Three of the main scouting bureaus (MLBPipeline, Baseball America, Fangraphs) have plugged in d the haul from the Soto/Bell deal (and two of them have also added in our draft class), so lets take a quick peek at where our newly acquired players rank.
Note: C.J. Abrams has not technically exhausted his rookie status (he has 139PAs but only 125 official At Bats, which is what the guidelines are based on). As a result, he’s on some lists but not others.
Fangraphs adds our top 5 drafted players in 2022, plus 4 newly acquired prospects via trade.
- C.J. Abrams, our new #1 overall prospect, who was in the majors and will soon graduate off this list, but he reported to AAA to work on some stuff before likely returning in September when rosters expand.
- Robert Hassell III, our new #3 prospect per fangraphs (though other shops have him higher, see below). He’ll report to our High-A.
- James Woods, our new #4 prospect per Fangraphs; he should head to Fredericksburg to join the monster roster there (which now includes our 2018 1st rounder Denaburg, our 2019 1st Rounder Rutledge, our 2021 1st rounder in House, our 2020 2nd rounder Infante and our 2021 3rd rounder Boissiere. That’s a lot of top drafted talent.
- Elijah Green: new #8 prospect. Upon his drafting he slotted in at #5 initially, just behind the “big 3” and also just behind Cuban IFA monster Vaquero (who, I might add, is not exactly tearing up the DSL right now in his first pro season). However he’s now pushed down by the above 3 players.
- Jarlin Susana now slots in at #10, and should head to our FCL with an idea of moving to Low-A soon.
- Jake Bennett slots in at #12. Upon his drafting he slotted in at #8, in-between Rutledge (who still cannot get people out in Low-A) and Carrillo (who i’m beginning to worry about from a progression stand point).
- Trey Lipscomb slots in at #21, pushed down 4 spots from his initia #17 spot, right after Lile (who is out for the entirety of 2022), and right before fellow infielders Infante and Alu interestingly. Infante is showing some power this year in Low-A but otherwise hitting .220, while Alu has a .800 OPS in AAA as a 25-yr old but falls into the “utility infielder” category of prospects, with a high floor to make the majors but a limited ceiling.
- Brenner Cox slots in at #30, pushed down from #26 a few weeks ago, right behind former 1st rounder Denaburg but ahead of fellow OF prospect Quintana. Cox got paid like a 3rd rounder but was not really ranked by any of the pundits, which gives me some pause.
- Jared McKenzie slots in at #36 (initially #32), right after Quintana and just ahead of org guys/barely prospects like Fox and Baker. I suppose this is right; if McKenzie turns into anything other than an org guy as a 5th rounder it’ll be found gold.
So, per Fangraphs we’ve acquired our new #1, #3, #4, #8, and #10 system prospects.
How about per MLBpipeline.com? They lagged updating the prospect ranks for 2022 draftees for a bit, but did rank the trade acquisitions immediately. Here’s where our trade acquisitions now slot in:
- C.J. Abrams: Not ranked; perhaps MLBpipeline is assuming he’s exhausted his eligibility.
- Robert Hassell III: new #1 prospect
- James Woods: new #4 prospect
- Jarlin Susana: new #8 prospect
Odds are that when they add in our draftees, Green would slot in probably between #6 and #7, and Bennett would slot into the teens. Its doubtful they’d rate Lipscomb, Cox, or McKenzie for our top 30 right now.
How about BaseballAmerica? They posted updated rankings on 8/10/22. Per BA:
- C.J. Abrams: new #1 prospect
- Robert Hassell III: new #2 prospect
- James Woods: new #3 prospect
- Elijah Green: new #4 prospect
- Jarlin Susana: new #8 prospect
Unlike Fangraphs, BA chose not to rank any of the rest of our 2022 drafting class:
- Jake Bennett: this one is pretty amazing to me. Fangraphs had him top 10! And he’s not good enough for our top 30 per BA?
- Trey Lipscomb: BA has Infante ranked 20th right now. I’m pretty sure Infante just lost his starting 3B job in High-A to … Lipscomb. So, maybe Lipscomb should be ranked and Infante not.
- Brenner Cox: Probably not going to quibble about a prep kid just drafted not being ranked in the top 30.
- Jared McKenzie: Upper 30s for Fangraphs, which means he’s nowhere near the BA top 30 right now.
So, per BA we’ve acquired our new top 4 system prospects, plus the 8th in Susana.
Interestingly, BA also took the opportunity to shake up some of their ranks a bit from their last ranking on 7/13/22.
- They’ve bumped up Jeremey De la Rosa 5 spots
- They’ve dropped Andry Lara 6 spots
- They dropped Rutledge a grand total of 1 spot.
- … Which makes no sense: Lara and Rutledge have almost identical stats this year in Low-A; Eras of 5.48 and 5.54, WHIPs of 1.46 and 1.47. Lara has more Ks but also more Walks, while Rutledge has a much worse BAA of .290 to Lara’s .252. Lara is 19, while Rutledge is 23. So, the 23yr old gets dropped one spot for having WORSE numbers in Low-A than the 19yr old?? Really?
- They’ve bumped up Henry a couple spots
- They’ve dropped Carrillo a couple slots
- they’ve dropped $3.9M bonus baby Armando Cruz two spots.
- They’ve dropped Antuna a couple spots; he’s now ranked #14 in the system. Still. So we’re on the same page, Antuna is 22, in High-A, hitting .234 while repeating the level and is still somehow ranked 14th in the system. At least he’s not top 5 any more.
- they’ve got Donovan Casey 25th; whoops. He got DFA’d this week.