If you regularly read my work, you may have noticed that I write an awful lot about Astros prospects. The reasoning behind this is two-fold. The Astros have one of the best minor-league systems in baseball, with loads of talent at pretty much every level. Furthermore, I happen to live less than a half-hour away from their Triple-A facility in Oklahoma City, and I’m lucky enough to be able to see these guys play pretty much anytime I want to.

I’ve already written plenty about Jon Singleton and George Springer, and today feels like as good a time as any to discuss Domingo Santana. The 21-year-old came into 2014 as the No. 8 prospect in Houston’s system according to our own Marc Hulet, a ranking more indicative of Houston’s organizational depth than of Santana’s talent.

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The Braves finally pulled the plug on Dan Uggla for good, it seems. Tommy La Stella was promoted to help a bottom-three situation, and now fantasy owners want to know how much he can help their teams. Only fair.

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In January, I wrote about my optimism regarding Jon Singleton. Coming off a disastrous 2013 season in which he slashed just .220/.340/.347 in Triple-A, he has rebounded in a way that should find him back in the upper tier of prospects. I’ve had the opportunity to see Singleton play quite a bit this year — throughout this piece, I will revisit my remaining concerns about Singleton from four months ago, discussing how the 22-year-old has easily surpassed even my own high expectations in 2014.

The first signs of life came in winter ball, as he led the Puerto Rican Liga de Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente with nine home runs. At the time, I wrote the following:

It’s only a 35-game sample, but he hit .268/.396/.537 and he showed more power against lefties than ever before, swatting five homers in just 49 plate appearances against left-handers. While it’s obviously a tiny sample, consider the fact that Singleton had hit just five homers in his previous 443 plate appearances against lefties over the last three years. The one bad trend from his stint in winter ball? His strikeout rate remained a bit high, at 24.8%.

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On Tuesday, the White Sox promoted second baseman Micah Johnson from Double-A to Triple-A. In 2013, Johnson split the season between A and High-A, with a brief taste of Double-A, compiling a .312/.373/.451 slash in 601 plate appearances with an eye-popping 84 stolen bases. Our own Nathaniel Stoltz wrote a comprehensive scouting report on Johnson last June, and two of Nathaniel’s statements in that article help place Johnson’s 2014 success into the context of his long-term prospects:

• “Johnson will go as far as his approach and BABIP take him, and a lot will hinge on how well both facets translate to the upper minors.”
• “It will be Double-A Birmingham that will begin to solidify the direction Johnson’s career will take.”

Fortunately for Johnson, and the White Sox, he has responded in a big way, succeeding beyond expectations in the specific areas pointed out by Nathaniel last June. As a result, the perception of Johnson as a prospect needs to be reevaluated and likely elevated.

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Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 only (not future years) so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.

*Masahiro Tanaka (and other Japanese hurlers) has been omitted due to his service time in Japan, as well as the level of competition. Cuban and Mexican imports have not been omitted due to the lower level of competition in their respective countries.

Updated: May 12, 2014

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Last weekend, the Blue Jays called up consensus top-100 prospect Marcus Stroman, adding him to their bullpen in a middle relief role. It would be silly to expect him to stay in the bullpen for long, as Toronto’s rotation is just too thin and shallow for Stroman to pitch in relief long-term.

Brandon Morrow is already hurt (again), and also hadn’t yet been able to improve on last year’s 5.63 earned run average. Dustin McGowan, having thrown 30 innings so far this season, has already tossed more frames in the majors than he did in any given year from 2009-2013, and hasn’t been particularly good himself (4.80 ERA, 4.67 FIP, 5.41 xFIP).

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This past Sunday, I headed to downtown Oklahoma City to see the Redhawks, Houston’s Triple-A affiliate, take on the Nashville Sounds. The starting pitcher for the Sounds was Jimmy Nelson, the top pitching prospect in Milwaukee’s system. I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to see Nelson pitch in person, and I was looking forward to seeing him do so against a strong Oklahoma City lineup that included Jon Singleton, Domingo Santana, Max Stassi and Robbie Grossman.

Nelson is a pretty imposing figure on the mound, standing 6’5″ and weighing 245 pounds. The University of Alabama product has the type of frame that I can easily picture handling 200+ innings a year; he tossed a total of 162.1 frames in 2013.

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Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 only (not future years) so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.

*Masahiro Tanaka (and other Japanese hurlers) has been omitted due to his service time in Japan, as well as the level of competition. Cuban and Mexican imports have not been omitted due to the lower level of competition in their respective countries.

Updated: April 28, 2014

RoY Fav Jose Abreu | White Sox (1B)

April 28: It’s been an up-and-down month for Abreu’s value but he’s currently leading rookies in WAR at 0.9, as well as in home runs with 10, RBIs with 31 and weighted runs created (wRC+) at 152. In fact, he’s leading the Majors in home runs and RBI. The White Sox would be kind of lost without him right now.

April 21: Just over a week ago, commenters were up-in-arms that Abreu wasn’t No. 1 on this list but we’ve now seen what makes The Show so damn tough. After striking out just five times in his first 10 games, the Cuban import has gone down on strikes 11 times in his next seven contests. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is sitting at .224.

April 10: Abreu, a Cuba native, entered the 2014 season with a lot of question marks given his lack of track record in North America. A solid spring and respectable start to the MLB season has helped to alleviate some of those concerns.

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Jesus Aguilar is the very definition of a prospect with more value in fantasy baseball than in real life. Our own Marc Hulet ranked him as the 11th-best prospect in Cleveland’s system last year, and left him out of the top 15 entirely this year. There are plenty of very good reasons for this exclusion, starting with the fact that Aguilar is a bat-only prospect; he has well below-average speed and doesn’t have much of anything to offer defensively.

Furthermore, the 23-year-old’s one plus tool, his power, has mostly been of the five o’clock variety throughout his minor-league career. Listed at 6’3″, 250 pounds (I’d bet my life savings on the over regarding his listed weight), he puts on one hell of a show in batting practice, hitting the ball out of the park to all fields. However, following his 23 homers in A-ball back in 2011, he hit just 15 dingers between High-A and Double-A in 2012, and 16 last year in Double-A.

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Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists. You can always find it in the tool box on the right.

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