MLB.com ranks Michael Chavis as baseball’s fourth best third base prospect

As we continue to get through prospect ranking season, most of the focus is on individual team lists and top 100 lists from around the internet, and understandably so. However, another interesting project that is undertaken every year is found at MLB Pipeline, who ranks the top ten prospects at every position. They started this year’s series last week, and had gotten through left-handed pitcher, right-handed pitcher, catcher, first base and second base without having named a Red Sox prospect to any list. The only one there that was mildly surprising, of course, was that Jason Groome was not among the top ten left-handed pitching prospects in the game. Of course, as I discussed on Tuesday, he’s going to be a divisive prospect all spring.

Also on Tuesday, MLB Pipeline got to their third base rankings and the Red Sox finally got their first (and likely only) bit of representation on these lists. Michael Chavis, the near-unanimous number two prospect in the farm system, was ranked as the fourth best third base prospect in all of baseball. I keep saying how impressive it is that Chavis is anywhere near any ranking given where he was at this time last year, but this is the most impressive feat yet.

Granted, it needs to be mentioned that being a top third base prospect may not be as exciting as it seems. Although the hot corner is one of the deepest and most top-heavy positions in the majors right now, there are a lot of third basemen who come up as shortstops or second basemen but have to move to a corner. So, the best third baseman of the next generation may not even be at the position right now. Additionally, Chavis himself may not be at the position in the future, as his defense is his biggest question and it’s particularly questionable in Boston with Rafael Devers ahead of him. Interestingly, MLB Pipeline mentions a possible move to second base a la Jedd Gyorko, though I’d be surprised by that turn of evens.

All that aside, this is still a tremendous story for Chavis and is just another reason we should be excited to see what is in store for the upcoming season.