Baseball’s 50 Top Prospects: 40-31
38. Jeff Hoffman, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Hoffman was a very possible #1 overall selection in the 2014 draft before Tommy John surgery ended his season with East Carolina. Toronto still selected him #9 overall, and he returned in the midst of last season to tremendous reviews before Toronto sent him to Colorado as part of the Troy Tulowitzki trade.
Hoffman has a monster fastball to match his big 6’5, 225 pound frame. He can dial it up to triple digits, though he sits more like 93-96 with very heavy sink action on his pitches, making them very difficult to lift, a pretty good quality to have in Coors field. He also has a power curve that has a similar effect of getting batters to pound it into the ground as they swing the top side of the ball.
He’s pitching in the PCL this year, so his numbers are a bit skewed by environment, but even then, he’s put up a 3.49 ERA and 1.28 WHIP with a 29/88 BB/K rate over 87 2/3 innings. He’s got a lot of dynasty league owners begging for the Rockies to bring him up as he seems to have the type of repertoire to succeed at that difficult home ball park.
37. Phil Bickford, RHP, San Francisco Giants
Not ranked by any of the major lists before the 2016 season, it’s as if people had forgotten that Bickford was the 10th overall selection out of high school and chose to go to school and was still selected 18th overall. In his defense, the Giants handled Bickford with kid gloves somewhat after his selection last summer, as he made 10 starts, but was only allowed to pitch 22 1/3 innings, in spite of a 2.01 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, and a 6/32 BB/K ratio in that short time.
Bickford went to A to start 2016, and he quickly showed that he was ready to move up, and he’s really not struggled at all in his two starts thus far at high-A. Combined on the season, he’s posted a 2.54 ERA with a 0.99 WHIP, and a 18/89 BB/K ratio over 71 innings.
Bickford works with a low 90s fastball that seems to be able to do all sorts of things with – cut, sink, rise, fade, etc. He also has a slider that has excellent depth and arm side fade.
I may be very high on Bickford compared to other places, but his pedigree plus his pure stuff gets me on board early here. He’s a guy that reminds me a lot of
in that Halladay really only ever had two pitches, but he was a master of using different grips and arm angles to make one pitch look like 10 by doing different things with it. I truly see Bickford becoming one of the absolute elite prospects in the game in a matter of a year.
Next: #36 & #35