ZiPS 2022 Top 100 Prospects

For the seventh year, I’ve run down the Top 100 prospects as seen by the ZiPS projection system. If you’re unaware of what the ZiPS projections are or what they’re trying to do, please consult this article for further information or the MLB.com executive summary. To make a long story short, ZiPS is a computer system that attempts to turn an avalanche of data into a player projection. (The Z stands for Szymborski, because I didn’t realize in 2003 that this project would be useful enough that I’d need to think of a good name.)

I like to think that I’ve developed a pretty useful tool over the years, but don’t get me wrong: a projection system is not even remotely a substitute for proper scouting. While ZiPS and other systems like it can see patterns in the data that can be hard for humans to extract, humans have their own unique tricks. Projecting prospects is challenging. You’re mostly dealing with very young players, some of whom aren’t even done physically developing. They also play baseball against inconsistent competition and have much shorter resumés than established major leaguers.

Having a real baseball season in 2021 makes me feel a lot stronger about this set of projections than last year’s. Last year, ZiPS faced the challenge of projecting prospects based on data when the vast majority of them hadn’t played in an actual baseball game for an entire year. It’s still not as much data as I’d like — more seasons is always preferable — but if we continue to have minor league seasons, we’ll hopefully get back to our pre-2020 level of confidence in the next couple of years.

You will notice that, as usual, there are some players who you might expect to see on a top prospect list who are missing here. While that might be because ZiPS doesn’t like them as much as our prospect team does, it’s also important to remember that the system is based on data from a player’s professional career. I will occasionally post a projection that uses college data if I absolutely must — like when Rickie Weeks Jr. debuted in the majors the same year he was drafted — but I prefer not to, and there’s no way for ZiPS to evaluate a high school player. It isn’t satisfying to leave players out, but I don’t see the benefit of presenting a projection when ZiPS doesn’t have much to say. Jack Leiter, who ranked 24th on the prospect team’s Top 100, is an example of this type of player.

When ZiPS does have something to say, however, it does a decent job of identifying future major leaguers. Since I talked about 2014 during last year’s version of this exercise, I’ll talk about 2015 this year. The top 100 ZiPS prospects prior to that season have combined for 653 WAR in the majors through the end of the 2021 season, with 24 players surpassing at least 10 WAR. Among the players ZiPS liked considerably better than everyone else were Joc Pederson (No. 2), Ozzie Albies (No. 49), Trea Turner (No. 43), J.T. Realmuto (No. 41), Brandon Nimmo (No. 40), Jorge Polanco (No. 63), and Trevor Story (No. 89). Now, if I told you that ZiPS was uniformly successful when diverging from the pack, my pants would figuratively be on fire, as the system also preferred David Dahl (No. 15), Hunter Harvey (No. 20), Orlando Arcia (No. 26), and Alen Hanson (No. 44).

Aside from data vs. scouting (an increasingly false dichotomy), the methodology I use for the ZiPS Top 100 also ensures some disagreement between the system and the scouting community. I’m using the 50th percentile career projection for each player, meaning that ZiPS is highly interested in the lower ceiling guys who still project to have a significant chance of helping a team. That means ZiPS will rank players such as Austin Barnes and Tony Kemp, who both previously graced the Top 100, higher than most. And it’s understandable. Scouts are, by nature, hoping to see something special, something exciting. They’re not traveling to Peoria or Rancho Cucamonga to see someone disappoint, though they obviously end up doing a fair amount of that; they’re going all over the country to see what could be possible.

So let’s get right to the chart. Make sure to head over to The Board and see what the watchers have written.

All told, ZiPS and our rankings agree on two-thirds of players, with a few more that ZiPS didn’t even consider. Unsurprisingly, the agreements are bunched at the top and the disagreements at the bottom, where the differences between players are smaller. Forty-two of the top 50 players by ZiPS made the FanGraphs Top 100.

The Cleveland Guardians made out very well here, leading the league with 10 players on this chart. Conversely, graduations from Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray resulted in the Nationals getting shut out.

To make this less unwieldy, I’ve broken the Top 100 down into top 10 position rankings; that means some players who did not make the Top 100 will have a cameo appearance. If you’d like more information about a player’s projection, feel free to ask in the comments! Where the prospect team also ranked a player, I’ve defaulted to that position. We’ll begin with the catchers.

It’s not a shock that Adley Rutschman ranks as the top catcher. What may, however, be at least a minor surprise that he wasn’t ranked number one overall, especially with the pro-Orioles bias I must be mixing into the batter! Instead, Julio Rodríguez got the top nod, with the main difference being that while ZiPS sees them as being about equally dangerous, Seattle’s outfielder has more unknown upside. Rutschman is 24 and has already played in the high minors, so he’s likely already much closer to the player he’s going to end up being. The main disagreement between FanGraphs and ZiPS here is the lack of Henry Davis, one of those players who ZiPS can barely consider; it’s not going to give him a sterling projection based on eight professional games.

One of ZiPS’ favorites of the past, Miguel Amaya, tumbled here, falling out of the Top 100. An elbow injury ruined his 2021 season, and he likely won’t catch again until 2023 (if ever) as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. As a non-catcher, Amaya would drop entirely out of the top 200 players, so there shouldn’t be a great deal of optimism about him being the Northsiders’ backstop of the future. The Royals face an interesting conundrum about what to do with MJ Melendez. They’re not likely to give him a clear shot at pushing Salvador Perez towards retirement, but two Royals appear in the first base top 10, giving them less flexibility when it comes to where else to play Melendez if they need to.

Spencer Torkelson is the consensus top first baseman, and he should lose his rookie eligibility fairly quickly this year. Two Royals, Nick Pratto and Vinnie Pasquantino, made this list after terrific seasons; neither came close to even sniffing such a ranking last year. Like Torkelson, ZiPS sees both as being ready to play at the major league level quickly, with Pasquantino’s ceiling a bit lower.

Oakland has two first basemen, giving the team two of the three reasons they might be interested in trading Matt Olson when the offseason resumes. (The biggest reason, naturally, is money.) Juan Yepez just missed the Top 100 because his resumé is relatively short and even if his bat works out, he’s not going to be a multi-dimensional player, though hit ball hard is an excellent strategy if it works for you. Speaking of hitting the ball hard, Jhonkensy Noel couldn’t help but turn ZiPS’ head in 2021. That’s what happens when you put up an OPS over 1.000 as a teenager.

Will Nick Yorke field? Maybe not, but the initial Gameday-generated data saw him as being at least adequate for the moment (and in a small sample). ZiPS thinks that at his peak, he’ll hit 25-30 homers and be a viable starting first baseman, so the fact that him playing a tougher position hasn’t been categorically ruled out makes him highly interesting. CJ Abrams is a familiar name at this point, and while ZiPS is more confident about him sticking at short, the computer isn’t confident enough in his contact rate to see him as the prototypical leadoff type. It also really needs to see more reps from him.

Jose Miranda came out of nowhere for the Twins in 2021, and though ZiPS doesn’t think he’s going to get much better, it already has him as a basically average starter right now. Tucupita Marcano did not play well in his limited time in the majors, but ZiPS sees him as a fairly safe choice, if one without much star potential. Eddys Leonard doesn’t seem to generate much buzz, but all he did in 2021 was hit, and as long as he can theoretically play somewhere, you can’t completely dismiss him as a prospect.

Shortstop is naturally the deepest position — even the ninth-ranked prospect here, Oswald Peraza, made the ZiPS top 30 and would be extremely hard to pry from the Yankees — as some number of future second and third basemen are former shortstop prospects. 2022 might see Bobby Witt Jr. already shift to third base, and while the Pirates haven’t moved Oneil Cruz yet — and as much as I want to see him literally tower over the competition — I don’t want to bank on there being a 6-foot-7 shortstop.

Anthony Volpe is the big mover, hitting .294/.423/.604 across two lower levels in his first real professional season. His comp list is all over the place, which isn’t surprising for a guy without high minors experience. It ranges from exciting names like John Valentin and pre-car crash D’Angelo Jimenez to less exciting ones like Rey Quinones and Reid Brignac. If he repeats last year’s performance in Double-A, he may be a monster.

Two notable names have fallen off the Top 100 at short. The computer has fallen out of love with Braden Shewmake, and Royce Lewis‘ past minor league performance wasn’t strong enough for him to maintain his spot on the list after missing two seasons.

Whether at second base or third, ZiPS is sold on Nolan Gorman. The probability-based defense based on Gameday ball location data that ZiPS uses thought Gorman was surprisingly solid during his debut at second, a move spurred by the Cards’ trade for that Nolan Arenado fellow. ZiPS sees Gorman as a borderline star, hitting 25 homers a year, and perhaps even a tad better if his defense actually holds up this well at second. Miguel Vargas can hit, too, and you shouldn’t be skeptical of him just because of how his performance compares to Dodgers prospects of the past — remember, his numbers weren’t accumulated in the California or Pacific Coast Leagues. The position risk is greater than it is with Gorman; Vargas is much less exciting if he can really only play first base in the majors.

Then there’s Bryan Ramos. ZiPS absolutely loved Ramos’ season and thought he was even unlucky from a BABIP standpoint. A .244/.345/.415 line for a 19-year-old infielder in a full-season league is solid, and his comps are a who’s who of interesting-ish prospects who developed power, like Jose Valentin and Dan Uggla. I’m not saying that he’s a slam-dunk — ZiPS also loved Arismendy Alcántara — but don’t completely forget his name. Especially since the White Sox didn’t do so well here otherwise.

As mentioned above, Julio Rodríguez is ZiPS’ top prospect. It already projects him as a three-win player, and every player under 24 the system has projected for three or more wins in a rookie season has ended up a star, with the exception of Gregory Polanco.

George Valera is one of the biggest ZiPS/FanGraphs disagreements, with ZiPS placing him in its top 10 (he ranks 103rd on the prospect team’s list) after crushing 19 homers over 86 games. ZiPS thinks that at his peak, he’ll be a 30-35 homer type, with a decent batting average and enough walks to get above the ho-hum line.

If ZiPS is wrong on someone, I think it’s Brennen Davis. He hasn’t had a great deal of experience in the minors, so I think ZiPS is taking too negative a view of his contact rate and how much of his value was walks-based. Davis may be the type of player who was especially hurt by a lost season, a highly-skilled guy who really just needs more playing time.

It looks like Angels should have gotten that Joc Pederson trade done. After 31 homers for the Great Lakes Loons at age 20, Andy Pages projects for as much power as anyone on this list with the possible exception of Valera. He may simply outgrow being able to play center, but if he peaks as a 125-135 OPS+ hitter, as ZiPS believes is likely, he doesn’t necessarily need to stick there. After ZiPS passed on Jasson Dominguez for years because he hadn’t actually played professional baseball, he finally made his debut in 2021, and while some might be disappointed he didn’t make opposing pitchers simply quit the sport in terror, his performance was very good for an 18-year-old, and rather well-rounded for a teen. This season could shoot him into Wander Franco status in the best-case scenario.

I’m glad to see that ZiPS isn’t going it alone on Steven Kwan, who should finally give Cleveland the solid outfielder the team otherwise refuses to pay for. Kwan already has a batting average projection in the top 20 for 2022, and he has better power than other contact machines like Nick Madrigal and David Fletcher. He’s a throwback type of hitter, and it’s fun to have some variety.

ZiPS has largely soured on Cristian Pache because of his lack of offensive development in the high minors, and he’s fallen almost entirely out of the Top 100. He didn’t make the top 10 center fielders, but the fact that he remains an excellent defensive player means that he’ll have a role in the majors long-term, even if it’s as more of a Jarrod Dyson type than an All-Star starter.

Pitchers are pretty risky, so the top prospect here, Grayson Rodriguez, only ranks 12th in the overall ranking. The three pitchers after Rodriguez — Aaron Ashby, Shane Baz, and Sixto Sánchez — all have some success in the majors already; it feels weird that any of that trio still qualifies for this list. Scouts love Rodriguez for his nasty über-repertoire, while ZiPS loves a young starter who strikes out 14 batters a game without any concerning walk issues. Rodriguez is the best O’s pitching prospect since Mike Mussina.

Hunter Greene pitched in affiliated games for the first time since 2018 last season, and you could barely tell he was gone. He still throws hard, and he didn’t have many issues in his first taste of the high minors. ZiPS thinks his high homer rate for Triple-A Louisville was a bit of a fluke, rather than a cause for concern. Greene doesn’t have a lot of miles on his odometer, and I’d like to see him get the classic Earl Weaver treatment and get his beak wet in the majors as a reliever. But please, Cincy, if you go this route, don’t give up on Greene as a starter if he succeeds in the bullpen. You’ll need him when you trade Luis Castillo!

The big missing player here is Deivi García, whose disappearing command dropped him out of the top 10 pitchers and the top 100 prospects; he fell all the way down to 213th after ranking 16th in 2021. This was one of the biggest prospect collapses in ZiPS history for a pitcher in the high minors without a serious injury. There’s still time, but his 2021 was ugly.