Baseball America released an updated top 30 prospects list for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday morning. They included draft picks and players who were acquired during the trade deadline period that just ended.
The top prospect on the updated list is Oneil Cruz, followed by the first overall pick this year, Henry Davis, debuting in the #2 spot. They are followed in the top five by three Greensboro players, Quinn Priester, Nick Gonzales and Liover Peguero. We already knew these rankings because BA had all five of them in their recently updated top 100 prospects list.
Despite missing a lot of time this year, Roansy Contreras moved up to the #6 spot due to his performance before the forearm injury. The seventh spot is the first player acquired via trade last week, infielder Tucupita Marcano, who was acquired in the Adam Frazier trade. The top ten (in order) is rounded out by Carmen Mlodzinski, Hudson Head and Michael Burrows.
As for the new draft picks to make the rest of the list, Bubba Chandler comes in at #13 on the list, followed by Anthony Solometo (#21) and Lonnie White Jr at #22. All four of the draft picks listed here were in the top 32 draft prospects this year for BA.
The only other player acquired via trade to make the top 30 is Carter Bins, who ranks 24th. He was going to rank #12 for the Seattle Mariners before the trade for Tyler Anderson. Jack Suwinski was listed as a player who just missed.
BA listed a group of risers and falling prospects. The second group is interesting. Brennan Malone dropped all of the way down to 28th on their list, as he works on his mechanics/pitches at Pirate City for the better part of the season. Mason Martin didn’t make the top 30 due to his falling walk rate, combined with a rising strikeout rate that was already high. BA also noted that the first base only profile didn’t help his rankings. They also noted with both Martin and Nick Garcia, another in the falling group, that all of the additions with the trades/draft also led to them falling, so it wasn’t just performance-based drops.
