Inspired by a MLBpipeline.com’s similar data for their top 100 players, here’s a look at the Nats top 30 prospects, where they’re starting the 2015 season, and where we expect to see them by year’s end. I’ve also thrown in where they were last year and a prediction of where they’ll be at year’s end. (Along the same theme, here’s where all 300 named players from Keith Law‘s per-system top 10s are starting as well).
For my top list of prospects, I’m using MLB.com’s list and rankings … and have thrown in Trea Turner in his approximate MLB ranking (around 4th-5th in our system).
| Rank | Name | 2014 Location(s) | 2015 Opening Day Location | 2015 Eventual Primary Location | 2015 Projected Ending Location |
| 1 | Lucas Giolito | Low-A | XST | High-A | High-A/AA if he excels |
| 2 | Michael Taylor | AAA to MLB debut | MLB | AAA/MLB injury dependent | MLB bench |
| 3 | A.J. Cole | AA to AAA | AAA | AAA primarily/MLB 9/1 callup | MLB debut |
| 4 | Reynaldo Lopez | Short-A to Low-A | XST | High-A | High-A/AA if he excels |
| 4.5 | Trea Turner | Low-A Fort Wayne (SD) | AA (SD) | High-A /AA ? | AA, especially if he’s starting there for SD |
| 5 | Joe Ross | High-A to AA | AA | AA | AAA with good AA performance |
| 6 | Erick Fedde | College/HS (UNLV) | XST (DL) | GCL | Short-A |
| 7 | Jakson Reetz | GCL | XST | Short-A | Short-A |
| 8 | Wilmer Difo | Low-A | High-A | High-A | High-A |
| 9 | Drew Ward | Low-A | High-A | High-A | High-A |
| 10 | Austin Voth | Low-A to AA | AA | AA | AAA with good AA performance |
| 11 | Pedro Severino | High-A | AA | AA | AA |
| 12 | Nick Pivetta | Low-A | High-A | High-A | High-A |
| 13 | Jefry Rodriguez | Short-A to Low-A | XST | Low-A | Low-A |
| 14 | Brian Goodwin | AAA to MLB debut | XST (DL) | AAA | MLB depth if he can rebound |
| 15 | Victor Robles | DSL | XST | GCL | GCL |
| 16 | Felipe Rivero | AA | AAA | AAA full-time | AAA |
| 17 | Drew Vettleson | AA | AA | AA | AAA since he’s repeating AA |
| 18 | Rafael Bautista | Low-A | High-A | High-A | High-A |
| 19 | Jake Johansen | Low-A | High-A | High-A | High-A |
| 20 | Spencer Kieboom | Low-A | High-A | High-A | High-A |
| 21 | Robbie Dickey | Short-A to Low-A | XST | Low-A | Low-A |
| 22 | Matt Skole | AA | AA | AAA | AAA , MLB bench if he regains his power |
| 23 | Tony Renda | High-A | AA | AA | AA |
| 24 | Anderson Franco | DSL | XST | GCL | GCL |
| 25 | Taylor Hill | AAA to MLB debut | AAA | AAA as starter depth | MLB depth as needed |
| 26 | Raudy Read | Short-A | Low-A | Low-A | Low-A |
| 27 | Chris Bostick | High-A Myrtle Beach | High-A | High-A | AA |
| 28 | Sammy Solis | High-A/Injury rehab | XST | AA | AA |
| 29 | Matt Purke | AA | AA | AA | AA/AAA if he can successfully convert to relief |
| 30 | Abel De Los Santos | High-A Myrtle Beach | AA | AA | AA |
I’ve uploaded the XLS that I used to create this spreadsheet to google here. You can sort the spreadsheet online by any of the columns (in fact, i’ve added a pseudo-rank column for each category for intelligent sorting from high level to low) to see where these guys will be by team. To summarize:
- 6 of them should be in Syracuse most of the year
- 8-9 in Harrisburg
- 10-11 in Potomac
- 3 in Hagerstown
- likely 4 in short season ball.
So, lots of talent close by in Potomac …. as we all already knew.
Fyi; i’m going to re-publish my spreadsheets of prospect and farm system rankings soon after a bunch more rankings came in and I did some historical research. I filled in a bunch of previous rankings (lots and lots of google research) and have links to every ranking that I could find. For those of you with old Baseball America handbooks, I could use the rankings out of there to complete these xls. More later.