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David Luciani
Dynamic Prospect Rankings: Updating the Hitters
September 4, 2009
If you haven't already, please read the first
similar entry of the season for important information about these lists such
as the qualification rules, what the lists are intended to do and so on.
Positions listed refer to the position the player is playing most this year
rather than last year unless the player has been injured. A yellow highlight means that the player makes his
first appearance on this list or returns to the list after not being on
the previous edition (a player will also get highlighted even if he had
previously been listed as someone in March that you "also" need to
know about but had not actually made the twenty-five highlighted players):
REMINDER: As our annual publishing season ends this weekend, this is our final dynamic prospect list of the publishing season.
New lists will return in 2010!
1. Jason Heyward, of,
Atlanta
2.
Carlos Santana, c, Cleveland
3.
Jesus Montero, c, New York Yankees
4. Mat Gamel, 3b, Milwaukee
5.
Michael Taylor, of, Philadelphia
 6. Jonathan Lucroy,
c, Milwaukee
 7. Domonic Brown, of, Philadelphia
8. Alcides
Escobar, ss, Milwaukee: He's currently playing in the majors and as of the
cutoff for this edition, would need another 79 at bats between now and the end
of the season to lose his rookie eligibility for 2010.
9. Derek
Norris, c, Washington
10.
Mitchell Moreland, 1b, Texas
11. Eduardo
Nunez, ss, Yankees
12. Tyler
Flowers, c, Chicago White Sox
13.
Andrew Cumberland, ss, San Diego
14. Logan
Morrison, 1b, Florida
15. Chris
Heisey, of, Cincinnati: He's slightly older than we might like (24)
but he had a strong season between Double-A and Triple-A this year, hitting .315
with 22 home runs, 74 RBI and 19 stolen bases in 508 at bats with 47 walks and
77 strikeouts. He's headed for the Arizona Fall League this winter.
16. Ben Revere, of,
Minnesota
17. Josh
Thole, c, New York Mets: He actually just earned a call-up to the
majors and went 2 for 5 in his big league debut. Skipping Triple-A to get
there, he hit .328 in 384 at bats for Double-A Binghamton this year with 42
walks and just 34 strikeouts. The knock on Thole is that he has no power
(1 home run this year) and slight speed that's unlikely to carry over to the
majors (8 stolen bases). He's starting to project as a long-term good
hitter for average and is that rare left-handed hitter who can handle either
type of pitcher, demonstrated by him hitting exactly .328 against both lefties
and righties this year at Double-A.
18. Thomas
Neal, of, San Francisco: With High-A San Jose this year, Neal hit
.330 with 22 home runs, 98 runs scored, 86 RBI, 61 walks and 39 doubles while
striking out 96 times.
19. Caleb Gindl, of, Milwaukee
20. Michael
Brantley, of, Cleveland: Brantley had been on our list previously and
dropped off last time out so this is simply a return to where had been
before. He should get plenty of playing time in the majors this month.
21. Reid Brignac, ss, Tampa Bay
22. Peter Bourjos, of, Angels
23. Jeff
Bianchi, ss, Kansas City: Slated to represent the Royals in the
Arizona Fall League, Bianchi made it up to Double-A this year and is beginning
to project out as a good average, moderate speed guy. Between two levels
combined, he hit .308 with 8 home runs, 72 runs scored, 67 RBI and 22 stolen
bases. His biggest challenge is that he needs to increase the walks (he
had 37) and cut down on the strikeouts (100).
24. Michael Stanton,
of, Florida
25. Gustavo
Nunez, ss, Detroit: Cale Iorg's incredibly disappointing season (Iorg
hit .222 for Double-A Erie this year in 478 at bats) boosted Nunez's stock
within the system but his performance stands on its own anyway. The
21-year-old out of the Dominican Republic hit .314 with 44 stolen bases in just
109 games for Single-A West Michigan. He has even less power potential
than this year's 5 home runs imply but only needs to take more walks (25 this
year) to move up rapidly.
Dropped Off for Now
In this final issue of the 2009 publishing season, we introduced
six new names (five if you count the return of Michael Brantley as an
"old" name) and so that means we dropped several players. Three
of them who previously brought up the rear (Marquez Smith, Frederick Freeman and
Austin Jackson) didn't miss by too much but we felt a need to work in these
other names. The most significant drops were Darin Holcomb, Josh Reddick
and Matt LaPorta. LaPorta is a tricky one because he's bounced up and down
our list throughout the year. The only thing we must observe about LaPorta
as the year winds down is that despite him being a justifiably-listed top
prospect on most lists heading into this season, he is slightly older than you
might guess, turning twenty-five before the start of the 2010 season.
Still, he's done well the past week or two in the majors and remains a solid
prospect. Holcomb was a tough one to drop from this final list because we
had ranked him #13 last time out. However, we had expected more from him
to conclude the season and he ended up with a .276 average in August, the same
mark he had in June. With a strong July, it looked like he was finally
breaking through and improving at the rate he should but at twenty-four and
still at Double-A, we had expected more to justify his continued inclusion in
this report. He's still worth knowing about anyway. As for Reddick,
he just got called back to the majors and our biggest concern with him is how
miserably he performed in a small but still noteworthy sample at Triple-A
Pawtucket, where he hit just .127 in 71 at bats over 18 games. We're
hoping for his sake that it was just a negative fluke but he gets dropped this
time out in favor of these other new names we wanted to highlight here.
We hope readers enjoyed and benefited from this new 2009 feature
and we will return in 2010 with all new lists!
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