impressive bat.
The switch-hitting Bell simply went out and exploded offensively in 2015, hitting .317/.393/.446 between AA and AAA with 40 extra base hits and 9 stolen bases, showing his still-present athleticism. Coming into 2016, Bell was rated the #38 prospect by Baseball America, #49 by MLB.com, and #49 by Baseball Prospectus.
This season, Bell has taken another step forward, hitting .323/.409/.526 with 11 home runs at AAA Indianapolis. He’s essentially just waiting on the Pirates to make the call to bring him to the major leagues.
Next: 2016 Draft Winners and Losers