Baseball America posted their updated top 100 prospects list on Friday afternoon, including six players from the Pirates. The list includes any minor league player (as of June 21) who has yet to reach 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the majors. Due to the timing, Jameson Taillon is still technically a prospect with 28 innings for the Pirates, but he was in the majors on June 21st, so he is not on the list.
The top prospect in the system according to BA is Tyler Glasnow, who ranks sixth on their list. He is followed closely by Austin Meadows, who ranks tenth. Just this morning, we saw that Baseball Prospectus has those two players switched, with Meadows ranking sixth and Glasnow ranking ninth (though not technically on the list due to getting called up).
The rest of the BA list has Josh Bell ranked 38th, Kevin Newman 51st, with Mitch Keller one spot behind him. Ke’Bryan Hayes ranks 72nd. I’m a little surprised that Keller ranks that high due to his recent struggles (4.65 ERA in last eight starts), but not really surprised due to the pitching performance I saw last night.
The preseason list from Baseball America had four Pirates, leaving Taillon off. Glasnow and Meadows have moved up for them, while Bell stayed exactly the same, which is actually a drop due to players graduating from the list ahead of him. Harold Ramirez fell off, which isn’t a surprise since he was at the bottom of the list and hasn’t looked like he’s close to the majors this year due to poor defensive play and base running mistakes. Newman, Hayes and Keller all join the list.
#14 Glasnow
#22 Meadows
#38 Bell
#95 Ramirez
