OnlyBucs

The April 30th update to the top 40 prospect poll:



Dovydas Neverauskas (#30 prospect), Max Moroff (#11), Edgar Santana (#22) and Kyle Crick (#17 prospect) have already lost their rookie status, and Colin Moran is really close (114 AB through Sunday). I was thinking over the off-season of running a poll when a prospect lost his eligibility but that really isn’t feasible, especially since we have 4 players to replace.



Since I ran the poll, I have made an executive decision to move everyone on the poll up and add some players that just missed the poll and/or were on last year’s poll. I thought of not moving up those who were hurt (Burdi, Jin-De Jhang) but moved them up anyway.  Still not going to go with guys like Bae and Sherton Apostel, who are obvious prospects who haven’t played a game in the US. 



The new top 40 and where they started this season:



1. Mitch Keller, 21, SP (Altoona)

2. Austin Meadows, 22, OF (Indy)

3. Shane Baz, 18, SP (Extended spring training, expected to join WV Power)

4. Cole Tucker, 21, SS (Altoona)

5. Colin Moran, 24, 3B (Bucs – 114 career at bats, 17 to go)

6. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 20, 3B (Altoona)

7. Kevin Newman, 24, SS (Indy)

8. Taylor Hearn, 23, SP (Altoona)

9. Bryan Reynolds, 22, OF (Altoona)

10. Jordan Luplow, 24, OF (Indy- 78 career AB)

11. Nick Kingham, 26, SP (Indy, 1 stellar MLB start)

12. Kevin Kramer, 24, 2B (Indy)

13. Luis Escobar, 21, SP (Bradenton)

14. Kevin "Lolo" Sanchez, 18, OF (West Virginia)

15. Will Craig, 23, 1B (Altoona)

16. Jason Martin, 22, OF (Altoona)

17. Oneil Cruz, 19, 3B (WV- position change to SS)

18. Clay Holmes, 24, SP, Indy (1 game with Bucs)

19. Mason Martin, 18, 1B (WV)

20. Cal Mitchell, 19, OF (WV)

21. Stephen Jennings, 19, SP (Extended ST, probably going to Morgantown)

22. Braeden Ogle, 20, SP (WV)

23. Connor Uselton, 19, OF (Extended ST, probably going to Morgantown)

24. Nick Burdi, 25, RR (60 day DL, expected to join Bucs when healthy)

25. Steven Alemais, 22, 2B (Altoona, position switch to 2B)

26. Max Kranick, 20, SP (Extended spring training, expected to join WV)

27. Adrian Valerio, SS (Bradenton)

28. Logan Hill, 24, OF (Altoona)

29. Chris Bostick, 24, IF (Indy- has 27 MLB AB)

30. Gage Hinsz, 21, SP (Extended spring training- expected to join WV Power)

31. Dario Agrazal, 22, SP (Altoona)

32. Rodolfo Castro, 18, 2B (WV- position change to 2B)

33. Eduardo Vera, 23, SP (Bradenton)

34. Bligh Madris, 22, OF (Bradenton)

35. Brandon Waddell, 23, SP (Altoona)

36. Jin-De Jhang, 24, C (Injured- expected to join Altoona)



And the additions:



37. Cody Bolton, 19, SP (Extended spring training, finished #41 in poll)

38. Hunter Owen, 24, 3B (Bradenton, finished #42)

39. J.T. Brubaker, 24, SP (Altoona, finished #43)

40. Travis MacGregor, 20, SP (West Virginia, on last year’s poll and off to a very good start)



Others who were on last year’s poll that are off to a good start: Wyatt Mathison, UT, Altoona; Pablo Reyes, IF, Altoona (promoted to Indy); Tyler Eppler, P, Indy



Others who are off to a good start: Eduard Vera, SP, Bradenton; Oddy Nunez, SP, Bradenton; Cam Vieaux, SP, Bradenton; Scooter Hightower, RP, Bradenton; Deon Stafford, C, WV Power



All opinions expressed are mine, sorry if I missed your favorite. I could add a litany of minor-league relievers also…

The Indianapolis Indians and the Altoona Curve are both 10-10 after twenty games.

My current top 10 prospect list. Not going to consider Moran or Kingham, both look like they will lose their prospect status this season.



Keller

Meadows

Baz

Tucker

Mitchell

Brubaker

MacGregor

Ogle

Jason Martin

Mason Martin

724F515C53595270584F5E58593D0 wrote: My current top 10 prospect list. Not going to consider Moran or Kingham, both look like they will lose their prospect status this season.



Keller

Meadows

Baz

Tucker

Mitchell

Brubaker

MacGregor

Ogle

Jason Martin

Mason Martin
instead of killer B's we could have a team of killer M's someday. Add a few of the players that have a last name starting with M to Marte, Moran and Musgrave.

Saw Stafford in Morgantown a couple times last season. Really good defensively and has shown some power and the ability to get on base. Still K's alot.



Stafford's MiLB Page

Didn't know where to put this but Will Craig is getting tired of people calling him a bust. His month-to-month OPS this season are .711 to .826 to .989. That means I'm assuming his July OPS will be somewhere over 1100.



http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?si ... 018/MINORS

He's having a great June.



O'Neil Cruz is really breaking out this month. He's got the 1.000 OPS, but more impressive is that he's only stuck out 13 times in his last 88 PA's.

714C525F505A51735B4C5D5B5A3E0 wrote: My current top 10 prospect list. Not going to consider Moran or Kingham, both look like they will lose their prospect status this season.



Keller

Meadows

Baz

Tucker

Mitchell

Brubaker

MacGregor

Ogle

Jason Martin

Mason Martin




New list: Going to take Meadows off as he's graduating as well.



Keller

Baz

Mitchell

Swaggerty

Tucker

J. Martin



Then there are a bunch of pitchers that I couldn't tell you how to rank. Ogle and MacGregor are off, can't stay on the field, you can't be a prospect. Brubaker hasn't really done that well after the promotion, Bolton looks really good, Kranick is doing ok too. Robles and Escobar are both interesting lower level guys.



For hitters, I like what Newman, Craig and Kramer have been doing lately, Luplow is also starting to heat up as well, and of course Cruz has to be considered somewhere in the top 10-15.

Wait a minute - Swaggerty hasn't played a pro game in the U.S. - how does he get on there? Does he even know the pros use wooden bats?

Here a few disconnected thoughts/observations about the state of the system.



I know that the Pirates aren't considered a top system anymore, but those ranking just aggregate the highest number of high ranking prospects to determine the top 10 systems. With former top prospects either fading or graduating, the Pirates are no longer a top system.



After an impressive group of young position prospects last year, the GCL again has another interesting collection of DSL graduates this year. I know I felt like the 2018 draft class was light on HS position players, so I wonder if the lack of roster space in the GCL had an impact on their draft decisions.



For the first time the Bristol roster has a large prospect group including pitchers (Baz, Jennings) and hitters (Apostel, M. Martin and Uselton).



The Pirates signed so many international guys that they have two DSL teams this year, too early to really tell much from those guys, but I can see Pie being notable already.



All in all, I expect a lot of prospect breakouts int he coming years.