At this time last year, we did an article averaging out the rankings for the Pittsburgh Pirates named to various lists of top prospects. We are going to do that again this year using the four lists that we have covered in articles over the last couple weeks. First, we take a look at the seven prospects who made at least one list last year and their average ranking. I’ll note that we used Fangraphs last year and they did a top 200, so that dragged down some averages for a couple players they rated low. We aren’t using them this year, going with just Keith Law, MLB Pipeline, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus.
Tyler Glasnow was the top prospect last year, with an average ranking of 15th. He was followed by Jameson Taillon(38th), Austin Meadows(50th), Josh Bell(64th), Nick Kingham(91st), Reese McGuire(93rd) and Alen Hanson 105th.
Here are the results for each list this year, listed individually, with links to each article:
Keith Law
6. Tyler Glasnow
16. Austin Meadows
23. Kevin Newman
56. Josh Bell
Baseball America
14. Glasnow
22. Meadows
38. Bell
95. Harold Ramirez
MLB Pipeline
10. Glasnow
20. Meadows
49. Bell
54. Jameson Taillon
98. Reese McGuire
Baseball Prospectus
11. Glasnow
22. Meadows
49. Bell
51. Taillon
76. McGuire
80. Ramirez
As you can see, seven different players made at least one list this year as well. Other sources had both Alen Hanson and Ke’Bryan Hayes in their top 100, but neither made these particular lists. However, Hayes was mentioned as a player who just missed the lists from both MLB Pipeline and Keith Law. Pipeline also noted that Harold Ramirez just missed as well.
Baseball America had Jameson Taillon ahead of Ramirez in their Pirates top ten, yet Ramirez made the top 100 and Taillon didn’t. That is because the teams are done by individuals and the top 100 is a group effort.
Only three Pirates were consensus top 100 prospects, making all four lists, and they were in the same order on each list.
Glasnow has an averaging ranking of tenth, five spots up from last year.
Meadows has an average of 20th place. That is 30 spots ahead of last year, though I’ll point out that Baseball Prospectus didn’t rank him in their top 101 last year, so that hurt his average. Without their ranking last year, Meadows had an average ranking of 38th.
Bell has an average of 48th place, moving up 16 spots.
You then have the three players who made just two lists. Their average ranking on those lists is as follows:
Taillon 52.5
McGuire 87
Ramirez 87.5
Finally, Kevin Newman made just one list and that was Keith Law, who ranked him 23rd.
Taillon got knocked by two lists leaving him completely off, otherwise he would have had a decent ranking. Keith Law said that there were just too many questions with a player missing two seasons and not knowing how well he could return from that missed time. I’m guessing Baseball America also had the same questions.
Last year, if a prospect didn’t make the top 100, we just used 101st place to help the rankings. Since Keith Law listed ten who just missed and didn’t name Taillon, then it would be wrong to use that for him. So instead, I just went with 111 for Law and 101 for BA to get an average ranking of 79th place for Taillon. It’s not an exact science obviously, but gives you a good idea of the average.
Using that same method for both Harold Ramirez and Reese McGuire, it pushes Ramirez slightly ahead because he was on MLB Pipeline’s list of ten who just missed. Ramirez would then average 97th place and McGuire would be 99th place. Newman would technically rank higher that way(87th), though it doesn’t seem fair using the same method when he only made one list. With that last note in mind, here are the average rankings with penalties for missing lists included:
10. Glasnow
20. Meadows
48. Bell
79. Taillon
87. Newman
97. Ramirez
99. McGuire
