MLB Pipeline has released their top 30 prospects list for the Pittsburgh Pirates and ranked the organization as the fourth best farm system in all of baseball. The Pirates have seven prospects make MLB Pipeline’s top 100 list, led by Tyler Glasnow in the 13th spot(Glasnow was 12th until Yoan Moncada signed), so the high ranking overall wasn’t unexpected. Led by Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo, MLB Pipeline was fairly high on all the top prospects in the Pirates system, ranking all seven ahead of their average ranking between five majors lists.
As for the top 30 list, no major surprises at the top, especially since we already knew the top seven from the top 100 list linked above. Harold Ramirez, Cole Tucker and Mitch Keller round out their top ten. The new players in the system from the Baltimore Orioles, Stephen Tarpley and Steven Brault, were ranked 23rd and 29th respectively. Adrian Sampson was well down their list, coming in at 24th.
Each player has ratings based on the 20-80 scouting scale. Both Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon have a 60 overall rating, the only two in the system at that level. It is interesting to note that there isn’t much difference between Trey Supak at #12 and Stetson Allie at #30, because everyone in that range is a 45 for overall score. Harold Ramirez, Cole Tucker, Mitch Keller and Elias Diaz all rate as 50’s, while the rest of the top ten(Josh Bell, Austin Meadows, Reese McGuire, Nick Kingham and Alen Hanson) have a 55 rating.
Jonathan Mayo breaks down the organization by best tools, how they were built, by the position and ETA. He has two catchers making the biggest jump/fall. Elias Diaz went from unranked to #11, while Jin-De Jhang didn’t handle the aggressive promotion to Bradenton well and fell from #19 to off the list.
