Red Sox place three on Baseball America’s midseason top 100 prospects list

On Friday, Baseball America released their midseason top 100 prospects list. Of course, Baseball Prospectus had just recently released their own top 50 list earlier in the week, and the Red Sox had two minor leaguers on that list. Those same two players are on BA’s list, but their rankings vary a bit. On top of that, one new name makes a top 100 list for the first time in his professional career. I’m sure you can guess who that is.

We’ll start at the top, though, and that is obviously Rafael Devers. After taking the number five spot on BP’s list, he was named the number six prospect in baseball by Baseball America. He placed between Eloy Jimenez of the Cubs and Brendan Rodgers of the Rockies. There’s not much more to say about Devers at this point, and it’s all about just biding our time until we can see him in the big leagues.

There’s no surprise as to who was ranking after Devers among Red Sox prospects, either. That would be Jason Groome, who was ranked as the number 43 prospect on BP’s list. Baseball America is quite a bit lower on the 2016 first round pick, ranking him at 87th on their list between Chris Shaw of the Giants and Kevin Newman of the Pirates. This was a little surprising, given how much talent we all know Groome has. However, he hasn’t really had a chance to show that off at the professional level, and I can understand moving him down by a significant margin — he was 41 on their preseason list — simply because he missed so much time. As long as he’s healthy the rest of the year, I’d expect him to rank much higher on next spring’s preseason lists.

Finally, there is a new name on the list for Red Sox prospects. Michael Chavis has had a huge breakout in the Red Sox farm system this season, and it was enough to give him the number 96 spot on Baseball America’s midseason list. He is listed between Juan Soto of the Nationals and Jordon Adell of the Angels. I’m a little surprised evaluators now think this highly of the 2014 first round pick, but he has certainly earned it with his play this season. More than anything else, Chavis is a reminder of the importance of patience with prospects, particularly those drafted out of high school.