Baseball America expanded their list of the top 30 prospects for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday morning. They previously released their top ten list back in December.
The top ten part of the list didn’t have any changes. It remained Endy Rodriguez, Termarr Johnson, Henry Davis, Luis Ortiz, Quinn Priester, Bubba Chandler, Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales, Mike Burrows and Thomas Harrington.
The 11-30 has a change from their prospect guide, which I just received in the mail yesterday. They have added recent international signing Jun-Seok Shim in the 18th spot, moving everyone else behind him down one spot. Tyler Samaniego dropped off of the list. He was originally in the 30th spot.
I won’t go over the entire list because it is for subscribers of their site, but I will point out some things of note.
The 11-15 group consists of Jared Jones, Ji-hwan Bae, Anthony Solometo, Kyle Nicolas and Jared Triolo.
Besides Johnson and Harrington, two other 2022 draft picks made the top 30. They have Hunter Barco 17th and Michael Kennedy 19th.
BA has 14 pitchers among the top 26 prospects. They have three catchers on the list, including Axiel Plaz in the 28th spot. They have no full-time outfielders on the top half of the list. Matt Gorski rates the highest in the 16th spot.
The top 30 were acquired via:
Draft -18 players
International – 7
Trade – 5
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.
Prospect season is essentially over with games starting this weekend
I’m interested to see Endy’s statcast data once he makes the majors
I think he’s one of the “victims” of the poor data processing
He bunts on a semi-regular basis and I don’t think many of the mom and pop analyses account for that
I’m guessing that his MLB exit velocity data (max and average) will look similar that that from Adley R and Wander Franco
I would switch Gonzales to 12th and replace him at 8th with Ji-Hwan Bae. Bae is 2 months younger, played 2B, SS, CF, OF, hit for average, OBP, and stole 30 of 38 at AAA in 2022. EBH of 23/6/8 and 53 RBI in 419 AB.
Gonzo is a 2B only with questionable range, and played 2022 at AA after missing about a half season to injury. EBH of 20/1/7 and 33 RBI. The 7 HR in 259 AB is a significant drop from the 18 HR in 320 AB at A+ in 2021.
Peguero is probably too high, but played all of 2022 at AA as a 22 year old with EBH of 22/5/10 and 58 RBI in 483 AB. 28/34 SB and a 935 fldg % in 94 G at SS. Hoping 2023 is a breakout year for him.
Draft Crews 1.1 and Will Gasparino #42 and Eric Bitonti #67 and your OF problem likely goes away. We have soooo many MIF prospects to suspects I’d be fine with 100% pitchers third round on.
Not directly related to the topic but here’s a good article on the potential top draft pick and prospect
I saw him pitch with Team USA this summer and was very impressed
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-new-lsu-part-2-paul-skenes-is-on-a-new-heading/
Skenes looked real good in his start. Also helps out he’s already working with a pitching coach that was with the Twins till mid-year, last season, who is data driven (as the article states)
Sad state of affairs when our highest ranked OFer is #16 . Now we know why we play infielders (not Angels) in the OF.
Crews or Clark in the 2023 draft should get you on the top 2.
I guess the hope is that one of the 1/2 dozen 45 FV outfielders that we have in the bigs and AAA will pan out, then Crews if we pick him, will rounded out the outfield after BRey is xtended.
So now when we see their list we can say “Where in the world is Tyler Samaniego?”
Sorry…..couldn’t resist….
WQED original
may the fleas of a 1000 camels infest your armpits for that ear worm
Can some one put up 16-30?
Weird list, like they just looked at stats or something.
Feels to me like they’re evals have converged with Longenhagen & Co in recent years, which makes the big differences fun to think about.
Nick G, 8th for BA and 23rd for FG.
Carlos Jimenez, unranked BA and 17th FG.
Yordany de los Santos, unranked BA and 12th FG.
Lots of variability for those three players
How would you rank them?
My gut says to side with FG on Gonzo and BA on the others, but my heart says BA for Gonzo and FG for the others.
Ha!
I like them all. The flaws of Gonzales and Jimenez are more obvious
And I do have a thing for people who break the scale (YDLS with an 83 on a 20 to 80 scale)
That’s like the dog website with photos and cuteness rankings like 13 out of 10, 12 out of 10
I really like their top ten, what makes it weird in your opinion (I’m not a subscriber!)
NMR hit on a couple. Peguero at 7 is too high. Gorski at 16 just got passed over in R5. Mlodzinski (22) and Bolton (23, also passed over in R5) are too high. So is Nolasco (27). Selby (26) is too low. How does one guy get skipped in R5 and another get added to the roster, yet the first guy is rated higher? The Pirates just aren’t that stupid. How does Shim come in at 18 and Yordany DLS not appear at all? It strikes me as a combination of looking at stats, at past top prospect lists, and at headlines, rather than really knowing the system.
I feel like you may not know what the R5 actually is.
The guy that does the BA Pirate list (Mark Chiarelli) doesn’t work at BA anymore. When he did work at BA he was the web-editor.
I listened to his intro on the BA pirates prospects podcast and was surprised.
I think they’re “consolidating” responsibilities.
Speaking of Rule 5, is Sabol ranked on the Giants’ list? Is Hernandez ranked on ours?
SF list isn’t on the site yet, except the top ten. I can check the book when I get home.
Hernandez is not.
So, Tim had no input?!
Don’t think so.
crazy