I always look forward to Prospects1500 and their team’s rankings each year, because they go deeper than anyone else. Some places only rank our top 10; that’s not really that hard, especially when the first four are basically the same in every publication and there’s not a ton of argument mostly about the rest of our top 10 right now. Most major shops stop at 30 (then may throw in a few “honorable mentions” or “just misseds”), which is much more difficult. Prospects 1500 go 50 deep. So its great to see who they’re throwing into the 40s. Even if I disagree with them.
Here’s the 2024 Prospects 1500 list:
| Prospects1500 Rank | Last Name | First Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crews | Dylan | OF (CF) |
| 2 | Wood | James | OF (Corner) |
| 3 | House | Brady | SS/3B |
| 4 | Cavalli | Cade | RHP (Starter) |
| 5 | Morales | Yohandy | 3B |
| 6 | Lile | Daylen | OF (CF) |
| 7 | Vaquero | Cristian | OF (CF) |
| 8 | Green | Elijah | OF (CF) |
| 9 | Hassell III | Robert | OF (CF) |
| 10 | Susana | Jarlin | RHP (Starter) |
| 11 | Herz | DJ | LHP (Starter) |
| 12 | Bennett | Jake | LHP (Starter) |
| 13 | Sykora | Travis | RHP (Starter) |
| 14 | Nunez | Nasim | SS |
| 15 | Henry | Cole | RHP (Starter) |
| 16 | Pinckney | Andrew | OF (Corner) |
| 17 | Rutledge | Jackson | RHP (Starter) |
| 18 | Made | Kevin | SS |
| 19 | De La Rosa | Jeremy | OF (Corner) |
| 20 | Lipscomb | Trey | 3B |
| 21 | Young | Jacob | OF (CF) |
| 22 | White | T.J. | OF (Corner) |
| 23 | Lara | Andry | RHP (Starter) |
| 24 | Parker | Mitchell | LHP (Starter) |
| 25 | Cruz | Armando | SS |
| 26 | Quintana | Roismar | OF (CF) |
| 27 | Pineda | Israel | C |
| 28 | Baker | Darren | 2B |
| 29 | McKenzie | Jared | OF (CF) |
| 30 | Cronin | Matt | LHP (Reliever) |
| 31 | Luckham | Kyle | RHP (Starter) |
| 32 | Ferrer | Jose | LHP (Reliever) |
| 33 | Ramirez | Aldo | RHP (Starter) |
| 34 | Cox | Brenner | OF (CF) |
| 35 | Schoff | Tyler | RHP (Reliever) |
| 36 | Young | Luke | RHP (Starter) |
| 37 | Maricuto | Jermaine | 1B/C |
| 38 | Acevedo | Andy | OF |
| 39 | Infante | Samuel | SS |
| 40 | Nunez | Elijah | OF |
| 41 | Solano | Edwin | SS |
| 42 | Soto | Elian | OF/SS |
| 43 | Cuevas | Michael | RHP (Starter) |
| 44 | Brown | Marcus | SS/2B |
| 45 | Tavares | Carlos | OF |
| 46 | Aldonis | Pablo | LHP (Starter) |
| 47 | Batista | Carlos | OF |
| 48 | Obispo | Juan | OF |
| 49 | Sullivan | Liam | LHP (?) |
| 50 | Liriano | Hector | OF |
Now, here’s some commentary.
- Same 1-4 as everyone else, in the same order. Nothing crazy about having Morales at #5 either.
- Daylen Lile at #6. That’s too high. Yes, Lile’s numbers fell off when he got to the big stadium in Wilmington, but his profile already means he’s not going to hit for power. He’s 5’11”, 195, a lefty hitting outfielder who BA thinks is going to struggle to stay in CF. Uh, if he’s not in CF, where you can make up for a lack of offense with dazzling defensive skills, then he’s gotta mash to occupy a corner OF spot. He’s listed as a 50 runner and a 50 fielder, and he had 21 SBs in 66 low-A games (but curiously just 2 SBs in 40 High-A games). So, he’s an undersized lefty hitting CF who won’t be ahead of at least 6 other CFs in the system (Crews, Wood, Young, Green, Hassell, Vaquero). Why is he #6? I’m surprised he’s in the top 15. I hope i’m wrong and he turns into Jacoby Ellisbury.
- They’re low on Hassell, putting him at #9. See, this is problematic to me. Hassell was the #2 prospect entering our system when he got traded, broke his hamate bone after finishing 2022 in AA at the same age where Lile is now. He’s got better tools across the board, can play CF, but didn’t even debut in 2023 until May, so basically you have to caveat a big chunk of his 2023 season at the plate. Yet he’s 9th and Lile is 6th? Doesn’t make sense.
- Susana at #10, which is in line with other shops but high for me. What’s he done except his 103 on the radar gun? Can’t teach velocity, but so far the risk on this guy seems to outweigh the rewards, and the value of a 9th inning guy with massive walk rats and a 103 mph isn’t that high.
- Cole Henry at #15. Huge variation on this guy so far: Ghost had him at #30, BA at #23, MLBPIpeline at #18 last December, which seemingly took into account his awful post-TOS surgery 2023 performance. Still, having this guy at #15 laughably puts him ahead of Rutledge, who’s a) healthy, b) has done well in AAA, and c) has made his MLB debut. If Henry had had TJ, that’s one thing. TOS is another, and this is too high.
- Speaking of, Rutledge at #17 is too low. I’m just not sure why you’d ding a guy like Rutledge after what he did in 2023. If i told you we had a pitcher who missed a year of development and in his age 24 season put up a AA line of 6-1, 3.16 ERA, 1.10 whip with 62/25 k/bb in 68IP you’d be like, wow that’s awesome. Well, that’s what Rutledge did before doing 11 so-so starts in AAA and getting roughed up in the MLB. That’s better than #17 prospect, and there’s no way he should be behind any of the 5 arms immediately above him (Henry, Herz, Sykora, Bennett, or Susana). Remember; the entire point of being a prospect is … what? To get to the major leagues. Rutledge has.
- Kevin Made at #18. Way too high. We know he’s glove-first, defined by BA as a “double plus defender.” That’s great; he’s also go grade 40 hit and power tools. That’s … that’s not good, Bob. After we acquired him he slashed just .137/.232/.192. I guess someone has to bat 9th. But is his defense good enough to account? I don’t think so, not right now, and he shouldn’t be in the top 20. We no longer live in the 1970s when “good field no hit” short stops were accepted. Today, SSs have to hit.
- I’m way lower on De La Rosa than they are at #19, but it’s a little splitting hairs when you get to the 20-30 range. At least the Nats didn’t put him on the 40-man this off-season.
- Young at #21. I get it: prospect ranking is some potential, some actual. Young is entirely actual right now. As in, he ACTUALLY might be our starting CF in 2024. At age 24. So … why would you have him ranked below someone like Andrew Pinckney, who’s a year younger and who basically only got to High-A this year? Is Pinckney more likely to blow up and rise 3 levels like Young did this year? I think, like with Rutledge, you have to balance what they’ve accomplished versus what they could accomplish properly.
- Pineda comes in at #27 … and they don’t even rank Millas in the top 50. I wonder if that’s a cut and past error, and they actually mean to rank Millas #27 and not rank Pineda. Just after this list came out, Pineda got DFA’d, cleared waivers, and was outrighted to AAA. So he’s still around, likely going back to AA. Either way, I think (as explained in other posts) that Millas is the more polished, MLB-ready catcher right now even if Pineda is 3 years younger.
- Cronin at #30. Way too high. A reliever who’s already been outrighted off 40-man and who had a 5 ERA in 2023? He’s not even in my top 50. Relievers aren’t prospects unless they’re a-ma-zing.
- They list Ferrer at #32 despite his exhausting rookie eligibility by the end of 2023. I made the same mistake earlier this off-season until i did some schedule arithmetic.
So, now we’re in the 30-40 range, which really is a deep dive into the marginal prospects in our system. By and large, nearly everyone they have from 33-40 I also have in my list, but I gnerally have them 10 spots lower into the 40s. A couple of comments though:
- Aldo Ramirez: First time we’ve mentioned his name this off season. Talk about a mess of a career: missed 2020 with Covid, then missed the second half of 2021 with elbow tendinitis. Then he couldn’t answer the bell for 2022 so the sat in XST, and when it came time in June to get assigned to the complex league it turned out he had a blown UCL. TJ surgery, all of 2022 out, not even thinking about playing until mid 2023 … and he never made it onto the field. So out of the last FIVE seasons, he’s pitched for exactly 1.5 of them. When we acquired him (July 2021) he was back half of our top 10; this was a significant prospect. Now? who knows.
- Tyler Schoff. Ranked #35. I honestly had to look him up to see who the heck he was; he was a 8th/9th inning guy in AA who got promoted at the end of the season to AAA. Wow. #35. Maybe this is for Fantasy players looking to keep an eye on saves in the future. But then where’s Willingham? Willingham actually made it to the majors and had far better minor league numbers than Schoff despite being the same age. Make that make sense.
Now we’re into the 40-50 range, and i’ll just say this: instead of picking domestic players who have actually accomplished something, nearly their entire 40-50 is IFAs who have yet to get out of the DSL. Six of the ten guys ranked 40-50 were 2023 Jan 2nd signings last year, who mostly were awful for an awful 2023 DSL team. So, in that respect, I disagree with most of the guys in the 40-50 range and they’re just ranking them based on signing bonuses.
So, who are they missing?
- Millas, as noted above
- Willingham as noted above.
- They didn’t get either of our 2023 big-money signings Hurtado or Felix … I mean, if you have a guy who got $1.3M who hit .130 then you have to rank a guy who got $2.8M but who hasn’t played yet.
- They chose to rank a bunch of 17yr old DSL kids instead of domestic players in the high-A to AA range, guys like Frizzell, Saenz, Boissiere, or Shuman.
- They ranked Relievers Cronin, Ferrer, and Schoff … but not Brzycky, who destroyed minor league hitters in 2022 before getting TJ and missing 2023. Ok.
- No room in the entire top 50 for our minor league pitcher of the year Andrew Alvarez, but enough room for least three DSL kids who signed for like $5k in Marcuto, Tavarez, and Liriano.
- Not for nothing, Lucas Knowles may not be the sexiest pitcher out there, but the guy fared really well as a swingman in AA all year.
Phew. I’ll say it again, its tough ranking 50 players. I have my list and the churn in the 40-50 range is real.