2021 BA Orioles Top 30 Prospects

[Frobby]

On 2/4/2021 at 11:39 AM, LTO's said:

Want to preface this by saying I recommend anyone who is interested in the Orioles farm system or minor league baseball in general check out a BA subscription. They have grades, scouting reports and video for most of these guys, and Jon Meoli, who I consider to be the best current Orioles writer, contributes to the site. The ranking is as follows:

1.  Adley Rutschman 1
2. Grayson Rodriguez 2
3. D.L. Hall 6
4. Heston Kjerstad 4
5. Ryan Mountcastle 3
6. Gunnar Henderson 5
7. Yusniel Diaz 12
8. Michael Baumann 7
9. Dean Kremer 9
10. Keegan Akin 10
11. Jordan Westburg 8
12. Kyle Bradish 22
13. Hunter Harvey
14. Bruce Zimmermann 25
15. Adam Hall 21
16. Jahmai Jones
17. Kevin Smith 24
18. Zac Lowther 11
19. Alex Wells 17
20. Hudson Haskin 14
21. Luis Gonzalez
22. Terrin Vavra 13
23. Ryan McKenna 27
24. Drew Rom 18
25. Kyle Stowers 24
26. Garrett Stallings
27. Anthony Servideo 26
28. Coby Mayo 15
29. Tyler Nevin 30
30. Darrell Hernaiz 19

OH rankings added.   I think Tony has tweaked his, but hasn’t published the revised version so I stuck with the original.  

[Tony-OH]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

OH rankings added.   I think Tony has tweaked his, but hasn’t published the revised version so I stuck with the original.  

With all the additions I'll update mine before the season starts.

[wildcard]

On 2/4/2021 at 6:48 PM, Jammer7 said:

Solid and defensible list, most of it anyway. Two players, beyond Bradish, caught my eye immediately.

Bruce Zimmermann at #14 is interestingly much higher than anywhere else. A little surprised to see him up there, but ok.

Hunter Harvey has just over a year (1.047) of MLB service time, according to Fangraphs/Rosterresource. How can he still be a Rookie? Baseball reference has his rookie status as exceeded, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=harvehu01&year=2019&t=p Only 15 MLB innings in 17 games. He has to have had more than 45 days on the active roster, no? And his rank of #13 is my one disagreement. He's not that guy anymore, not right now anyway.

 

Here is the criteria for being a rookie pitcher:

• 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues, or
• more than 45 days on a Major League active roster during the 25-man limit period (April-August), excluding time on the disabled list.

Harvey has spent a lot of time on the IL which does not count against his rookie status.   Even if all of Sept 2020 is counted because it was a special season he  has 44 days of rookie service.  

Under those rules he is still a rookie.

[Just Regular]

I don't know if we posted BA's list two years ago, but John Means was #28 on the OH list two years back before starting his magic carpet ride.   It'll be interesting to see if in the next two years better development practices give the team anything close to another breakout like that.   Now Means might be #28 in the American League.

I'm hoping more for polished bluer chips, but pitchers can come from anywhere.

[Jammer7]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

Here is the criteria for being a rookie pitcher:

• 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues, or
• more than 45 days on a Major League active roster during the 25-man limit period (April-August), excluding time on the disabled list.

Harvey has spent a lot of time on the IL which does not count against his rookie status.   Even if all of Sept 2020 is counted because it was a special season he  has 44 days of rookie service.  

Under those rules he is still a rookie.

I had forgotten that September does not count. Thanks for the research!

[Frobby]

On 2/6/2021 at 3:43 PM, wildcard said:

Here is the criteria for being a rookie pitcher:

• 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues, or
• more than 45 days on a Major League active roster during the 25-man limit period (April-August), excluding time on the disabled list.

Harvey has spent a lot of time on the IL which does not count against his rookie status.   Even if all of Sept 2020 is counted because it was a special season he  has 44 days of rookie service.  

Under those rules he is still a rookie.

I should note that Tony originally didn’t list Harvey because he mistakenly thought Harvey had lost rookie status.   When someone (I think it was me) pointed out that Harvey was still eligible, Tony decided not to amend the list, just because he was close enough to losing rookie status and because he’s already been on the list seven times.   So, his absence from Tony’s list doesn’t necessarily reflect that he wouldn’t belong based on Tony’s evaluation of his talent. 

[Jammer7]

18 hours ago, Frobby said:

I should note that Tony originally didn’t list Harvey because he mistakenly thought Harvey had lost rookie status.   When someone (I think it was me) pointed out that Harvey was still eligible, Tony decided not to amend the list, just because he was close enough to losing rookie status and because he’s already been on the list seven times.   So, his absence from Tony’s list doesn’t necessarily reflect that he wouldn’t belong based on Tony’s evaluation of his talent. 

Where would he be in your top 30? Would you not agree he takes a big hit on his inability to stay healthy? Drafted in 2013, Harvey is now 26 years of age, he has pitched 267 innings total, 15 of which in MLB.  About 112 of that in 2013-14. He had 82 innings pitched in 2019. He was injured again and totaled 8.2 innings in 2020.

In his eight professional seasons, he has been relatively healthy in three of them. One (2019) of the past six years, he has been healthy. He is a talent, sure, when he is healthy. But is he really a prospect, regardless of his technical status? He’s been protected for a few years and did not have any high leverage scenarios in 2020 because Hyde felt he wasn’t right. With all of the other prospect inventory available now, I just cannot put him in there. Not even if he was still a starter. I have never seen any pitcher maintain any prospect ranking of note with a health history like that. 

Don’t get me wrong, I will be pulling for Hunter to return healthy and be the guy we want him to be. 

 

[MurphDogg]

42 minutes ago, Jammer7 said:

Where would he be in your top 30? Would you not agree he takes a big hit on his inability to stay healthy? Drafted in 2013, Harvey is now 26 years of age, he has pitched 267 innings total, 15 of which in MLB.  About 112 of that in 2013-14. He had 82 innings pitched in 2019. He was injured again and totaled 8.2 innings in 2020.

In his eight professional seasons, he has been relatively healthy in three of them. One (2019) of the past six years, he has been healthy. He is a talent, sure, when he is healthy. But is he really a prospect, regardless of his technical status? He’s been protected for a few years and did not have any high leverage scenarios in 2020 because Hyde felt he wasn’t right. With all of the other prospect inventory available now, I just cannot put him in there. Not even if he was still a starter. I have never seen any pitcher maintain any prospect ranking of note with a health history like that. 

Don’t get me wrong, I will be pulling for Hunter to return healthy and be the guy we want him to be. 

I would still have Harvey somewhere in the 15-17 range. His floor is a low leverage one inning reliever, his ceiling is an elite closer. All of the advanced pitchers in that range and lower have a ceiling of 4th starters and a floor of AAAA churn. If one of Zimmermann, Wells, Lowther, Smith or Rom ends up throwing 500+ MLB innings, you would take that result, even if none of the others threw 50 MLB innings. The odds are against pitchers that sit below 93 MPH making it as Major League starters, even in the back of the rotation, and there isn't much room in an MLB bullpen for arms like that in one-inning roles.

If Harvey's elbow doesn't hold up, fine. But I wouldn't hesitate to place a bet that he has a higher career WAR going forward than any individual player you pick below him on BA's prospect list.

Big year for him this year.

[LookinUp]

BA not buying Elias' hype on Baumler and Mayo. I think they have a blind spot on those guys, tbh.

It feels like they just threw Haskin and Servideo in, I guess based on where they were drafted. 

[MurphDogg]

9 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

BA not buying Elias' hype on Baumler and Mayo. I think they have a blind spot on those guys, tbh.

It feels like they just threw Haskin and Servideo in, I guess based on where they were drafted. 

Industry standard to be cautious on ranking high school players drafted outside the first round. Doesn't mean they won't get there eventually, but they need to show it against gradable competition. Even moreso this year, with the lack of elite amateur baseball showcases before the draft.

[LookinUp]

15 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Industry standard to be cautious on ranking high school players drafted outside the first round. Doesn't mean they won't get there eventually, but they need to show it against gradable competition. Even moreso this year, with the lack of elite amateur baseball showcases before the draft.

That's not what they did here. It looks like, they just took the last 4 guys we took and placed them at intervals in the list in the order they were taken. No individualization at all.

[Just Regular]

We'll see if we end up one step ahead of the game, but one observation I saw that made me like the Mayo/Baumler move a little more was the forecast incredible richness of the 2023 draft as very few prep kids were able to get on to pro rosters in 2020.   

The speculation was much better than normal NCAA teams the next few years, culminating in that "almost double" 2023 draft.

Elias's move pre-empted that 3-year wait with two guys that were his favorites in the entire country's HS Class of 2020.

I guess if I go even further down this rabbit hole, that same could be an argument for buying your big FA's for 2022 not 2023 to keep as much as you can for that special draft.

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, Jammer7 said:

Where would he be in your top 30? Would you not agree he takes a big hit on his inability to stay healthy? Drafted in 2013, Harvey is now 26 years of age, he has pitched 267 innings total, 15 of which in MLB.  About 112 of that in 2013-14. He had 82 innings pitched in 2019. He was injured again and totaled 8.2 innings in 2020.

In his eight professional seasons, he has been relatively healthy in three of them. One (2019) of the past six years, he has been healthy. He is a talent, sure, when he is healthy. But is he really a prospect, regardless of his technical status? He’s been protected for a few years and did not have any high leverage scenarios in 2020 because Hyde felt he wasn’t right. With all of the other prospect inventory available now, I just cannot put him in there. Not even if he was still a starter. I have never seen any pitcher maintain any prospect ranking of note with a health history like that. 

Don’t get me wrong, I will be pulling for Hunter to return healthy and be the guy we want him to be. 

 

He’d be on my list, but pretty far down.    Somewhere in the 20’s.   

[Flash- bd]

Where would you guys put Jahmai Jones on the top 30? @Tony-OH and others?

[LTO's]

Update:

BA released their farm system rankings today. Good news is the Orioles are #7 which is noted as the highest ranking the O's have had in BA's 30 years of coverage. Bad news is Tampa is #1, Toronto is #3 and two other AL teams (Detroit and Seattle) round out the top 4. The difference between the Orioles and most of these teams above them is of course international signings. However, it's also noted that with our recent international signings and the teams above us trading prospects from surplus to improve the ML team, the O's should keep climbing the ranks. The O's strength right now is depth throughout the system as opposed to the top heavy systems of Seattle and Detroit. Given the circumstances, I would be shocked if the O's don't jump Atlanta and San Diego by mid/end of season landing themselves in the top 5.