Baseball America Top 100 ‘23: 5 Red Sox

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,731
Law doesn’t seem to project any of the Sox pitching prospects as long term starters.
If only the guys that Law projected to be SPs were allowed to be SPs, there would be about 20 SPs in MLB at any time. He said Luis Severino didn't project as a long term starter (everyone else disagreed), then he was a top 3 AL SP (behind Sale and Kluber) for a season and a half.

I have never been a huge Law fan but his recent work is embarrassing and ESPN really needs to replace/upgrade him.
 

thestardawg

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 30, 2005
862
Section 38, Row 13
If only the guys that Law projected to be SPs were allowed to be SPs, there would be about 20 SPs in MLB at any time. He said Luis Severino didn't project as a long term starter (everyone else disagreed), then he was a top 3 AL SP (behind Sale and Kluber) for a season and a half.

I have never been a huge Law fan but his recent work is embarrassing and ESPN really needs to replace/upgrade him.
You'll be glad to know Law hasn't written for ESPN for over two years now.

Your vendetta against Law is curious. I know many on the board discounted Law when he whiffed on his assessment of Pedroia, but that would be curious for a Yankee fan.

Law and all your prospect guys such as McDaniel will usually be pointing out the chances of a minor league SP moving to the pen due to a number of factors. Thats not exclusive to Law.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,731
You'll be glad to know Law hasn't written for ESPN for over two years now.

Your vendetta against Law is curious. I know many on the board discounted Law when he whiffed on his assessment of Pedroia, but that would be curious for a Yankee fan.

Law and all your prospect guys such as McDaniel will usually be pointing out the chances of a minor league SP moving to the pen due to a number of factors. Thats not exclusive to Law.
Yeah, I meant The Athletic, sorry.

My 'vendetta' is just that I pay for The Athletic and I think he is bad at his job, he has been doing it a long time, he was never anything special and now he has slipped from that. His pieces are consistently lazy, sloppy, poorly researched and ill-informed. The Athletic upgraded their Yankee coverage recently (it's much more frequent than before, two writers who both write more pieces than the previous writer did) and I hope they get a better prospect writer soon.
 

johnlos

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 22, 2014
248
Multiple outlets had Bello as a top-100 prospect on in-season updates. 37 on MLB, somewhere on Fangraphs , etc.
It's true that the Red Sox haven't had a "great" pitching prospect in a while. As far as I can tell the last two to be ranked top 100 by Baseball America were Jay Groome and Anderson Espinoza. Neither of who are in the organization anymore or have even made it to the big leagues.

The Red Sox have also literally just graduated at least a few guys who could make it as good to average starters (running the spectrum from Bello, Houck, Crawford) and others who profile to be good relievers, like Whitlock, even though none of them were top 100 prospects.
 
Last edited:

chawson

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
4,660
Michael Kopech should get a mention here. And whatever became of Casey Kelly, I wonder?
Heh, I mean, you can look him up but he had a few moments in the show. Nothing memorable.
It's kind of wild that Casey Kelly was as highly regarded a top prospect (#22 on MLB's 2011 list) as he was. He was young for his level, which accounts for a lot, but the numbers really don't stand out.

Here's Casey Kelly's AA line as a 20-year-old in 2010, the season before the trade:

21 GS, 95 IP, 18.9 K%, 8.2 BB%, 0.95 HR/9, 44.2 GB%, 5.31 ERA, 4.20 FIP

...and here's another current Sox prospect's line as a 20-year-old in AA in 2021:

13 GS, 86 IP, 24.0 K%, 4.2 BB%, 0.94 HR/9, 48.1 GB%, 2.40 ERA, 3.59 FIP

Anyone wanna guess who this is?

Victor Santos
(just kidding, he's not really considered a prospect — #60 in our system according to SoxProspects)
 

billy ashley

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
1,228
Washington DC
Wasn't Kelly both a pitching and a SS (or something in the field) prospect?
He was only a SS his first pro season. The organization allowed him to try in order to entice him to sign. He was a two sport star (He was also a QB if memory serves) and had a little leverage. The consensus when he was drafted was that he would not likely have been drafted on day one as a SS, that his future was on the mound. He really wanted to try and spoke of preferring playing every game (sort of like how Dalbec told folks he didn't want to pitch when he was drafted).

I think people forget how well regarded Kelly was as a prospect. He appeared in multiple top 100 lists, with Boston and continued to be well-regarded in San Deigo. Injuries stalled him out before he had a nice run in Asia.

He's also nearing his mid 30's, so I don't think this counts as recent history.
 

ArttyG12

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
100
If only the guys that Law projected to be SPs were allowed to be SPs, there would be about 20 SPs in MLB at any time. He said Luis Severino didn't project as a long term starter (everyone else disagreed), then he was a top 3 AL SP (behind Sale and Kluber) for a season and a half.

I have never been a huge Law fan but his recent work is embarrassing and ESPN really needs to replace/upgrade him.
He only pitched two full seasons and that was 4 years ago, right? This reads to me like Law got it right when no one else did.
 

simplicio

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 11, 2012
4,733
Law's issue with Severino wasn't a lack of stuff to be an effective starter, it's that his delivery is so violent that he projected to be a huge injury risk as one. He was on the money with that.
 

HangingW/ScottCooper

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 10, 2006
2,493
Scituate, MA
I can promise you Keith Law has never seen Yoshida in person. He has no idea what he will or will not be as a hitter.

His “relief risk” argument is always so strange to me. The ONLY reason Brandon Walter would be a reliever rather than starter is if he becomes a dominant reliever. I’m not sure why that’s supposed to be a negative.

He’s left handed, throws an unbelievable amount of strikes, and has offerings for both right and left handed hitters. I have no idea why he carries “reliever risk” outside of the fact he’s a funky lefty who could be an amazing reliever.

It’s just odd.
Watching Walter pitch last week, I got lefty Eovaldi vibes.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 23, 2001
10,230
FG released the “Imminent Big Leaguers” version of their write up of Boston’s system and I’d have to say that those are two of the worst names to see comparisons to in that Mayer blurb! (FTR, I don’t think the author is suggesting things will be as bad for Mayer as it was for those two.)

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/prospect-report-red-sox-2023-imminent-big-leaguers
Kind of some scary names in the Casas writeup too, especially since we know a couple of them so well!
 

johnlos

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 22, 2014
248
Still can't get over all these prospect guys rating Yoshida at the bottom of or outside the top 100 prospects in baseball. Longenhangen doesn't have Yoshida in his top-112 (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-top-100-prospects/), and as that imminent big leaguers piece^ indicates he does indeed slot Yoshida below Yorke and equivalent to Walter as a 45+.

After seeing how good Japan is on the national stage with an impressive lineup and a stable of hardthrowing pitchers--shouldn't the cleanup hitter for Japan's team that's considered a top-3 hitter there the past 5 years earn more respect? I get that he drops because he's 29 and his future value is already used up to some degree. But looking back at previous top-100 lists and only a handful of these guys end up producing any value! Yoshida has such a high floor I just don't understand. Anyway, as I said on another thread, will enjoy tweeting at these prospect heads for years (although the odds of twitter still existing might be lower than Yoshida playing well).
 

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285
If I was doing prospect rankings I'd probably bump him down significantly for lack of cost-controlled years which limits surplus value, which means that even if Yoshida is a better player than Yorke, Yorke could easily be a more valuable player, but I doubt they're factoring that in.
 

johnlos

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 22, 2014
248
Dying on the anti-Yoshida hill. Either these projections are wildly off or he's going to be receiving a tweet from a new burner of mine every few days when Yoshida's wRC+ is 130 in August.
DIRECTLY
INTO
MY
VEINS
643846438664387
 

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285
Anthony was the 2nd round comp pick last year (79 overall) that they received when ERod left as a free agent.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,305
Not sure what qualifiers Kiley uses to consider players prospects, but I assume Yoshida doesn't count anymore? If not I'd be stunned if he wouldn't be in everyone's top 50 at this point if he's still eligible.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,731
Not sure what qualifiers Kiley uses to consider players prospects, but I assume Yoshida doesn't count anymore? If not I'd be stunned if he wouldn't be in everyone's top 50 at this point if he's still eligible.
Too many ABs, he has graduated anywhere he was eligible, as has every player who has been on the MLB team all season so far.
 

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285
Bleacher Report is not a big fan of the Sox system, dropping them from 19 to 21 in their rankings which I believe came out today.

Here's who they say our top 10 is:

  1. Top 10 Prospects
    1. SS Marcelo Mayer (Tier 1)
    2. IF/OF Ceddanne Rafaela (Tier 1)
    3. OF Miguel Bleis (Tier 1)
    4. 2B Nick Yorke (Tier 2)
    5. SS Mikey Romero (Tier 3)
    6. OF Roman Anthony (Tier 3)
    7. LHP Shane Drohan (Tier 3)
    8. C Nathan Hickey (Tier 3)
    9. 1B/3B Blaze Jordan (Tier 3)
    10. LHP Dalton Rogers (Tier 3)
bleacherreport.com/articles/10076951-updated-mlb-farm-system-rankings-at-2023-seasons-quarter-mark



In terms of BR's individual rankings, this was from 5/8:

#17 Mayer
#67 Rafaela
#81 Bleis
HM (101-150) Yorke

bleacherreport.com/articles/10075220-updated-mlb-top-100-prospect-list-1-month-into-2023-season
 

SouthernBoSox

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 23, 2005
12,084
Bleacher Report is not a big fan of the Sox system, dropping them from 19 to 21 in their rankings which I believe came out today.

Here's who they say our top 10 is:

  1. Top 10 Prospects
    1. SS Marcelo Mayer (Tier 1)
    2. IF/OF Ceddanne Rafaela (Tier 1)
    3. OF Miguel Bleis (Tier 1)
    4. 2B Nick Yorke (Tier 2)
    5. SS Mikey Romero (Tier 3)
    6. OF Roman Anthony (Tier 3)
    7. LHP Shane Drohan (Tier 3)
    8. C Nathan Hickey (Tier 3)
    9. 1B/3B Blaze Jordan (Tier 3)
    10. LHP Dalton Rogers (Tier 3)
bleacherreport.com/articles/10076951-updated-mlb-farm-system-rankings-at-2023-seasons-quarter-mark



In terms of BR's individual rankings, this was from 5/8:

#17 Mayer
#67 Rafaela
#81 Bleis
HM (101-150) Yorke

bleacherreport.com/articles/10075220-updated-mlb-top-100-prospect-list-1-month-into-2023-season
The pitching within the system is a little scary right now. Drohan taking a leap helps, but the pen arms behind the Major League roster are pretty terrifying. It's why they are having to go out and make minor league moves for added arms.

Having a guy like Mayer really helps anchor your system, but it gets thin pretty quickly after that. Roman Anthony looks pretty special to this point which helps relieve some other disappointments but it ain't pretty.
  • Rafaela can't really control at bats
  • Yorke's defense is bad
  • Romero hasn't played this year
  • Hickey can't catch
  • Blaze struggles with fastballs
 

Petagine in a Bottle

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 13, 2021
11,922
Yeah, the system has little to nothing in the way of pitching prospects. I think it makes it really difficult to pull off trades of significance; and the struggles of the AAA guys are forcing them to hold on to Kluber and Pivetta.
 

grimshaw

Member
SoSH Member
May 16, 2007
4,220
Portland
Fangraphs goes in depth on the system.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/boston-red-sox-top-46-prospects-2023/

Some very encouraging stuff, though Longenhagen has been more bullish than most on the Sox the past few seasons.

-Has them as "comfortably in the top 10" and separating themselves from the Yanks and Jays' systems in the AL East
-Owned up to missing on Yoshida and would rate him as an FV 60 now.
-Very high on some lesser broadcast arms.
 

koufax32

He'll cry if he wants to...
SoSH Member
Dec 8, 2006
9,092
Duval
BAL with 8 on Pipeline’s list. Wow

If the system success continues for BOS, there could be a couple more getting added.
 

chrisfont9

Member
SoSH Member
System has had a pretty remarkable last month. So much progress for so many players, seems almost across the board.
So much of the Bloom chatter is about the major league roster and whether he should be held accountable for its pros and cons (OK, mostly people are complaining about the cons). But there's a pretty good chance that THIS^^^ is the actual thing he was tasked with and will be judged on. Personally I think there's close to no chance he gets fired this winter because the major league roster went through middle infielders like Spinal Tap drummers. Eventually he and others will be judged on whether the system led to playoff success, but that's a couple years off probably before you can make definitive judgments.
 

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285
Basically the lone exceptions are the injuries to Mata and Bleis.

Buy yes: many more upbeat signs than downers.
Romero injury, too. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun & at least he's back now.
 

Fishercat

Svelte and sexy!
SoSH Member
May 18, 2007
8,266
Manchester, N.H.
Fangraphs goes in depth on the system.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/boston-red-sox-top-46-prospects-2023/

Some very encouraging stuff, though Longenhagen has been more bullish than most on the Sox the past few seasons.

-Has them as "comfortably in the top 10" and separating themselves from the Yanks and Jays' systems in the AL East
-Owned up to missing on Yoshida and would rate him as an FV 60 now.
-Very high on some lesser broadcast arms.
At least offensively the depth appears to have really shored up quickly. Longenhagen is definitely lower on, for instance, Blaze Jordan than most, but his #29 prospect having an MLB caliber bat is really nice. Obviously we're not Baltimore but when you can dive into there and find potential big league help in the long term deep in this list, it's nice. Now the arms are still an issue/thing, to his point, but it's nice to see this back on the upswing as it'll make trades and depth so much easier to put together.
 

nvalvo

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
21,484
Rogers Park
Even the arms are understandable. Yes, as you point out, there’s a gap between the pre-arb guys on the big league club and the Wilkelman/Perales set in the low minors (with basically Drohan the lone guy in between), but that’s pretty okay when you have as many mid-20s pitchers on the 26 man as we do right now.

Also, I’m suddenly quite interested in Grant Gambrell, one of the prospects from the Benintendi trade who came over and was awful and then hurt. It turned out he had a bunch of benign tumors in his foot and heel, and having gotten those excised, can now actually repeat his delivery and is pitching pretty well in Portland as a low-k, high-gb starter, although he just got shelled last time out.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,376
With 30 MLB teams, you'd expect each team to average just over 3 guys in the top 100, if talent was spread out evenly.

Boston having #6 is great. Having #87 and #91 is good (good to have 3 since the average team should have that many), but not great in that they're down the list. But having a fourth guy at #92 is nice.

And of course they've graduated a lot of players to the majors, so they're no longer on the prospect list. If Bello was still a prospect, he would obviously be very high on this list. But other teams have graduated top prospects too.
 

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285
I think Brian Van Belle is the next closest guy after Drohan who may be a serviceable ~7th starter. There are a few guys in the Gambrell/Blalock bucket who may be that a bit later like Coffey & Rogers.

Hunter Dobbins could be an actual rotation guy in a couple years, too, before the Wikelman/Perales/Bastardo/Monegro cluster is ready.
 

JM3

often quoted
SoSH Member
Dec 14, 2019
14,285
With 30 MLB teams, you'd expect each team to average just over 3 guys in the top 100, if talent was spread out evenly.

Boston having #6 is great. Having #87 and #91 is good (good to have 3 since the average team should have that many), but not great in that they're down the list. But having a fourth guy at #92 is nice.

And of course they've graduated a lot of players to the majors, so they're no longer on the prospect list. If Bello was still a prospect, he would obviously be very high on this list. But other teams have graduated top prospects too.
The top 100 lists are kind of whatever. It's nice to get your people recognized, but what's really encouraging to me is all the guys we have who would be in the top 300 or even top 500 if such lists existed. It's that organizational depth that kind of reminds me of the BB more darts drafting strategy. We have a lot of guys who could be a real guy at this point which is great for future roster construction & trades.