ZiPS 2024 Top 100 Prospects

For the ninth time (in 10 years — it’s a long story), we’ve reached the point in the offseason where I run down the ZiPS Top 100 prospects. For those wandering in who may hear “ZiPS” and think of the University of Akron or possibly the popular Cincinnati burger spot, ZiPS is a computer projection system that crunches a lot of data about players and attempts to peer through the fog that obscures the future. You can read more about the system here or in MLB.com’s executive summary.

ZiPS prospect projections aren’t an attempt to supplant scouting. Rather, they try to be a supplement to scout-generated lists. There’s a lot of uncertainty in lower-level minor league stats that isn’t present at the upper levels. As such, non-statistical information about players takes on added value. ZiPS doesn’t seek to be the one-ring-to-bind-them-all-unified-field-theory-giant-Katamari-Damacy-ball of prognostication; it aims to give the very best data-generated predictions possible, for people to use, ignore, mock, or worship according to their personal tastes and worldview.

How does it work? Let’s turn back the clock to 2014 and the very first ZiPS Top 100:

You can see ZiPS’ failures and successes. Arismendy Alcantara and Alen Hanson appeared on other Top 100 prospect lists, but ZiPS was easily the most optimistic, which definitely didn’t work out. The computer went out on a limb with Taylor Lindsey, a projection it would come to regret (that is, if I were able to program something to have feelings). But there were successes, too. ZiPS was easily the most bullish on Mookie Betts and Kolten Wong, and Marcus Semien was a rarity on other Top 100 lists at all (Baseball America did have him at no. 91), let alone this high. It was the big believer in Jonathan Schoop, and it pumped the brakes a bit on Robert Stephenson and Kyle Crick. The players on the 2014 Top 100 have combined for 922.7 WAR in the majors through the end of 2023 (not including the stray WAR for pitchers as hitters); the top 50 guys have racked up 645.7 WAR.

So, without further exposition, let’s jump into the Top 100 for 2024:

As usual, there is a lot of agreement between ZiPS and the prospect team when it comes to the game’s top prospects. This year, 60 names on the ZiPS Top 100 match those found on the FanGraphs Top 100. That’s slightly lower than the average (67), but a lot of that comes down to the fact that I’m still including foreign professional players (who can’t net their team draft pick compensation under the Prospect Promotion Incentive program) on this list. I like to contextualize how players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shōta Imanaga would fit in with other prospects coming up through the minor leagues; I don’t necessarily think that that’s a better choice, but I prefer to err on the side of providing too much information, not too little. (To that end, Eric and Tess noted in the introduction to their Top 100 that on talent, Yamamoto would have ranked second overall, while Jung Hoo Lee would have stacked next to Drew Gilbert. You can find their reports on The Board.) ZiPS is also still using the old rookie eligibility rules regarding September roster days, meaning the computer sees someone like Davis Schneider, who technically graduated from rookie status last year based on active roster days, as qualifying for the ZiPS Top 100.

As always, there are a few players who fall outside the purview of a projection system. ZiPS has literally nothing to go on for players like Leodalis De Vries or Jonny Farmelo. ZiPS also can’t do much with high school players, so the system has to go with very limited minor league data when looking at guys like Max Clark. If you’ve figured out how to translate high school stats in a meaningful fashion, you should be publishing this data rather than reading this article, because you’re way better at this than I am! Pitchers like Rhett Lowder and Chase Dollander take pretty big hits because while ZiPS uses college performance when it has to (to my eternal chagrin), it certainly doesn’t trust that data very much.

Let’s start by looking at the overall team numbers:

Twenty-eight of the 30 teams have someone in the top 100, with only the Astros and the Royals shut out. Last year’s shutouts — the Padres, Tigers, and Braves — all did notably better this time around, especially San Diego. The Red Sox featured the most players in the top 200; when we go all the way out to 500 prospects, the Rays take the top spot. Tampa Bay didn’t do nearly as well in the top 50 or 100, but it’s a deep system that can crank out Joey Wendles all day long, almost as if they were the Wonka factory. (I’m now picturing an Oompa Loompa song about Wendle, which amuses me, and possibly only me.)

I don’t do a full statistical writeup of each member of the Top 100 — there’s no way you’ve already finished reading all of the work from Eric and Tess, so get to it! — but I will break down the rankings into some more manageable position-related chunks and touch on a few of the highlights. Let’s start with the first basemen:

First base prospects usually aren’t an exciting bunch, simply because many of the next generation’s best first basemen will be players who didn’t quite make the cut defensively at other positions. This was always true to an extent, even before the mean old statheads with our vindictive positional adjustments ruined front offices. Many of top first basemen of the last generation or two started out at third base (Jim Thome, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira) or catcher (Carlos Delgado, Carlos Santana) in the minors. Miguel Cabrera played more minor league games at shortstop than any other position!

Nolan Schanuel just sneaks onto this list in terms of eligibility, and he looks like he’ll be an OBP-machine in the majors. He and Zach Neto reflect well on the ability of the Los Angeles Angels to draft position players who can contribute almost instantly in the majors. The problem with that organization, of course, is the lack of ability to do much else. Kyle Manzardo takes an injury hit from last year’s ranking, but he’s still on track to be a decent starter in the majors and was a good pickup for the Guardians, at least if the computer is correct.

After Manzardo, there’s a big drop to Abimelec Ortiz, a thicc first baseman who terrorized the Sally League to the tune of 26 homers in 80 games without putting up a criminal number of whiffs. ZiPS only projects a .227/.285/.435 line for him in 2024, but he’s still got a ways to go, and I suspect the Rangers will be more open-minded to a classic Swing from the Heels first baseman than most organizations these days. Xavier Isaac would rank higher, but he’s about six months to a year behind Ortiz, and ZiPS just wants to see a bit more. One should take Matt Mervis’s raw numbers in the minors with a grain of salt, simply because offense is so inflated in the upper minors right now, but ZiPS still sees him and Spencer Horwitz at least being decent stopgaps at first in a year or two. It’s not the most exciting stuff, but it pays the bills and racks up those pension days!

One thing that ZiPS regularly disagrees with the prospect team on is how it considers second basemen. This year, ZiPS landed 15 second basemen in the Top 100 while the FanGraphs list only has two! It’s understandable in that second base feels a bit like the consolation prize, like when you get Nacho Cheese Doritos instead of Cool Ranch. ZiPS generally agrees with Eric and Tess on Termarr Johnson and Jace Jung. I’m still not sure if Jace Jung ends up at second or third — this partially depends on what the team does with Colt Keith — but he ranks similarly either way.

After that, we get to the guys the computer likes more than the scouts. Jorbit Vivas appears for the second straight year with a nearly identical ranking, and while he doesn’t have a great deal of upside, he could be a fine fill-in for four or five years if the Yankees move on from Gleyber Torres. In that way, he’s not that dissimilar from a pre-Mariners Kolten Wong. And if Vivas doesn’t work out, ZiPS is also into Jared Serna, who showed some solid power numbers in A-ball last year.

Jackson Holliday is terrific, of course; if he doesn’t work out in the majors, it’ll be the most wrong the computers and scouts have ever been. He’s gotten so much press that I wonder if Jordan Lawlar hasn’t become a bit underrated in general fandom? An .840 OPS in Double-A is fantastic for a 20-year-old shortstop, and he was even better in his brief stint at Triple-A. Jackson Merrill’s projection doesn’t take much of a hit if he ends up at second base, but ZiPS, which uses a probabilistic measure of minor league defense based on the coordinate locations of every ball hit into play, isn’t actually worried about his defense at short, seeing him as about average there. The bigger problem for him, of course, is the presence of Xander Bogaerts on a large contract. If the Padres get off to a bad start this year, they may need to make a decision on Ha-Seong Kim, the incumbent second baseman.

Masyn Winn was one of the biggest one-year gainers in ZiPS, with the computer now loving him as much as any scouts do. Adael Amador would rank even higher, but ZiPS does have some concerns about his defense, leading to a -6 run projection for him at shortstop right now. Change that to zero, and he moves up behind Merrill. If you’re looking for a sleeper, I’d go with Danny De Andrade, who showed some moderate power in a full season in A-ball; the computer is also mildly optimistic about his glove.

Between Coby Mayo and another Oriole in the next section, Baltimore could very well have yet another serious contender for the top spot going into 2025. ZiPS thinks Mayo will peak with an OPS+ in the 115-125 range and contribute above-average defense at third. ZiPS sees Junior Caminero as one of the better power hitters at third over the next decade, though he certainly doesn’t have the look of a burly slugger. ZiPS is still holding out hope that Michael Busch can play third base; if you only consider him a first baseman, he drops quite a bit, as the computer just doesn’t see him having the offensive upside you like there. Colt Keith, Noelvi Marte and Curtis Mead project similarly by both ZiPS and the prospect team.

Long-time ZiPS fave Bryan Ramos has actually slipped a bit since last year, by virtue of an early-season groin injury that nagged at him in 2023, as well as the fact that there’s now one fewer year left for some crazy breakout to happen. Ramos actually dropped to fourth in the White Sox organization in this ranking, passed by Noah Schultz, Colson Montgomery, and Edgar Quero. At least he’s not lonely on the Top 100 these days.

Basallo! After a monster season that saw him get some time at Double-A Bowie while still a teenager, Samuel Basallo has shot up the rankings to be the top catcher on the list. The overall ranking is only lower than FanGraphs’ because, well, catchers sometimes have weird, unpredictable developmental patterns, so ZiPS isn’t quite as confident as it would be if he were the same player but at shortstop. Jeferson Quero will likely remain at catcher, and ZiPS is more optimistic about his offense now that he’s played a bit in the upper minors. The only thing I’m sadly missing is framing for minor leaguers. Ethan Salas could move up this list as fast as Basallo did in the last year, but the computer still wants to see more of him before taking the plunge. As long as he stays a catcher, Harry Ford will keep sticking on this list, but ZiPS doesn’t think he’ll provide quite enough offense — at least in the median outcome — to move to another position, seeing him as kind of Diet Dave Magadan.

Naturally, most of the players on this list are center fielders, because center fielders end up largely being the ones who end up filling all the outfield positions when they graduate. Jackson Chourio’s upside is massive and he comfortably fits on the top of the list.

There are two big exceptions to this centerfieldocracy, with two Rangers left fielders, Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter, fighting it out with Chourio and James Wood. Carter, of course, excelled in a late-season call-up and the playoffs, much like Randy Arozarena did a few years ago. Langford has as much power upside as anyone in the minors, and ZiPS sees him as the safest offense-only choice in the minor leagues as a whole, so it’s not hard to see why the Rangers intend to promote him aggressively this season. With Pete Crow-Armstrong’s ranking, you can see why I haven’t given the Cubs much grief for not having re-signed Cody Bellinger; I think Belli is simply more valuable to other organizations.

The two outfielders with the best defensive numbers in the minors also both make the Top 100. The first one you probably know: Ceddanne Rafaela of the Boston Red Sox. His offense was decidedly meh during his call-up, but ZiPS still believes he’ll hit justtt enough to support a glove that it thinks is terrific. Only one outfielder had better defensive numbers than Rafaela via the method I use, and he’s a player you may not know as well: Jorge Barrosa of the Arizona Diamondbacks. ZiPS basically sees him as the next version of Kevin Kiermaier, though with a slightly different shape (more walks but less power). The projections for his peak come in the .260/.350/.370 range with top-notch defense. ZiPS isn’t exactly coming out of nowhere when appreciating his defense, as he’s a 55/60 present/future glove in our rankings and a 70 over at MLB Pipeline.

There aren’t any real surprises here until you get to Owen Murphy at no. 38 a Braves first-rounder from 2022 who got a dynamite translation in ZiPS despite the relatively lackluster ERA. Really though, I just want him to pitch to Sean Murphy in the majors so I can make Murphy’s Law jokes and/or article titles. ZiPS doesn’t give Yu-Min Lin a huge ceiling and he certainly doesn’t have the big velocity, but it sees him as a relatively polished prospect who pitched very well at Double-A when you consider his age and the fact the Texas League was a high-offense league (5.23 runs per game) in 2023. Not to mention the fact that Amarillo’s Hodgetown, the only one word stadium I am aware of, was the biggest home run park in professional baseball last year.

Jackson Jobe had a good return in 2023, enough to place him high in the rankings, and ZiPS likes Drew Thorpe being included in the Padres trade. The love of Dylan Lesko — at least by a PC — is harder to grok, but ZiPS tends not to be quite as worried about walk rate in the low minors for a guy that whiffs a billion batters. There’s high variance here, but that’s enough to give him intriguing potential.

If you’re looking for reasons to be disappointed with how the White Sox are run these days, ZiPS is giving you a new one in the form of Cristian Mena. ZiPS already saw him as a legitimate starter in the majors in 2024, but the Sox traded him to Arizona for Dominic Fletcher. Fletcher hit well in his big league debut, but all the projection systems have him with a high-70s/low-80s wRC+, making him a prime fourth outfielder candidate. That has value, but less so for a rebuilding organization.

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