Yesterday’s article drop included an article that sorted the top prospects in a few different ways, including the youngest hitters and pitchers at each level of the minors. On Monday, Baseball America posted an article that listed the top youngest players by each league on Opening Day, going from the majors down to Low-A, which as someone has pointed out, MLB decided to call Class-A now, because why not randomly change things, it’s the Manfred way. I’m sticking with Low-A because no one will be confused by that designation seeing as their are two Class-A levels still. Anyway, I figured I’d summarize that BA article that ties into the article we posted yesterday.
The Pirates didn’t have any of the top ten youngest players on Opening Day, but the first player they recalled was Roansy Contreras, who would have ranked fourth if he was there for the opener. That’s okay that we don’t count him there because he ranks tenth on the Triple-A/International League list.
For Altoona, Liover Peguero (pictured) ranks tenth on the list for the Double-A Eastern League. He has the same age listed as the #9 player, but Peguero is five days older.
Greensboro does the best in this article, with Maikol Escotto ranking second and Dariel Lopez ranking seventh on the High-A South Atlantic League list.
The Pirates didn’t push anyone to Bradenton this year, so they came up empty in the Low-A Florida State League. Their youngest player is Alexander Mojica, who doesn’t come close to making the list, despite the fact that he’s one of two teenagers on the team.
With the amount of teams in each league (69 total between the five leagues), four players making the list is an average ranking. You would like to see more, but we know from our own knowledge and every farm system rankings, that the Pirates have a loaded system, so that likely kept a player or three from advancing to a level earlier. All of the players listed above are legit prospects, making our top 30 prospect list that we recently released. That’s a good sign as well, meaning they weren’t just among the youngest because no one was blocking them.
Pirates Prospects Spotlight
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THIS WEEK ON PIRATES PROSPECTS
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Top Pirates Prospects Sorted by Level, Position and Age
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Travis Swaggerty Gears For Season After Roller Coaster Break
Ji-Hwan Bae: Opposite Field Hitting Leads To Strong Opening Week
Cody Bolton Returns to the Mound After Two Years Away
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