Astros Prospects: Predicting Baseball America’s Top 10

Let’s try to predict the Top-10 Astros Prospects list by Baseball-America

It’s that time of year again, where all the prospect experts will release their top Houston  Astros prospects lists. There is usually a big reveal when MLB Pipeline presents their 2016 rankings, but many people rely more on the knowledge that Baseball America has. People, at least, the ones I know, value their opinion, so it’s a big deal when they update their top ten lists. Last night, BA writer Ben Badler sent out a teaser Tweet.

When I saw the Tweet, I got inspired to try to predict how the guys at Baseball America would rank the Astros prospects. This is harder than it may seem because the writers at BA try to remain neutral in their talent evaluation. While the writers at CTH could be biased to a big slugging first baseman, who has drawn player comps to Jim Thome and Ryan Howard by Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. This task will be challenging, but it would be cool to see how close we get to the actual list.

Does the overall talent of a number two pick outweigh the player who should make an impact sooner? This post is not supposed to go too deep into each player; we will do that when the official list is revealed tomorrow. This is to offer the perspectives of a few fans who get a chance to write for the Astros. To make it a little more impartial, I added MLB.Pipeline and Prospect361‘s Top ten list to our predictions as well.

1.  A.J. Reed – first baseman
2. Alex Bregman – shortstop
3. Kyle Tucker – outfield
4. Francis Martes – starting pitcher
5. Daz Cameron – outfielder
6. Michael Feliz – starting pitcher
7. Joseph Musgrove – starting pitcher
8. Derek Fisher – outfielder
9. Colin Moran – third baseman
10. J.D. Davis – third baseman

In my opinion, you could flip both Tucker or Cameron between three and five because they are both “toolsy” players, with Tucker getting the edge with possibly more power. Cameron presents more speed on the bases, but Tucker is no slouch on the bases at that. Technically they should be three and four, but there has been so much buzz around Martes nationally this offseason, he deserved a bump ahead one of the former high school outfielders. Why Reed over Bregman, this goes into the biased nature of this post? Reed could potentially help the club this year, so that could have led to this outcome. There are some big Reed biases across the CTH writers.

It’s hard to believe that Feliz is still a top prospect, not because of his talent, but that he’s still considered a prospect after his time with the Astros last year. The Astros gave Feliz several opportunities to be in the big leagues but did not appear comfortable to use him in high leverage situations. It could be argued that the Astros should have saved the prospects they traded for Ken Giles and groomed Feliz to be the closer. However, the Astros wanted the sure thing in Giles, so maybe down the road, Feliz becomes the setup guy or the fourth starter.

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I also think Musgrove is a little low, but that shows the depth of the Astros system. The Astros had a legendary 2015 draft including three picks in the first round that turned into Bregman, Tucker, and Cameron. These three quickly jumped on people’s rankings because of their talents.

Yes, Fisher may be high, but he could be the closest impact outfielder bat outside of Tony Kemp and the young guys. Bregman appears to be being fast-tracked, but could have a move to the outfield himself in the future with the emergence of Carlos Correa as the top shortstop in the game. Davis has almost as much power as Reed, but may not be the overall hitter, but could be a dangerous guy at third.

Next: Houston Astros Podcast – Pros & cons to Ian Desmond

I didn’t want to go too deep into each player until after the Baseball America’s Top Ten is released later today.