Fangraphs released their Top 100 Prospect list this morning. Eric Longenhaden and Tess Taruskin put five Cincinnati Reds prospects on the list. This is the final prospect list from one of the reputable national publications as we head into the 2023 season.
Elly De La Cruz, as I’m sure comes as no shock to you, is the top rated Reds prospect. The shortstop shows up on the list as the #6 prospect in all of baseball and has a 60 Future Value rating. That value indicates that the player in question – De La Cruz in this case – would be an All-Star caliber player. The recently turned 21-year-old is coming off of a season in which he hit .304/.359/.586 with 31 doubles, 9 triples, 28 home runs, 47 stolen bases and in the process of that won the Triple Crown among Reds minor league players. That was only the 3rd time that’s happened since 1960 – which is the first year where we have full data for the farm – and the other two times it happened were by players who were 29 and 32-years-old when they did it.
(Here’s a video of Elly De La Cruz hitting a 491-foot home run)
You’ve got to get to #47 on the list before the next Reds prospect shows up. At #47 on the list is infielder Spencer Steer. He is given a 50 Future Value rating, which is that of a future average every day player. Acquired at the trade deadline in a deal with the Minnesota Twins for Tyler Mahle, Steer spent time in 2022 at the Double-A, Triple-A, and big league level. In the minor leagues he hit .274/.364/.515 with 30 doubles, 2 triples, and 23 home runs in 106 games. He saw action in 28 games with the Reds near the end of the year and hit .211/.306/.326.
It’s not that far down the list from Steer that the next prospect from Cincinnati’s farm system shows up. Edwin Arroyo comes in at #52 overall and like Steer he also has a 50 Future Value rating. Arroyo was a part of the Reds trade with the Mariners at the trade deadline. He saw action with three teams – 114 of his 116 games came at the Single-A level between the Reds and Mariners organizations – and hit .293/.366/.480 with 25 doubles, 10 triples, 14 home runs, and he had 27 stolen bases.
Cam Collier, the Reds 1st round pick in the 2022, shows up at #71 overall on the list. He also has a 50 Future Value rating. Last season the third baseman graduated high school early and enrolled at Chipola Junior College in what would have been his junior year of high school. He went out and hit .333/.419/.537 at one of the top junior colleges in the country, leading to the Reds selecting him in the 1st round. After signing he only played in a handful of games with the complex league Reds but hit .370/.514/.630 with more walks than strikeouts before the season came to an end.
The final Cincinnati prospect to make the list is Noelvi Marte. The infielder cracks the list at #94 overall and like the previous three Reds prospects on the list he has a 50 Future Value rating. This is the lowest ranking for Marte on all of the various prospect lists. He was in the top 30 at both Baseball Prospectus and MLB Pipeline, in the top 50 for ESPN and The Athletic, and Baseball America had him at #63. The shortstop came over to Cincinnati in the trade that sent Luis Castillo to Seattle at the deadline last summer. He hit .279/.371/.458 with 23 doubles, 19 home runs, and he stole 23 bases while splitting action with two High-A teams last year.
Nice to see some love for Steer but that ranking on Marte is a joke!
I’d guess at the mid season updates the only prospects that lose eligibility are Steer and Williamson so they could end up packing the mid season lists
Whoever they take at #7 will likely end up on some of the mid season lists and joint the 4 players who’ve been on all the preseason lists (De La Cruz, Marte, Collier, Arroyo)
Then would anyone be surprised if one or more of the following players joined them on the mid season lists?
Encarnacion-Strand
McLain
Phillips
Abbott
Petty
Jorge
Almonte
I’m guessing they end up with 7 top 100 minimum on the mid season updates
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the following at mid-season:
Top 5 EDC
Top 25 Marte, Collier
Top 50 Arroyo, #7 pick
Top 75 CES, Alfredo Duno,
Top 100 McLain, Petty, Jorge
That’s 10 top 100 and I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch that this could happen.
Marte fell in their eyes because they feel he will be a 3B instead of a SS so his bat isn’t going to play as well. Also, although he makes good contact, he doesn’t have knack for squaring up on the ball.
He was one of the best hitters in MiLB last year.
Took these from Twitter
At just 20 years old, Noelvi Marte hit .338/.429/.576 (1.005 OPS) in his final 198 plate appearances, with 12 HRs, a 12.4% BB%, 16.7% K%, and a 175 wRC+.
Expanded a bit further
Over his final 58 games – 255 plate appearances – Noelvi Marte hit .333/.424/.565 with a 12.5 BB%, 16.5 K%, .231 ISO, and 171 wRC+.
The bat will play fine wherever he’s at on the field. Knock him down a couple spots if you have to for moving to 3B but dropping him over 70 spots is laughably bad
I also think he should be a little higher. I’d probably put him around Steer on that list. He has a higher ceiling than Steer but a lower floor. A lot of it could be recency bias since he didn’t have the best AFL .211/.321/.310. in 84 PA.
That hes on the list at all means a lot for me, which number is kinda whatever. I like him a lot still even if 3b or 2b is his position, the bat will play but he may only ever be just a solid everyday type, not a star.
@bdh +1
That hes on the list at all means a lot for me, which number is kinda whatever. I like him a lot still even if 3b or 2b is his position, the bat will play but he may only ever be just a solid everyday type, not a star.
Marte slid a bit on a number of the ratings. Hopefully, it’s just an adjustment and that he performs well enough this season to move up the list or gets promoted to the majors. And I’m optimistic that Collier’s FV will improve as he gets older. It would be a good thing for the Reds if all of these guys worked out. But, as the old saying goes, if wishes were horses…
Good that the Reds have a lot of potential in the system. But, if Marte doesn’t pan out to be at least a useful major league player, it will be a disaster.
I’m getting a bit of prospect ratings fatigue. Who care where 10 different publications put 100 different prospects. Lets get some ball going Saturday!
Is the Marte ranking mostly due to the position change? Perhaps there’s something there, but it seems to have disregarded the consistency and is far too extreme. This is is age 21 season, likely in AA, and unless his numbers dramatically drop off, his bat remains borderline all-star. If he can stick at SS, and improve at the plate, he’s moving toward EDLC. I suspect both are unlikely, in which case the mid-season reappraisal will move him back up the lists, even if at 3rd defensively. The 1/2 BB-K ratio is the line to watch. He can make a living with that.
Here’s the thing with the rankings: If a guy is a 50 FV but ranked 40 spots lower than another 50 FV guy, they are basically the same.
There are roughly 5500-6000 minor league players who are still qualified to show up on prospect lists. “Dropping” 40 spots feels big because it’s within the context of 100 players. But when you look at it as in they dropped 40 spots in the context of 6000 players, and still have the same FV rating – it’s nothing. It’s just I felt like this on this day kind of thing.
Thanks for that perspective, Doug. The actual gap between 1 and 100 isn’t nearly as bit as the numbers might suggest in that case.
Yeah – there are tiers worth paying attention to. Usually the top 10, maybe top 15 in real strong years are guys that should be in a different tier. But the guys rated 25th-100th are almost always the same “grade” prospect (50-ish on the OFP or FV depending on what terminology you want to use). The number that comes before their name is more about what kind of thing you prefer. A guy like Keith Law tends to favor upside, so he doesn’t do as much “downgrading” so to speak on a guy in the low minors if they’ve got that big upside. Other places will factor in the proximity a little bit more because the closer they are to the big leagues the lower the variance in outcomes a guy is likely to have.
I know this isn’t the minor league site, so what I’m going to say may be new to some people, but I’ve been saying it for at least a decade now: Pay far less attention to the number next to a players name and far more attention to the scouting report that comes along with it. With that information you can make up your mind (at least based on that particular scouting report).
Yep – thanks – you’ve mentioned this whenever the big moves in the top 100 occur. Also the top 10, perhaps to top 20, are the noteworthy ones, much more “sure things”. Worth repeating.
Doug correct me if Im wrong but I think Keith Law attached the word “conditioning” to Marte concerns and others have mentioned his growing size and weight . Are there concerns about his weight and athleticism and commitment to training or conditioning…or is that just internet off-season nothingness?
Yes and no.
I 100% heard about that stuff, too. Basically what it came from is that last spring Marte showed up a little softer than expected (mind you, this isn’t saying he rolled into camp look like Prince Fielder). He then got to work in spring and during the season and was “in shape” to the level that you would expect quickly. Or at least that’s the tale I heard.
FWIW, Keith Law was on Mo Egger radio show and was asked about Reds pick at 7 this year despite 100 losses and the new lottery. He said you would always prefer 2/3 instead of 7, but this years draft is stronger than last years, particularly among college players and the reds will be able to draft best player available and a college player at the same time at 7. Last year wasnt that way. Law was also very high on Collier and think the Reds got a steal.
Thank you for the explanation. Makes it easier for me to understand.