Baseball America released their updated top ten prospects list for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday afternoon. Their preseason top ten list can be found here and I’ve included the list below for comparison. Tyler Glasnow held the top spot in the midseason update and he was ranked as the #7 overall prospect in baseball by BA earlier this week. Josh Bell was ranked #45 among all prospects in baseball and he is ranked second on the new list. Jameson Taillon was among the injured players BA covered, but didn’t rank in their top 50. He came in fifth in their top ten.
Austin Meadows and Alen Hanson moved ahead of Taillon in the third and fourth spots, respectively. Rounding out the top ten, in order, were Cole Tucker at number six, followed by Reese McGuire, Elias Diaz, Nick Kingham, and JaCoby Jones. The last one is the most surprising on the list.
BA also listed Yeudy Garcia as a rising prospect. We profiled Garcia earlier in the year here, and he was our Pitcher of the Month in May. They listed Harold Ramirez as falling due to being held back in extended Spring Training for showing up in camp out of shape. Ramirez was held back for the extended Spring Training portion more for a skin infection, than the conditioning issues. His hitting has been fantastic since returning, and you could argue that he doesn’t belong on the falling list.
Drafted players weren’t eligible for this list, so Kevin Newman and Ke’Bryan Hayes didn’t get consideration. Here is the preseason top ten from BA, along with their projected 2018 Pittsburgh Pirates lineup at the bottom.
Preseason Top Ten
1. Tyler Glasnow
2. Jameson Taillon
3. Austin Meadows
4. Josh Bell
5. Reese McGuire
6. Nick Kingham
7. Alen Hanson
8. Cole Tucker
9. Mitch Keller
10. Harold Ramirez
Projected 2018 Pirates Lineup
C – Elias Diaz
1B – Josh Bell
2B – Alen Hanson
SS – Cole Tucker
3B – Josh Harrison
LF – Starling Marte
CF – Andrew McCutchen
RF – Gregory Polanco
1S – Gerrit Cole
2S – Tyler Glasnow
3S – Francisco Liriano
4S – Jameson Taillon
5S – Nick Kingham
CL – Mark Melancon
