MLB Pipeline released their list of the top 100 prospects in baseball on Thursday night. They have four Pittsburgh Pirates on their list, all of them among the top 60 prospects in the game.
Pipeline’s list is headed by Termarr Johnson in the #26 spot on the list. The 2022 first round pick was recently ranked by Pipeline as the best second base prospect in baseball. Johnson recently ranked 31st overall by Baseball Prospectus and 49th overall by Baseball America.
Endy Rodriguez ranks second on the list for the Pirates, but the final three are all bunched up. He ranked 55th overall, while Henry Davis came in at 57th, and right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester ranked 60th overall. Rodriguez and Davis were just ranked fifth/sixth among catchers by Pipeline. This is the first time making the top 100 this year for Priester. He was named as one of 15 players who just missed the top 100 by Baseball America.
Rodriguez ranked 23rd by Baseball America, as the top prospect in the system. Baseball Prospectus had him in the same spot as Pipeline, 55th overall.
Davis ranked 73rd by BA and 46th by Prospectus, so his ranking on Pipeline is in the middle of both lists.
Luis Ortiz made the BA list in the 74th spot, but hasn’t placed in the two since.
We post six different top 100 lists each year. Once all of those have been released, we will post a final article averaging out all of the rankings.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
Interesting pic of QP in the article. Surprised that his right hand & ball are next to his right hip so late – his stride foot is about to land. Not saying it’s wrong mechanics, just seems like alot of arm action needs to happen still. Also appears he has a knuckle curve grip & didn’t realize he threw one.
Regarding rankings, again, don’t think Termarr did anything to deserve the top spot. Annoying that evaluators seem to be downgrading QP due to his AFL performance, but don’t credit to Nick G for his good performance.
That grip looks like a change up.
Ah you’re right, i totally missed that, good eye
Nick G had a good AFL performance?
Comparison to some other top prospects at the AFL with similar # of ABs (MLB pipeline ranking):
Nick G (NR) .279/.351/.500 – .851 OPS
Jasson Dominguez (#47) – .159/.250/.217 – .467 OPS
Noevi Marte (#29) – .211/.321/.310 – .631 OPS
Jackson Merril (#19) – .261/.316/.352 – .669 OPS
Jose Acuna (#71) – .238/.322/.363 – .685 OPS
Masyn Winn (#50) – .294/.407/.353 – .760 OPS
Jordan Walker (#4) – .286/.367/.558 – .925 OPS
Now do the top 10 hitters.
It’s almost like statistical performance in a small sample showcase league does not factor heavily into prospect rankings, imagine that.
EDIT: leaving what I wrote but apologizing for sounding insufferably snarky, truly not my intent.
I actually agreed with your Termarr take, fwiw.
Oh no apology needed.
I’ve just been a big Nick G fan since day 1 & am getting pissy he hasn’t been in any top 100s.
Of the guys with a higher OPS than Nick, only 11 had more PA. Here’s the link if interested:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/leader.cgi?type=bat&id=3fc19d71
.279/.351/.500 – .851 OPS that’s pretty good for a 2nd baseman
20th in the league and 200 points worse than his 2021 performnace.
Why in the world this would positively affect anyone’s long term valuation is beyond me.
larger sample size & still above average production.
For comparison, for last year’s Fangraph’s positional power rankings for 2nd baseman (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-positional-power-rankings-second-base/), the top position of the Rays had Brandon Lowe’s projected slash line of .245/.333/.500
Obviously AFL stat lines don’t equal MLB stat lines, but I don’t think it’s far fetched to envision Nick putting up a close slash line in his prime.
Only four!?!?!?
There’s 30 teams, the media need views (clicks) from every city.
True. The Pirates supposedly have a strong system, but the prospect rankings do not always reflect that fact.
Will we EVER have any of our players in the Top twenty or Top 10? Can anyone remember who our last Top 10 prospect was?
Sigh.
Per Baseball America…
2013 – G. Cole # 7 overall. J. Taillon # 19 overall
2014 – G. Polanco # 10 overall
2015 – T. Glasnow # 16 overall
2016 – T. Glasnow # 14 overall
2017 – A. Meadows #6 overall
2018 – M. Keller #12 overall
2019 – M. Keller #26 overall
2020 – M. Keller # 52 overall
2021 – K. Hayes # 15 overall
2022 – O, Cruz # 14 overall
That’s a damn good run.
Whatever happened to those guys? 😂😂😂
Thx.
O’Neil Cruz, KeBryan Hayes, Mitch Keller was top 20, I think.
weird list – – – half of those guys are already in the major leagues
but then it says Endy is already in MLB so something is off