Baseball America continued their rankings of the top prospects by position on Monday afternoon, taking a look at the best corner outfielders. The Pittsburgh Pirates have one of the top corner outfielders, as Calvin Mitchell ranked 13th overall at the position.
Mitchell hit .280/.344/.427 in 119 games last year, with 29 doubles, three triples and ten homers. He spent the entire 2018 with the West Virginia Power, where he was one of the youngest players in the South Atlantic League. The lefty hitting Mitchell turns 20 years old next month and should be among the youngest players in the Florida State League this year. During his brief pro career, he has played 102 games in right field and 46 in left field.
It’s unknown right now if Bryan Reynolds or Jason Martin were considered for this list. We could find out tomorrow when BA posts the top center fielders list, which usually goes much deeper than 20 spots like today’s list. BA ranked Mitchell as the eighth best prospect for the Pirates, just ahead of Reynolds and Martin in the ninth and tenth spots, so it’s possible that they were considered corner outfielders for these lists. We have those two ranked ahead of Mitchell in our 2019 Prospect Guide and they are listed as corner outfielders on our depth chart.
A lack of depth at the corner outfield spot in the minors isn’t a real issue for the Pirates because center field is one of their top positions. You only need one center fielder in the majors obviously, so if you have depth in center, that means you’re eventually moving a center fielder to the corner. We have a total of nine outfielders on our top 50 prospects list, with six of them ranking in the top half of that list.
Here are the previous rankings by positions:
Catchers (at the bottom of the article)
