Baseball America updated their top 30 prospects lists for every team in baseball this week. There are some new names in the top 30 for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
We already knew the top of this list after BA updated their top 100 prospects. They have Oneil Cruz, Henry Davis, Liover Peguero and Quinn Priester in the top four spots. Cruz should be graduating from the list shortly after the team returns from the All-Star break.
The rest of the top ten has (in order) Nick Gonzales, Mike Burrows, Endy Rodriguez, Jared Jones, Carmen Mlodzinski and Anthony Solometo. They made just subtle changes from the original top ten, compensating for Roansy Contreras graduating by moving everyone behind him up. It’s a slightly different order, but the same people in the top 11 (minus Contreras) as before.
I won’t go through the entire top 30, but I’ll mention some notable changes.
Besides Contreras, the Pirates also lost Diego Castillo, Rodolfo Castro and Jack Suwinski to graduating from the list. The only actual player who dropped out of the top 30 and is still eligible is Cody Bolton, and he was #30 to start. The new players included two who would have been on anyway if you removed graduating players, Cal Mitchell and Luis Ortiz (they were #32 and #33). The other three players are Matt Gorski (21st), who put up huge numbers before his season-ending injury, Tyler Samaniego (26th) and Andres Alvarez (27th).
Samaniego has been nearly unhittable for most of the season. He’s really had one really bad outing all year and almost nothing the rest of the year (he did give up two runs yesterday), yet he still has a .117 BAA and an 0.82 WHIP, while splitting his time between Greensboro and Altoona.
Alvarez was a backup this year until he hit his way into the lineup, then has been a regular since Nick Gonzales got hurt. The 25-year-old has a low .244 average, but it comes with 12 homers, 12 steals and 45 walks, with an .867 OPS that ranks seventh in the Eastern League among players with 250+ plate appearances. He has made starts at second base, third base, shortstop and left field. He has seen a split in his stats since June 4th, around the time he started seeing more time. He had a 1.025 OPS in 123 plate appearances through June 4th. Since then he has a .204 average and a .707 OPS in 134 plate appearances.
