Pittsburgh Pirates: What to Expect on ESPN’s Top 100 List

With sites releasing their top prospect lists, ESPN is releasing their top 100 list next week.  Here is what to expect from the Pirates point of view.

MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and Keith Law have all released their top 100 prospect lists for the upcoming seasons.  Kiley McDaniel of ESPN is releasing his next week on February 9th:

Last season on McDaniel’s list, the Pittsburgh Pirates had five players on the Top 100.  Ke’Bryan Hayes was the highest with a ranking of 26th, followed by Oneil Cruz (29), Mitch Keller (66), Travis Swaggerty (69), and Liover Peguero (84).  Mitch Keller has since graduated and will no longer appear on prospect lists.  However, Quinn Priester should see the jump and find himself ranked near the top 50.  Different outlets have mentioned the development by Priester and his stock appears to be rising for the Pirates.  It sounds like Tahnaj Thomas was in close consideration for Kiley and he could see a bump too.  However, with no season, there is a chance that Swaggerty falls off.

Nick Gonzales ranked fourth on Kiley’s draft board, with the following writeup:

"“comparable offensive talent to Martin, but with fringy speed and defense at second base that could eventually move him to left field; Keston Hiura is the most common comp thrown out here.”"

Gonzales will also likely be considered a top 100 prospect.  With Hayes, Cruz, Priester, Gonzales, and Peguero, I expect there to be five Pirates on this list with Swaggerty just falling off and Malone close as well.

In his ranking of prospects traded this winter, McDaniel had Hudson Head and Miguel Yajure as prospects just missing the top 100.  The Pirates received three top 10 prospects that were in Kiley’s top 25 of those traded.

McDaniel had the Pirates farm system in the middle third a season ago (ranking 11th).  With the club adding talent and Priester’s development, I expect this to increase.  Keep up to date on the site next week when we go through the list.