© Kyle Terada | 2020 Aug 26
The ESPN Top 100 giveth and taketh away.
The good news is the World Wide Leader in Sports is first major outlet to list a San Francisco Giants prospect among the 10 best in MLB. Marco Luciano is ranked seventh according to the list released earlier this week, a higher ranking than both Baseball America (No. 12) and MLB Pipeline (No. 16).
ESPN was also the only outlet to give the Giants a player in the top 10 last year. Joey Bart also found himself ranked seventh, but has fallen significantly over the past 12 months, now listed as the No. 32 overall prospect. This has been consistent throughout the prospect rankings, Bart landing at No. 23 in MLB Pipeline’s latest list, 41st in Baseball America’s.
Kiley McDaniel, who compiled the list, points to Bart’s disappointing showing during the 2020 season in which he posted a 3% walk rate and 37% strikeout rate over 111 plate appearances. They also point to the fact that the Giants selected a catcher in the first round this year, Patrick Bailey who is ranked No. 100 on the ESPN list, and that Bart was selected by a previous regime.
As the ranking would indicate, McDaniel is much higher on Luciano, who he believes is a future third baseman whose feel at the plate is as good as any prospect in the major leagues.
A current shortstop I project to move to third base, Luciano could end up in right field as well. He has played 47 professional games, all in short-season leagues. The concerns essentially end there, as he arguably has the best combination of bat speed, raw power, in-game power and general feel to hit of almost any prospect in recent memory, maybe even including Wander Franco.
Sometimes 80 bat speed, 70 raw power and some sense of how to use it turns into Javier Baez, sometimes it’s Clint Frazier, other times it’s Gary Sheffield. The uncertainty is both the concern and the allure, as you can take Luciano’s building blocks and imagine a Hall of Famer pretty easily, but then just as easily toss him in the bucket of power-over-hit, high-risk flameouts on prospect lists of the past.
Luciano has a shot for real defensive value and shows rare pitch selection and contact skills for someone with these loud raw tools, since they often just lean on their tools for so long that they don’t learn the skills (pitch selection, swing adjustability, etc.) that you need in the big leagues.
A reasonable person could move both Luciano and Abrams down a bit on this list to hedge more on the risk, but if they turn into what they’re supposed to turn into, they’ll be in the big leagues in a couple seasons — not four or five — and that upside is deserving of a spot at the top of the list.