Now that the prospects have been officially ranked, we can take a look back and see how the landscape has changed since last year. To start, incredibly only two players were removed out of the 2017 rankings due to promotion, #3 Shane Bieber and #13 Eric Haase.
Three others were traded mid-season: Julian Merryweather (#11) to Toronto for Josh Donaldson, Conner Capel (#27) to St. Louis for Oscar Mercado and Willi Castro (#6) to Detroit for Leonys Martin. Looking back on it, it seems rather expensive to lose three top 30 prospects for what is ultimately a bench outfielder, especially when you consider that Jhon Torres (included in the Mercado deal) would likely have debuted in the top 100 this year. This, of course, does not include Francisco Mejia who graduated off the list after last season.
Two players who were considered in the top 50 last year were not considered so highly by the Indians front office as both Dorssys Paulino and Dylan Baker were released since the last ranking.
Everyone else who ranked in the top 50 last year qualified for this year’s top 100, but not everyone else made it. Eric Stamets (#9), Matt Esparza (#16), Gabriel Mejia (#17), Leandro Linares (#28), Gavin Collins (#30), Tanner Tully (#31), Logan Ice (#33), Brady Aiken (#34), Luke Wakamatsu (#39), Rob Kaminsky (#41), Jesse Berardi (#45), Cam Hill (#46) and Grant Hockin (#49) all fell out of the top 100. For some, like Berardi, Wakamatsu, Ice and Collins, this could just be a temporary set back and they could be right back on next year if they have a good 2019. For others, like Stamets and Linares, there is little likelihood that they will even be with the team for 2019.
Of course, Aiken is the player most want to know about. He didn’t play a single official inning for the Indians, spending the year working out in Goodyear as he attempted to regain the velocity lost after Tommy John surgery. This is the first time BurningRiverBaseball has produced a MiLB ranking without Aiken as he debuted at #3 in 2015, then fell to #6 in 2016 and #34 in 2017. While he is still young enough to make a comeback, at this point there are so many more worthy pitchers to look at that it is probably best to put him out of your mind and hope to be surprised in the future.
Continuing with those who saw extreme drops but stayed within the top 100, Aaron Civale fell 47 places as his K-rate dropped and HR rate increased. He still posted great numbers, but now appears to be another Josh Tomlin/Adam Plutko type rather than a future ace. Two left handed pitchers, Juan Hillman and Francisco Perez also fell more than 40 spots, although they didn’t have the kind of success that Civale had this year.
Tyler Krieger and Mark Mathias continue to be joined at the hip as they each fell 40+ spots this year, a movement that may have been delayed by a year as we waited to see if the results of 2017 were reality or an outlier. I still hold some optimism for Krieger, but no longer consider him to have MLB starter potential.
That’s enough negativity as it’s time to look at the positive side of the equation. First, the 2018 draft had an extremely strong showing in this year’s ranking after putting together an incredible year as a group. Lenny Torres, Ethan Hankins and Bo Naylor all made the top ten with Nick Sandlin and Adam Scott just behind. Richie Palacios sat at #14 followed by two 2017 international signings George Valera and Brayan Rocchio. Between the 2017 international signings and the 2018 draft class there were 29 players on the 2018 rankings. Of these, only Aaron Bracho and Valera had been previously ranked.
Also new to the list were two pitchers who had never pitched for the Indians due to injury, Raymond Burgos (#23) and Nick Gallagher (#69). Both have great stuff and great promise. The final outside addition was Oscar Mercado, who comes in at #29 after finishing off the season positively for the Clippers.
The biggest positive movers were Eli Morgan, who jumped from #77 to #4 and Luis Oviedo who was #65 last year and is now #13. In both cases the pitchers performed very well in 2017, but we didn’t want to rank them too highly due to a limited number of innings. With another season under their belts, it appears they may be legitimate stars in the making.
Another pitcher who flew up the rankings was Sam Hentges. Now ranked #7, Hentges was very impressive after missing most of 2017 with injury. That he was able to greatly improve his performance while playing at his highest level to date moves him into the short list of top Indians pitching prospects.
On the offensive side, Sam Haggerty, Connor Marabell and Oscar Gonzalez managed a similar feat as their consistency has pushed them from the outer fringes towards the middle of the pack. Tyler Freeman didn’t have as far to move as he came in at #15 last year, but he used an MVP caliber season to break into the top 10 for the first time.
Aside from Morgan, the top six remain familiar names. Since 2015, Triston McKenzie has ranked #7, #1 and #1 and he remains the Tribe’s top prospect. Following him, Nolan Jones ranked 20th after his first year and 4th last year before moving up to two this time around. Bobby Bradley has been ranked between 2 and 5 every year since 2015 and remains at #5 this year. Finally, Yu-Cheng Chang comes in at #6 after finishing #30, #8 and #5 in the previous three seasons.
If all goes well, this will be the final year of prospect status for many players including Chang and Bradley and next year’s list should look very different from the 2018 edition.
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