Red Sox land two on FanGraphs top 120 prospects list

FanGraphs has released their top 120 prospects in baseball on Wednesday, and the Red Sox arguably did as well here as anywhere else, largely thanks to the addition of Jeter Downs to their system. They did have three players on Baseball America’s list with Downs, Triston Casas and Bobby Dalbec, but they were all towards the back of the list. Comparing that to landing two on FanGraphs further up — we’ll get to the specifics in a moment — depends on how you value quality versus quantity in a sense.

Anyway, on FanGraphs, Downs and Casas both made the list as the only two 50 Future Value prospects in the system. No one with a Future Value below 50 makes this list. Future Value is graded on the 20-80 scouting scale, and more information on it can be found here.

As for where the individual players ranked, Downs was the first Red Sox prospect to be listed, coming in at number 47 between Cubs prospect Nico Hoerner and Marlins prospect Sixto Sanchez. It is worth noting that Downs is the second-ranked 50 Future Value prospect on this list, though the difference between anyone with the same Future Value, in the eyes of FanGraphs at least, is not large. About Downs, they acknowledge a move to second base is probably for the best, but they believe in the bat. As always, click the link at the top for a more in-depth view into how they feel about each player.

Casas, meanwhile, was not too far behind Downs, coming in at number 57. The first baseman did better here than the other lists — again, with the caveat that there is not a huge difference between players in this tier — which isn’t super surprising because FanGraphs has long been higher than most on Casas. He lands in between Alec Bohm of the Phillies and Alex Kirilloff of the Twins. They see power to all fields for Casas.