It’s prospect ranking season. Our Jay Floyd is now launching his annual Prospect Nation Countdown – you should read it as it develops.
Meanwhile Baseball Prospectus has announced its top-10 prospects in the Phillies organization. Drum roll please …
- J.P. Crawford (SS)
- Nick Williams (OF)
- Jake Thompson (RHP)
- Franklyn Kilome (RHP)
- Roman Quinn (OF)
- Cornelius Randolph (OF)
- Mark Appel (RHP)
- Jorge Alfaro (C)
- Andrew Knapp (C)
- Ben Lively (RHP)
Then there are five “just interesting” players:
- Carlos Tocci (OF)
- Deivi Grullon (C)
- Adonis Medina (RHP)
- Zach Eflin (RHP)
- Scott Kingery (2B)
It’s a deep read with good observations all of mentioned players. It’s worth it. That said, don’t get worried if you were underwhelmed by some of the write-ups. Prospects are volatile assets, so scouts and experts write with plenty of caution.
Very little caution, however, is reserved for Crawford. So you should be very excited for Crawford’s arrival. He’s pretty close to the real deal, the most anticipated Philadelphia arrival since Cole Hamels.
The biggest question with this ranking among prospect heads is why Lively is so highly ranked, and why Eflin isn’t in the 10 spot. As author Jeffrey Paternostro notes, you could swap the two pretty easily, and, well, you probably should. Eflin has slightly a higher upside than Lively, even if his stuff isn’t as defined just yet. Also, Medina is the divisive figure – he’s been aggressively ranked by quite a few folks, and by others he’s still too young to award a high placement.
But the big takeaways here: Get psyched for Crawford; Williams, Thompson and Quinn are close to the majors and good bets to be halfway-decent players; and the 2016 Phillies farm system is in much better shape than the 2015 version.
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