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Thread: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

  1. #1
    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    BA came out with their list today. Three Reds were in the top 36-- Jose Barrero (33), Hunter Greene (35), and Nick Lodolo (36). Elly De La Cruz also made the list, at #77.

    Good showing for the Red pipeline, which BA vilified last off-season. (Their discussions on obvious-bust Jonathan India and suspect-at-best Tyler Stephenson have turned out to be regrettable, in retrospect.)

    Some points:

    1. It's great to see the baseball cognisetti get excited about Elly De La Cruz's toolset. Number 77 is super high for a kid with major K and patience issues. Those tools must be LOUD.

    2. After two years of development and performance, the Reds' minor league system is getting some (minor) love. Greene's still too low, IMO. Especially when looking at the pitchers above him. There's not one of them with his fastball or his upside.

    3. Lodolo being ranked that high indicates that his late-season injury doesn't worry the Reds (else they'd have likely said something to temper expectations) or other teams' scouts. That's great to know.

    BP releases their list tomorrow, fwiw, with fangraphs releasing one in a couple of weeks.

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    Posting in Dynarama M2's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Tight grouping there by the Reds with their top 3.
    I'm not a system player. I am a system.

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    I wear Elly colored glass WrongVerb's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by M2 View Post
    Tight grouping there by the Reds with their top 3.
    They were writing up the list, and were like "oh, yeah, the Reds."
    Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)

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    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Baseball Prospectus did indeed come out with their list of 101 top prospects today. They chose not to count Barrero as a prospect (which is weird). Their list mirrors BA's pretty closely, with the exception of an additional Red in the lower part of the list:

    32. Hunter Greene
    42. Nick Lodolo
    70. Elly De La Cruz
    77. Matt McLain

    Some Notes:

    - Six pitchers are projected to be better than Hunter Greene. That's both high praise-- and not high enough. Again, there's not one of them that has the stuff Greene does. All he needs are innings.

    - Nick Lodolo is the highest-rated southpaw starter on the list. That's really good.

    - Both BA and BP have De La Cruz as a top tier prospect. Perhaps Reds' fans should start treating him as such.

    - BP is high on McLain. Right now, Mayo at MLB has McLain as the third-best Red prospect, with De La Cruz (gulp) 8th.

    - No one seems to believe in Graham Ashcraft, and I can't see why. Mid-90s fastball with tons of movement, relatively low BB's, high K rate, low H/9, and exceptional ground ball rate. What's not to love (aside from pedigree)? I'm guessing fangraphs will like him more then others. We'll see in a week or two.

    - In looking at the Reds' top prospects, I could make a case for up to 8 guys for inclusion in the top 100 or so prospects. It's a really deep system with lots of intriguing production (Ashcraft, Lodolo, Greene, Allen), some super loud tools (De La Cruz, Hinds, Hendrick, Greene), and some pedigree (McLain, Hendrick, Hinds, Lodolo). There's a little to like for everyone.

    - Guys most likely to appear on the next top 100 list in the middle of the season include: Jay Allen, Daniel Vellojin, Ashcraft, Hendrick, Calihan, and Hinds. Lots of those guys might really blow up, if only because they're going to play in a stacked lineup in a league that's far more condusive to offensive numbers. Hinds, De La Cruz, and Hendrick could each put up 30+ HR this season in Dayton. (Assuming they play in Dayton.)
    Last edited by Bourgeois Zee; 01-20-2022 at 01:19 PM.

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    15 game winner Danny Serafini's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Bourgeois Zee View Post
    - No one seems to believe in Graham Ashcraft, and I can't see why. Mid-90s fastball with tons of movement, relatively low BB's, high K rate, low H/9, and exceptional ground ball rate. What's not to love (aside from pedigree)? I'm guessing fangraphs will like him more then others. We'll see in a week or two.
    It might not be the worst thing to pump the brakes a little on Ashcraft. That scoreless steak was loads of fun, but afterward he spit up a 4.70 ERA over his final eight starts. Maybe hitters have adjusted to him and he'll have to adjust back. Obviously there's plenty of potential, but I feel like he might be getting a bit overhyped.

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    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Danny Serafini View Post
    It might not be the worst thing to pump the brakes a little on Ashcraft. That scoreless steak was loads of fun, but afterward he spit up a 4.70 ERA over his final eight starts. Maybe hitters have adjusted to him and he'll have to adjust back. Obviously there's plenty of potential, but I feel like he might be getting a bit overhyped.
    Nearly every pitcher has a relatively poor stretch within a season. Too, the way this season was scheduled, Ashcraft faced the same teams multiple times in a row. Were it a case of others adjusting to his stuff, it have likely had showed up in the second of the two starts against the same teams. But earlier in the season, he was dominant in both the first and second games against opposing hitters. I suspect he was tired late, and his stuff just didn't bite as hard. Perhaps he lost a couple mph on his fastball or his RPMs (which are elite) dropped a bit. As a result, he lost the location a bit. Too, it's entirely possible the Reds had him work on specific stuff in the second half of the season in AA, knowing he could essentially overpower young hitters with just his fastball and his slider. (I'm guessing they pushed him to develop a more consistent changeup and a cutter, as both of those pitches can be tunnelled rather easily with the fastball and slider he already throws.)

    In short, the full season, stuff, and peripherals he enjoyed isn't shown at all in the nearly complete lack of hype on the national scene. (Your insistence that he's somehow overhyped would mean he's been hyped at all.)

    If he's struggling to throw strikes early this season or is getting bombed, we'll know his 2021 was a 3/4 season mirage. I suspect it won't be. His stuff is good enough, IMO, that he could be a back-of-the-pen reliever right now for the Reds. The question is whether he can be more than that.

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    15 game winner Danny Serafini's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Bourgeois Zee View Post
    (Your insistence that he's somehow overhyped would mean he's been hyped at all.)
    When I said overhyped, I really meant on RedsZone, not nationally. There's plenty of talk on here where people are almost expecting him to be in Cincinnati next year, as if that's a given. I think people got so excited about him July that his end of the season gets overlooked. It's not a 1/4 season issue either. He made 22 starts this year. He had a 5.74 ERA after the first four and a 4.70 ERA over the last eight. That's over half a season of blah pitching. Now those nine games in the middle are certainly worth drooling over (I don't even care about the one game in there where he got blown up because it was an oddball circumstance), so there's certainly some tools to work with, and I'm looking forward to seeing him develop. But to me the idea he could fill a Major League role right now is too much. He's not ready for that, and likely won't be at all this year. He's very interesting, I just think expectations need to be tempered a bit.

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    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Danny Serafini View Post
    But to me the idea he could fill a Major League role right now is too much. He's not ready for that, and likely won't be at all this year.
    He threw up to 100 with elite spin on his slider in short spurts as a college relief arm. He has learned better control since then. He (now) has elite peripherals in terms of ground balls.

    That will play at the back end of a bullpen right now.

    The reason the Reds won't do it is because he might develop into a MOR SP if he can find a bit more control and consistency on his change-up. And a MOR/ TOR SP has (much) more value than a back-end relief guy.

    In short, right now, he's Lucas Sims. He has a chance to be a better version of Tyler Mahle.

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    Member chicoruiz's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Tangential question: Is Baseball Prospectus as highly regarded among knowledgeable baseball fans as it was a few years ago? They seem to have had a large amount of turnover as their top guys find other gigs (often in MLB I think)…
    "In baseball, you don't know nothin'"...Yogi Berra

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    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by chicoruiz View Post
    Tangential question: Is Baseball Prospectus as highly regarded among knowledgeable baseball fans as it was a few years ago? They seem to have had a large amount of turnover as their top guys find other gigs (often in MLB I think)…
    I think fangraphs is typically the highest level, with BP there as well. (They're kind of joined at the hip, honestly.) BA is, IMO, quite a bit behind the other two.

    The real question is whether MLB and The Athletic have overtaken BA as primary sources for prospecting. I'd argue they have, but would listen to others if they disagree.

    IMO:

    1. Fangraphs
    2. Baseball Prospectus
    3. The Athletic
    4. MLB
    5. Baseball America

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    Member Mitri's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    I am 100% fine with Ashcraft flying under the radar and underhyped nationally. He still has a lot to prove and I hope he does it in AAA and in Cincinnati this season.

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    15 game winner Danny Serafini's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Bourgeois Zee View Post
    In short, right now, he's Lucas Sims.
    Nope, can't get on board with that. If you dropped Lucas Sims into Chattanooga today, would he spend half the year with a 4.70 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP? Of course not, he puts up better numbers against Major League hitters. Yes, Ashcraft's stuff would play up some if he was going in 1 inning stints, but it's also clear he still needs some refinement. That's OK, he's only got 72 innings at AA, there's plenty of time for development. But to get sort of get back to your original question about him and rankings, that's why he's not showing up on these top 100 lists. He needs to prove that he's more of the June/July Ashcraft than the August/September one, because the latter version just wasn't that good.

    He has a chance to be a better version of Tyler Mahle.
    This I do agree with you on, because I think he likely is more of that June/July pitcher than the August/September one. He'll get the chance to prove it, probably at Louisville to start the year, and if he performs the way we think he will I'd bet he winds up in that 50-60 range in next year's lists and starts to make a real impact in Cincinnati around the back end of 2023. I just think some people are expecting too much too soon.

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    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Danny Serafini View Post
    Nope, can't get on board with that. If you dropped Lucas Sims into Chattanooga today, would he spend half the year with a 4.70 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP? Of course not, he puts up better numbers against Major League hitters.
    Well, this is a dishonest frame, obviously.

    Ashcraft wasn't even in Chattanooga for half the year-- and his ERA while in AA was more than acceptable. (And let's not discuss ERA as the end-all, be-all of development.)

    And yeah, in a small sample, Sims absolutely could have horrid numbers in AA.

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    Member Bourgeois Zee's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    Quote Originally Posted by Danny Serafini View Post
    I just think some people are expecting too much too soon.
    There is literally no one expecting him to be in the major league right now.

    No one.

  21. #15
    Kmac5 KoryMac5's Avatar
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    Re: 2022 Prospect List Season (Who's in the Top 100? These Guys)

    I think Ashcraft ran out of gas last year which might explain his ERA woes in the second half...he hadn't pitched more than 53 innings since 2019...2020 was a wash due to CV...and 2021 he jumped to 111 innings between 2 levels. He's a guy I am cautiously optimistic on....
    If you have a losing record at Reds games, please stop going.

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