Baseball America continued their rankings of players by position on Tuesday. After covering catchers on Monday, they moved to first base, where Mason Martin was ranked as the tenth best player at the position.
It’s a somewhat surprising ranking to see him in the top ten, but it deserves a bit of an explanation. First base is weak at this time around baseball. Just three first basemen were ranked in Baseball America’s top 100 list. They also posted an article listing the 98 players who received some consideration for the list and that group only included three first basemen. So Martin ranks fourth among the first basemen who were outside of that group of 198 players.
That being said, it’s still a nice recognition, and one he didn’t receive from MLB Pipeline when they did their list last week. We have Martin slightly behind Will Craig on the first base depth chart for the Pirates in our 2020 Prospect Guide. He has higher upside, but more risk of reaching that ceiling.
Martin had an outstanding year in 2019, showing power all season at two levels. He was named as our Player of the Year, and received that same recognition from the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baseball America. Martin, who turned 20 years old during the 2019 season, hit .254/.351/.558 in 131 games, with 32 doubles and 35 homers, which gave him 12 more home runs than the second best total in the system.
