In a trend over the last few years, rather than doing full on updates to Top 100 prospect lists twice a year – once at mid-season and then during the offseason – several places are updating them during the year when players on the list exhaust their prospect eligibility. While they don’t redo the list, rather just remove a place that’s no longer eligible and add someone new at the back end of the list, it’s something a bit different than it used to be. This afternoon the Cincinnati Reds added another prospect to the MLB Pipeline Top 100 list when a graduation opened up a spot to add shortstop Jose Garcia at #100.
The addition of Jose Garcia gives the Cincinnati Reds six prospects on the Top 100 list now. While Garcia is at #100, Jonathan India is at #98, Tyler Stephenson is at #85, Austin Hendrick is at #78, Hunter Greene is at #63, and Nick Lodolo is at #51.
We’re at a bit of a strange spot when it comes to prospect rankings right now. Many guys didn’t play last season in a place where they could truly accumulate stats and even the guys who were at the alternate sites and playing – the environment they were in wasn’t quite game-like, either. There’s simply so much unknown on a lot of guys, even still. Having a spring training this year did help a little bit – but only for guys that saw plenty of action in big league camps. Minor League spring training just started this past week for a few teams. Cincinnati began their spring training on April 4th for their minor leaguers.
The Minor League Baseball season begins in two-and-a-half weeks. It will be good to see the guys out on the field again and a good opportunity to see who was able to make gains while away from the structured development system in the last year.