Baseball Prospectus released their Midseason Top 50 Prospects list this morning. Two Cincinnati Reds prospects made the list.
Right handed pitcher Robert Stephenson cracked the list at #23 overall, which is actually a drop from his pre-season ranking of 16. Personally, I believe he’s improved his stock this season versus last season (which you can read about later today when I publish his scouting report from Friday night). Here is some of what Jeff Moore had to say about Stephenson in his write up:
You can count the number of pitchers, both on this list and in all of minor league baseball, that can offer a pair of double-plus pitches, but Stephenson is one of them.
When it clicks, however, he’ll be as good as any prospect in the game.
That last sentence sounds like a lot of what we’ve been hearing about Stephenson for the last few years, but it’s also something we’ve begun to see in this season over the last six weeks when things have clicked a lot more often than times that they haven’t.
Jesse Winker came in at #41 on the list, which is up from the 44th spot on the preseason list. Let’s take a look at some of what Jeff Moore had to say:
Winker is a plus hitter, and while his transition to Double-A took some time, he’s rounding into shape in much the way that has been expected of him for some time.
Winker is hitting .333/.417/.505 since June began, which is a dramatic difference from the .229/.343/.314 that he hit in the first two months of the season. I will have an article tomorrow on what has led to the turn around for the outfielder.
It’s no surprise that Stephenson and Winker were the only two prospects on the Top 50 for the Cincinnati Reds. While there may be several Reds in the discussion for the Top 100 when the season is over, those two guys stand out among the group at this point as the top prospects in the system that are in a group among themselves.