MLB Top Prospects: Top 10 SS Prospects for 2018
After exploring both the team top 10 lists, overall top 150, and system rankings in our MLB Top Prospects series, we finish with a look at positional rankings. Today, we look at the top 10 shortstop prospects for 2018.
Our MLB Top Prospect series at Call to the Pen is spearheaded by Benjamin Chase. Today, he gives us the top ten shortstop prospects for 2018.
We will explore each position with a top 10 list, and then after we get to #1, don’t leave as we will also highlight one player who is “on the rise” and could factor into the positional rankings after the 2018 season if they hold their current trajectory.
Each of these MLB Top Prospect rankings have come through the hundreds of games each summer Ben watches as well as speaking with multiple people throughout the game and gauging their opinions as well on players he has not had a good look at. This is a personal opinion, and a ranking position higher or lower than industry standard does not indicate “liking” or “hating” a certain player more or less – by just showing up on this list, there is a degree of appreciation of the talent a player brings!
We will start each position list with an overall look at the position itself within the game and the strength of the position.
Position overview
Shortstop will always be a position deep with talent in minor league baseball as most best players on their little league team played shortstop. That often carries forward to high school and college as long at the guy has enough athleticism not to force him to leave the position, so often guys in the minors appear as shortstops in the minor leagues, but their major league future will be at a different position.
In general, I tend to give more weight to a guy who has shown enough defensively to indicate that he could end up a shortstop at least for a while at the big league level and/or has shown himself successful at the upper levels of the minor leagues. There are probably 20-30 guys who could make someone’s top 10 list in the shortstop crop this season, so there is a level of personal preference involved.
With the emphasis in the game on shifting and moving players around the infield some based on analytical data, no longer is there the same focus on finding and even developing the uber-ranged shortstop of the past. Andrelton Simmons is very feasibly one of the last of that type of shortstop, which has seen a lot more offense move into the position due to the more acceptable lower level of defense required around the league at the position now.
Let’s take a look at the shortstops….
Next: #9 and #10