On Tuesday morning, Fangraphs released their top 200 prospects list. Just three Pirates made the top 100, led by Tyler Glasnow in 12th, with Austin Meadows ranking 30th and Jameson Taillon rated 66th overall. Two other players were just outside the top 100, with Josh Bell finishing 103rd and Nick Kingham ranked 111th. After 142nd place, the last 58 players are just listed in one big group based on their future value, which I’ll get to in a second. Both Alen Hanson and Reese McGuire finished in that group.
The list is broken down into groups/tiers and Kiley McDaniel says in the article that the group the player is in is more important than the rank. For example, the top future value ranking he has is a 70(based on the 20-80 scouting scale) and just two players made that tier. Glasnow is in the third tier, rated as a 60 future value. Austin Meadows falls in the next group(FV 55), which is a large group that also includes Taillon. Both Bell and Kingham fall into the FV 50 group and McGuire and Hanson are in the FV 45 tier.
This list isn’t as kind to the Pirates prospects as other recent lists. MLB.com has all seven of the Pirates players mentioned above in their top 100, while Baseball Prospectus has five Pirates in their top 100. Baseball America will release their top 100 prospects list on Thursday.