John Sickels at Minor League Ball, has released his annual top 20 prospects list for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The full list, with his scouting reports can be found here. I’ll quickly go over some of the highlights from the list.
Sickels ranks Tyler Glasnow at the top, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone reading this site. Glasnow had an outstanding season and has been picking up accolades all off-season, plus he has been at the top of every Pirates prospect list published.
The interesting part starts right away and that is ranking Austin Meadows second. Sickels likes his on-base skill, matched up with his moderate power and ability to play center field. Meadows is a solid top prospect, probably would head the list for some teams around baseball, but he usually isn’t second for the Pirates.
Meadows is followed by Josh Bell, who was just named the top first base prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline.
That left Jameson Taillon in the fourth spot, though Sickels does point out his potential and says he doesn’t assume everyone comes back from Tommy John surgery and makes a full recovery. Taillon threw his first bullpen earlier this week and everything went well.
Sickels is high on JaCoby Jones, putting him in his top ten at #10. That high ranking is despite acknowledging that Jones has poor BB/SO rates, but he likes the tools.
This is the first list we have seen Jung Ho Kang on as well. Sickels has him #11, which is in line with where we ranked him as an unofficial addition to the prospect list.
His 14-17 are all players that aren’t locks for most top 20 lists, ranking Connor Joe, Wyatt Mathisen, Andrew Lambo and Barrett Barnes in order. He lists Joe as a catcher, which will give him more value at the position, but doesn’t knock him(or maybe he did) for turning 22 during last season and still not playing a pro game due to injury. Barnes is another with injury concerns, while Lambo has the numbers to be a prospect, but his age and two straight years of limited time and success in Pittsburgh have him rated a little lower by most.
You can see his 2014 list here.
