Nick Yorke named top second base prospect in baseball

It’s been a hell of a year for Nick Yorke, who in the summer of 2020 was the most confounding first round selection and now less than two years later is one of the very best prospects not just in the Boston Red Sox farm system, but in all of baseball, appearing on all top 100 lists this winter. In fact, according to Baseball America, he is actually the best prospect in the game at his position at second base. They named him both the top overall second baseman in the minor-league ranks and also the top hitter among second base prospects.

Yorke is of course coming off one of the biggest breakouts in the entire system, finishing last season hitting a combined .325/.412/.516 across 442 plate appearances, splitting time between Low-A Salem and High-A Greenville. His bat-to-ball skills are excellent with his short swing, and he combines that with solid power and fantastic plate discipline.

All of that also helped him grab another accolade on Friday, with the ZiPS projection system top prospect list coming out. Now, it is fair to question how much we should read into rankings from a projection system leaning heavily on minor-league stats, but it’s worth nothing that Yorke came in as the top Red Sox prospect on this list and was 18th overall in all of baseball. Marcelo Mayer and Triston Casas also made the list, ranked at 23 and 56, respectively.

In non-Yorke news, Baseball America also ranked the top first base prospects earlier in the week, and as you would expect the Red Sox were represented with Casas. He was ranked as the number two first base prospect in the game, behind only former number one overall pick Spencer Torkelson. Alex Binelas, who Boston acquired in the Hunter Renfroe trade and was drafted by the Brewers in last summer’s draft, also made that list, coming in as the number eight prospect in baseball. According to Baseball America, at least, Boston appears to have plenty of young help waiting in the wings on the right side of the dirt.