RHD's Latest Top 150 Roto Prospects ("Mid-Season" Edition)

[Pauly]

From what i've heard, the Marlins were "definitely" going hitter with the 10th pick but were shocked that Noble Meyer was there and pivoted. thus I was mildly surprised that he was way at the bottom of your list. Nothing against your amazing work, just an observation.

[rhd]

From what i've heard, the Marlins were "definitely" going hitter with the 10th pick but were shocked that Noble Meyer was there and pivoted. thus I was mildly surprised that he was way at the bottom of your list. Nothing against your amazing work, just an observation.

Thanx for the response, Pauly.

I see Noble Meyer as being similar to Dylan Lesko, who was the 1st prep pitcher taken last year, altho for all I know maybe he's better. HS pitchers are the riskiest type of draftee anyway. Just look at Lesko for an example. He got hurt and only recently has begun to pitch and he's struggled so far. I thought a guy like Meyer should be on the list somewhere but amateurs are hard to rank anyway. I dont want to put someone w that type of risk and uncertainty too high so I usually by default put them somewhere at the end of the list. If he performs well, he'll move up.

[Ken]

From what i've heard, the Marlins were "definitely" going hitter with the 10th pick but were shocked that Noble Meyer was there and pivoted. thus I was mildly surprised that he was way at the bottom of your list. Nothing against your amazing work, just an observation.

I'm surprised they pivoted. After the top 5 players I thought talent evaluators saw this draft pretty flat almost through the end of the 1st round. Meyer is a very good pick but I think any of the bats in that range would be very similar. Troy, Shaw, Teel, Gonzalez, Bradfield, Taylor all would have been good on the bat side.

[Ken]

Thanx for the response, Flyman. Congrats on the CWS championship.

In the initial post to this thread, I said that I dont recall a list that had so little premium talent. That's part of the reason, but maybe not the most important part. I listened to a BA podcast in April where they said that they'd rank Crews in their top 5 MLB prospects if eligible, and that was when Carroll, Henderson, Volpe and Francisco Alvarez were still eligible. They specifically said they'd rank him above Holliday. On their current list they have only De La Cruz ranked above Holliday so this would suggest that if they put Crews on their list now they might rank him even higher than I have him. And they said they'd rank Skenes along w the 3 best pitching prospects at the time, which were Eury Perez, Grayson and Painter. Perez has since graduated, GRayson really struggled in MLB and Painter is still hurt and doesnt really have a return timetable now. So they might rank SKenes as the no. 1 pitcher (as I have) once he is considered eligible. Some experts like Langford even more than Crews and on another recent BA podcast they said Max Clark might have the highest upside of any hitter since Josh Hamilton. And many experts like Jenkins even more than Clark. So it's not just me ranking these guys this high, it seems to be the industry. It will be interesting where they will be ranked once they're considered eligible.

Agree with how you ranked them, the top end of this draft was at an elite level that would have gone 1.01 most years and your list reflects that.

[Teenwolf]

Thanks for posting, rhd. A couple of guys not listed I would like thoughts on:

Where do you have Joenry Vargas? I know he is only in rookie ball, but I was surprised to see you rank Ethan Salas given your general discounting of catchers, and how young he is (although, I know how much buzz he has as an incredibly polished 17 year old). Still, given your feeling about catchers, which I generally share, I was surprised to see him on the list and not Vargas, who is having a much better offensive year so far and was highly touted in his own right, and most importantly, not a catcher .

Ryan Bliss is also having a great year. How close was he to making your top 150?

Joendry Vargas is hitting a lot, and the plate skills look very good. Its just so hard to evaluate guys based on short season league stats.

I own Vargas and I'm encouraged by his start. But just to give an idea of short season instability, I also picked up a teammate of Vargas, Eduardo Quintero (catcher with 60 speed, likely to shift positions).

Quintero is somehow out-hitting Vargas (Quintero is at 16.1% K, 16.1% BB, 214 wRC+, to Vargas 14% K, 19.6% BB, 167 wRC+). Quintero hitting for more power with a lot more fly balls.

All this to say, Vargas looks good, but I don't invest too heavily in 17 year olds. Full season ball is when stats start to matter more.

Dyan Jorge (SS COL) is another example. 20 years old in short season makes him a non prospect to me, yet he's receiving some amount of hype. People have a hard time contextualizing.

[rhd]

Joendry Vargas is hitting a lot, and the plate skills look very good. Its just so hard to evaluate guys based on short season league stats.

I own Vargas and I'm encouraged by his start. But just to give an idea of short season instability, I also picked up a teammate of Vargas, Eduardo Quintero (catcher with 60 speed, likely to shift positions).

Quintero is somehow out-hitting Vargas (Quintero is at 16.1% K, 16.1% BB, 214 wRC+, to Vargas 14% K, 19.6% BB, 167 wRC+). Quintero hitting for more power with a lot more fly balls.

All this to say, Vargas looks good, but I don't invest too heavily in 17 year olds. Full season ball is when stats start to matter more.

Dyan Jorge (SS COL) is another example. 20 years old in short season makes him a non prospect to me, yet he's receiving some amount of hype. People have a hard time contextualizing.

Good points. But Dyan Jorge is in Low-A now. There could be a lot of reasons why Latin youngsters are late getting to the US and thus late getting past Rookie ball and in Jorge's case he defected from Cuba and signed a couple years later than other Latin players that he could have been in the same signing class with. Anyway, in a very small sample size he's hitting solidly so far in Low-A. BA already has him at no. 12 on their midseason Rockies list and their scouting report says he has very good plate discipline, plus speed and gap power that could improve w change in hitting approach. Sounds intriguing enough to me that he's one of the next guys that will make it on my list.

[Sour Masher]

Sebastian Walcott has gotten a lot of buzz. He too is just in rookie ball, but he seems to stand out in terms of buzz for some reason. I'd bet he is on most top 100 lists by season's end, although he seems risky to me.

Also, anyone else shocked by RP ranking Roman Anthony 9th among all prospects?! Seems like quite the statement by them. RHD, I agree with your ranking of him. I really don't know what BP is seeing to make him a top 10 guy, although if he keeps raking in high A, I could see him cracking some other top 50 lists.

[rhd]

Sebastian Walcott has gotten a lot of buzz. He too is just in rookie ball, but he seems to stand out in terms of buzz for some reason. I'd bet he is on most top 100 lists by season's end, although he seems risky to me.

Also, anyone else shocked by RP ranking Roman Anthony 9th among all prospects?! Seems like quite the statement by them. RHD, I agree with your ranking of him. I really don't know what BP is seeing to make him a top 10 guy, although if he keeps raking in high A, I could see him cracking some other top 50 lists.

Yep, Walcott should be one of the next few guys I put on my list.

Yeah, that seems really aggressive on Anthony. Unfortunately, I dont subscribe to BP so I cant see their updated rankings.

[onejayhawk]

Now that we know the systems that they will be in, how close to the bigs are the three top college players--Skenes, Crews, and Langford?

[rhd]

Now that we know the systems that they will be in, how close to the bigs are the three top college players--Skenes, Crews, and Langford?

All 3 probably pretty close. MLB.com did an article today on which draftees are the most "fast-tracked" to MLB, and they listed the 1st 7 picks along w pick #11 (Nolan Schanuel) and a 3rd-rounder (Seth Keener).

[onejayhawk]

All 3 probably pretty close. MLB.com did an article today on which draftees are the most "fast-tracked" to MLB, and they listed the 1st 7 picks along w pick #11 (Nolan Schanuel) and a 3rd-rounder (Seth Keener).

That makes sense. The two prep picks in the top 7 are OF who can hit and Schanuel can hit very well. keener surprises me. Do they expect him to fast-track as a RP?

The Rangers had the 4th pick (Langford) and nothing until round #4, where they started a run of drafting five straight pitchers. In all, they drafted P -13, OF - 3, C - 1.

[rhd]

Thanx for the response, Flyman. Congrats on the CWS championship.

In the initial post to this thread, I said that I dont recall a list that had so little premium talent. That's part of the reason, but maybe not the most important part. I listened to a BA podcast in April where they said that they'd rank Crews in their top 5 MLB prospects if eligible, and that was when Carroll, Henderson, Volpe and Francisco Alvarez were still eligible. They specifically said they'd rank him above Holliday. On their current list they have only De La Cruz ranked above Holliday so this would suggest that if they put Crews on their list now they might rank him even higher than I have him. And they said they'd rank Skenes along w the 3 best pitching prospects at the time, which were Eury Perez, Grayson and Painter. Perez has since graduated, GRayson really struggled in MLB and Painter is still hurt and doesnt really have a return timetable now. So they might rank SKenes as the no. 1 pitcher (as I have) once he is considered eligible. Some experts like Langford even more than Crews and on another recent BA podcast they said Max Clark might have the highest upside of any hitter since Josh Hamilton. And many experts like Jenkins even more than Clark. So it's not just me ranking these guys this high, it seems to be the industry. It will be interesting where they will be ranked once they're considered eligible.

And here we go. Today, BA updated their list to include the new draftees. Crews is (#4), Skenes (#6), Langford (#11), W Jenkins (#19), M Clark (#22), C Dollander (#53), N Meyer (#54), R Lowder (#73), J Wilson (#85), T Troy (#89), M Shaw (#95). And Skenes is the highest-ranked pitcher (next is Gavin Williams at (#9). So 11 draftees got on immediately, which seems a little low for such a stacked draft class. I was somewhat surprised to see Troy and Shaw get on, but thrilled for Shaw who is a Terp that I saw play for 3 years. But no Kyle Teel or Jacob Gonzalez who they had ranked above Troy and Shaw on their pre-draft list. All 11 of these draftees already were on my Top 150 list, altho I've taken Dollander off now since he was drafted by the Rockies.

[rhd]

Sebastian Walcott has gotten a lot of buzz. He too is just in rookie ball, but he seems to stand out in terms of buzz for some reason. I'd bet he is on most top 100 lists by season's end, although he seems risky to me.

On a MLB.com podcast yesterday, they said that if Walcott was available in this year's draft, he'd be a candidate for inclusion in the top tier of players and might even be in conversation for (#1 overall. He's vaulted onto my list now at (#62. And he already is on the major lists that have done a midseason update. He's just 17 y/o.

[DJRadar]

I've seen Sebastian Walcott, TEX SS, on some mid-season list. What do you know about him? ETA? With Acuna, Seager, and Semien, is his path to PT blocked?

[rhd]

I've seen Sebastian Walcott, TEX SS, on some mid-season list. What do you know about him? ETA? With Acuna, Seager, and Semien, is his path to PT blocked?

Well, my post right above yours is about him. BA's report on him says he has above avg. power and speed and has good bat speed and generates plus exit velocities already. Way too early to worry about his being blocked. If he's as good as experts are expecting now, he'll play somewhere and BA says his power and arm would fit well at 3B or an OF corner.