This article is part of our Farm Futures series.
The Top 400 prospect rankings were updated this morning! You can think of this as a pre-Opening Day update or a post-spring training update. The update factors in spring performance, injuries, and new information I've come across since the last full-scale update from a few months ago. Obviously we don't want to lean heavily on a player's spring training performance, but it is a data point and while sometimes it hardly matters, in some cases it matters a lot in terms of how a player is perceived. At the end of the day, all I'm trying to do is show you where I'm at on all these guys. I'm hoping to let these rankings sit for 4-6 weeks before making any further updates, short of removing big leaguers who have exhausted their prospect eligibility. During that time I will be able to start diving in on the 2021 MLB Draft, which means there will be a brand new Amateur Board on the site sometime in May.
A New No. 1
Julio Rodriguez moved from 2 to 1, Jarred Kelenic moved from 3 to 2, Wander Franco moved from 1 to 3 and Bobby Witt moved from 5 to 4. What you have to understand first and foremost, is that the top eight prospects on my rankings are extremely close from a talent standpoint, so small samples can matter. Rodriguez looked as good as I've seen him this spring, which led to me changing his ETA from 2022 to 2021. It's
The Top 400 prospect rankings were updated this morning! You can think of this as a pre-Opening Day update or a post-spring training update. The update factors in spring performance, injuries, and new information I've come across since the last full-scale update from a few months ago. Obviously we don't want to lean heavily on a player's spring training performance, but it is a data point and while sometimes it hardly matters, in some cases it matters a lot in terms of how a player is perceived. At the end of the day, all I'm trying to do is show you where I'm at on all these guys. I'm hoping to let these rankings sit for 4-6 weeks before making any further updates, short of removing big leaguers who have exhausted their prospect eligibility. During that time I will be able to start diving in on the 2021 MLB Draft, which means there will be a brand new Amateur Board on the site sometime in May.
A New No. 1
Julio Rodriguez moved from 2 to 1, Jarred Kelenic moved from 3 to 2, Wander Franco moved from 1 to 3 and Bobby Witt moved from 5 to 4. What you have to understand first and foremost, is that the top eight prospects on my rankings are extremely close from a talent standpoint, so small samples can matter. Rodriguez looked as good as I've seen him this spring, which led to me changing his ETA from 2022 to 2021. It's still close to a coin flip, but I'm now leaning toward him debuting this summer. His ascension from 2 to 1 was also due to the fact that I've grown confident that he will have a 20-steal season at some point early in his MLB career, and he will have a half-dozen seasons where he steals double-digit bases. This is something that I first made note of in the Arizona Fall League a couple years ago. While he doesn't post plus run times from home to first, he is excellent at reading pitchers — he's a baseball savant — and his length allows him to cover more ground than most in that split second when he slides into second base. Rodriguez and Kelenic are both extremely talented, I just think Rodriguez will hit for a slightly higher average and the rest of the stats will be about the same. Nothing about Franco's profile has shifted, it's just about how impressive the Mariners outfield duo was this spring and how little was separating those three prior to the spring.
Michael Harris To The Moon
The biggest surprise on this update is probably the fact that Harris went from 211 to 48. That's obviously a massive jump. Here's what I knew about Harris when I finalized the top 400 for the magazine in January: He was a potential five-category outfielder with a bright future and not much track record due to the lost minor-league season. Fast forward to spring training, and you have hype pieces like this one from David O'Brien of The Athletic where Marquis Grissom is comparing Harris to Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield, or this one, where O'Brien essentially says Atlanta may need to trade Drew Waters because Harris has made himself the likely third piece in Atlanta's long-term outfield next to Ronald Acuna and Cristian Pache. Obviously if I thought Harris was the next Sheffield, let alone the next Bonds, he'd be in the top 10, not the top 50, but you'd still rather have a player receiving these glowing reviews than just getting typical coach speak. From a tools standpoint, not much separates Harris from Luis Matos or Hedbert Perez, so Harris may not be done climbing. I changed his ETA from 2024 to 2022, which would be his age-21 season. With Harris, Matos and Perez, we're hoping for an average north of .280 with 20-plus homers, 20-plus steals and a spot in the top three of a lineup. Of those three stats I threw out, the 20-plus steals will probably be the toughest for Harris to attain, but it could happen. I know many of you had been prioritizing Harris prior to this update, so hopefully you got your shares ahead of time.
New Additions
Here is a full list of the new additions. Most of these guys got added after I was able to research them for the divisional prospect series that wrapped up last week. A few, like Bobby Bradley, Tucupita Marcano, Akil Baddoo, Nick Pratto and Chris Gittens, played their way back onto the list with monster springs.
Conor Grammes, AZ
A.J. Vukovich, AZ
Levi Kelly, AZ
Kyle Muller, ATL
Connor Seabold, BOS
Kohl Franklin, CHC
Yohendrick Pinango, CHC
Cory Abbott, CHC
Riley Thompson, CHC
Bobby Bradley, CLE
Eli Morgan, CLE
Sam Hentges, CLE
Yanquiel Fernandez, COL
Akil Baddoo, DET
Brett Conine, HOU
Nick Pratto, KCR
Alex De Jesus, LAD
Jacob Amaya, LAD
Andre Jackson, LAD
Jose Devers, MIA
Josh Winder, MIN
Emmanuel Rodriguez, MIN
Chris Gittens, NYY
Yoendrys Gomez, NYY
Enger Castellano, NYY
Johan Rojas, PHI
Rodolfo Nolasco, PIT
Sergio Campana, PIT
Joshua Mears, SDP
Tucupita Marcano, SDP
Brayan Medina, SDP
Alexander Suarez, SFG
Casey Schmitt, SFG
Logan Wyatt, SFG
Levi Stoudt, SEA
Edwin Nunez, STL
Alejandro Pie, TBR
Drew Strotman, TBR
Evan Carter, TEX
Davis Wendzel, TEX
Owen White, TEX
Andry Lara, WAS
I'm sorry I didn't have time to go into a ton of depth on this update, but please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments or on Twitter (DMs open).
