Baseball America is ranking the top 100 prospects. Richie Gardner ranks #93. (Unsigned) 2001 Reds #1 Jeremy Sowers ranks #90 for the Tribe. Edwin Encarnacion is #56.
They’ve published #50-100, and no Homer Bailey yet. They rank him as the #1 Reds prospect, so I expect him tomorrow, in group 25-50. This is such a BA way to do it – the guy has pitched all of 12.1 innings as a pro (and not that well, I might add) – yet they rank him among their top 50 prospects.
Since Bailey’s right out of high school, I suspect it will be several years before we see him rising near the major league level.
I don’t think he will make it past low A Ball this year; I suspect the Reds will move extremely slowly with him and won’t advance him unless he shows true competence at each level.
That doesn’t seem unusual (especially for pitchers) for most major league teams since poise is such an important aspect of pitching. While hitters are sometimes challanged, most teams typically want pitchers to maintain their self-confidence.
Which makes me wonder why are the Reds still drafting high school pitchers? We need pitchers now…