Baseball America's Orioles Prospects Top Ten

In years past, I would present my own top ten as well as composite top tens.  I do not really do that anymore.  I am a novice evaluator at games, but a pretty decent source aggregator.  It helps develop my view, but I think I should more tip my hat to those who are investing far more energy than I am into these lists.  One of the first things to remember with any list is that the ranking numbers do not represent equidistant distances in value between the players.  The space between a number 1 ranking and a number 2 could be narrower than 3 and 4.  It may well be that someone ranked 7th could easily be ranked 15th.  Things get jumbled, so try not to be so narrow in your focus.

The List

Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun is the messenger of news this year and it has been pretty refreshing.  He shows a great deal of inquisitiveness and really tries to nail down what we know or what we do not know.  Enjoy him.  I imagine he is going on to better things, so read it.

Major points:

• Austin Hays has emerged as the best Orioles prospect.  It is good to remember that does nothing particularly well, so he snuck up on a lot of evaluators.  In general, average tooled players tend not to be able to keep all of their tools at level as they move forward.  Scouts like to see a loud carrying tool to serve as a bearer for the rest of the player.  That does not describe Hays.  That probably still follows him with his top 100 ranking which will be released next year.
• Mountcastle also leapt over Sisco.  I have been a long pessimistic voice on Sisco.  His defense still aspires to be adequate behind the plate.  He has improved in framing and blocking, but his arm still looks simply passable.  If he gets pushed out from behind the plate, the suggestion is that he is stuck to left field.  My read on him is probably more pessimistic on his catching and more optimistic that he could play second or third where the bat would not need to carry him as much. Mountcastle though looks like a strong bat first player who should be able to hit enough to play any position.  I think finally people have stopped repeating the company line of him being a shortstop since the company finally moved on with what everyone with any knowledge of him had already concluded.
• I think the top ten works in a couple ways.  Now, it is important to note that scouts' opinions can vary widely.  For the most part, you have a top tier of Hays, Mountcastle, and Sisco.  Harvey, for some, dips into that group. Scott, for some, does as well.  The next group are guys with lower ceilings or are a little bit further away with Harvey, Scott, and Hall.  All of these guys have some measure of high ceiling, but have distance ahead of them.  After that you have a list that probably jumbles back to 15 with names like Keegan Akin or DJ Stewart not present on the top ten, but likely there in the next five.
• The club's minor league situation looks light years better than it was a few years ago.  The club has several good position player prospects and really a legion of interesting arms below that.  One of the deficiencies is that the pitching largely is located in the low minors, but it certainly seems more robust than it has been for the past decade or so.  It may have taken five or so years, but Duquette's group has really stabilized the minors to some extent.  That said, being handicapped in the Latin American market really hurts, but so far they have adapted well.  It is an impressive change of events to what things looked like in 2015 or 2016.