Baseball America releases Red Sox top prospect list

As the winter rolls along, so does prospect ranking SZN. The Red Sox were among the first to be ranked by Baseball Prospectus, and now Baseball America is also handling the American League East fairly early in the offseason. Monday was Boston’s day at BA, and as has been the case for the last few years this season’s list was authored by the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier. Year after year this is the list that generally aligns most with my own feelings, and that seems to be the case again this year. There are a few differences here and there — unless someone writes a list themselves it’s basically impossible for there to be no differences — but for the most part this looks pretty much right to me.

This is behind a paywall, so I won’t talk about the scouting reports, tidbits of information and insights regarding the organization’s feelings about certain players. I highly encourage anyone who is interested in this stuff to subscribe to Baseball America, who has the reputation as the leading voice in all things prospects for a reason. Here’s the list.

1. Triston Casas, 1B
2. Bobby Dalbec, 3B
3. Bryan Mata, RHP
4. Jarren Duran, OF
5. Darwinzon Hernandez, LHP
6. Thad Ward, RHP
7. Jay Groome, LHP
8. Gilberto Jimenez, OF
9. Noah Song, RHP
10. Tanner Houck, RHP

• I’m going to start this one in the middle because Darwinzon Hernandez being on this list is the one that blew me away. This is not because he does not belong on the list, because he showed the stuff at the highest level to be among the top ten prospects in below-average system. It’s rather that I hadn’t ever really considered him a prospect at this point. He was not on Sox Prospects or Baseball Prospectus lists, and presumably not because he wasn’t in their top 60 or 20, respectively, Red Sox prospects. There always seems to be one guy every year who is eligible for Baseball America but no one else, and this year Darwinzon Hernandez is the guy.
• As for the actual ordering here, the first real surprise (beyond Hernandez) is probably not until you get to Ward. Duran might be a little high at four, but as I’ve said before I’m relatively high on the speedy outfielder so I have no problem here. Ward is another one I certainly don’t have a problem with, but this now makes two lists (along with BP) where he is in the middle of the top ten rather than out of it or at the end.
• Song at number nine isn’t really a major surprise either, as he is only one spot highest on Sox Prospects’ list. Still, I have to mention him every time because this is the first name I look for on every list when it comes out. It’s a fascinating discussion, because again by talent he is easily a top three prospect in the system and arguably number one. The fact that he may miss the next two seasons, though, could feasibly knock him all the way out of the top ten and maybe well beyond that. It’s really, really interesting.

Below is our composite rankings from all of the experts. As a reminder, for the averages it counts any player who is not on a list as the ranking following the last ranking from said list. For example, a player who is not ranked by Baseball America is counted as number 11 for the purposes of the rankings. That skews the numbers a bit, so I’d use it more as an ordering tool rather than a real average ranking.