With minor league Opening Day on Thursday, we look at the 25 MLB top prospects and where they will open the 2018 season
With minor league Opening Day Thursday, teams have been announcing the destinations for MLB top prospects within the last week. We will give a round up of where the top 25 prospects in our Call To The Pen top 150 prospects list will begin the 2018 season!
We will start with prospects #21-25 on that list, and work our way to the top, 5 prospects at a time!
25. Brent Honeywell, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays – Disabled List all of 2018
After a season where he was the talk of the Futures Game and finished with 172 strikeouts over 136 2/3 innings at AA/AAA, may were excited to see what Honeywell could do in 2018, presumably in the Rays rotation. However, he won’t get that opportunity, as he left a spring appearance gripping his arm and quickly was diagnosed with a torn UCL, meaning Tommy John surgery that will keep him out all of 2018 and likely into the 2019 season.
24. Franklin Barreto, SS, Oakland Athletics – AAA Nashville Sounds
Barreto made a lot of noise in spring and was up with the big league club until the very end of camp because he was playing so well. The issue is the Athletics already are loaded up the middle, and Barreto hasn’t really played enough time elsewhere to move to the outfield, a position he’s only played in the Venezuelan Winter League one season since signing with the A’s in 2012. He could end up getting some time there with Nashville to get his feet wet in the outfield, but if his bat pushes him, the A’s will find a spot.
23. MacKenzie Gore, LHP, San Diego Padres – low-A Fort Wayne TinCaps
Considered one of the best high school arms to come into the draft in many years, Gore was incredibly impressive in the Arizona Rookie League, throwing 21 1/3 innings with a 1.27 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, and a crazy 7/34 BB/K ratio. The Padres believe in him enough as one of the MLB top prospects in the game that they will send him to his first full-season assignment right out of the gate in the Midwest League, where he’ll get a chance to learn to pitch through the elements of the upper Midwest in the early season.
22. J.P. Crawford, SS, Philadelphia Phillies – MLB
Crawford finished the 2017 season in the major leagues, showing his glove was ready and finishing the minor league season on a hitting tear. The Phillies made room for him to move into a starting position at the major league level by trading away Freddy Galvis this offseason to San Diego. Crawford has looked very good this spring, showing some extra lift to his swing.
21. A.J. Puk, LHP, Oakland Athletics – Disabled List all of 2018
One of the most dynamic pitchers in all of the minor leagues, the game of baseball will be without Puk’s flowing locks on the mound for all of 2018 and into the 2019 season as Puk was diagnosed with a tear in his UCL at the end of spring training and had Tommy John surgery.
Next: #16-20