One of the yearly articles I have the most fun writing is the list of the top 100 ZiPS minor league prospects. Forecasting is inherently a future-driven activity, even if it uses the past as a guide, and it is always tantalizing to peer behind the veil and try to see a bit of the future. It is also the hardest forecasting challenge; they're called prospects, after all, and not guarantees. It isn't that hard to project Clayton Kershaw to be a Cy Young favorite or Joey Votto to be the crazy genius of hitting, but it's extremely hard to find the next versions of those players.
The ZiPS projection system is data-driven, so the names here will not necessarily match the names you see on a more scout-driven list. Which is fine, computers are great at sorting through large amounts of data, not scouting players, and what the data say provides a well-rounded look at a player in addition to the stats. You'll find a lot of agreement on a lot of players, this year's edition featuring nearly three-quarters of the same players as Keith Law's Top 100. It's the disagreements that tend to be the most interesting.
One note is that a projection system needs data, so there's one very notable omission here in Hunter Greene, drafted from high school and very little professional experience. For a player like him, I'm not sure a projection system has a lot to offer at this stage in his career. Projections are cool tools, but knowing how to use a tool also means knowing when not to use it. Hammers do what they do well, but you can't use them to fix a broken window. I think.
With that revealed, here are some of the most interesting players from the fifth edition of the ZiPS Top 100 prospects.
Ronald Acuña, CF, Atlanta Braves: ZiPS' No. 1 and Law's No. 1. Acuña is particularly interesting, not because stats and scouts disagree, but to the extent that they agree with almost unanimous praise. With Shohei Ohtani not eligible for this list due to high-level professional play in Japan (he'd be No. 2 otherwise), Acuña doesn't just squeeze out the top rank, but actually laps the field, with ZiPS projecting his career WAR at 14 wins more than the second-place player. Acuña's comp list is full of top talent, from Adam Jones to Bernie Williams to Chili Davis to (young) Matt Kemp to Andruw Jones and Andrew McCutchen. ZiPS has projected only three rookies to get over the 50 WAR barrier: Mike Trout, Kris Bryant and Acuña.
Francisco Mejia, C, Cleveland Indians: ZiPS' No. 37 and Law's No. 7. ZiPS doesn't hate Mejia or anything and still sees him as a viable starter for the Indians. It's just that historically, young catchers seem to have oddball developmental patterns and a high rate of disappointment, whether young major league catchers such as Ben Petrick or Ben Davis, or top catching prospects like Jesus Montero or Javier Valentin.
Luis Urias, SS, San Diego Padres: ZiPS' No. 5 and Law's No. 38. Urias gives the Padres two middle infield prospects in the ZiPS top five prospects, behind Fernando Tatis Jr. in the third spot. The anticipated arrival of Tatis and Urias is one reason that I've been extremely vocal about the Padres using their second base and shortstop jobs at the major league level to evaluate the lesser prospects they have who play or can conceivably play the position. They need to see what players such as Carlos Asuaje, Jose Rondon (now with the Chicago White Sox) or Allen Cordoba can do (and what they might be worth in trade), rather than goofing around with veteran space-fillers Erick Aybar and now Freddy Galvis. Be that as it may, ZiPS projects Urias to hit 8-10 homers a year and put up a .350-.360 OBP in his prime with a good glove, which absolutely plays at second.
A.J. Puk, starting pitcher, Oakland Athletics: ZiPS' No. 96, Law's No. 13. I'm actually more on Keith's side on this one. ZiPS is rightly suspicious of young pitchers and sees Puk as risky given his lack of professional experience, but I'm not as willing to see Puk's low homer totals in difficult environments as a fluke as the computer does. ZiPS uses college stats when necessary due to limited professional information and Puk did walk a lot of batters in college. He improved on that in the minors and I think that progress was real.
Luiz Gohara, starting pitcher, Atlanta Braves: ZiPS' No. 7, Law's No. 50. It might be a little weird to think of Gohara as the best pitching prospect in baseball, and he probably doesn't have quite as high a ceiling as some other top pitching prospects -- though his is high -- but he also has already survived the minor league meat grinder that led Baseball Prospectus to coin the term TINSTAAPP (There is No Such Thing as a Pitching Prospect) 20 years ago. ZiPS projects Gohara as the safest, most result-friendly pitcher in the minors, and in his five MLB starts he held opposing teams to a FIP of just 2.75. ZiPS already thinks Gohara is the best starting pitcher on the Braves.
Justus Sheffield, starting pitcher, New York Yankees: ZiPS' No. 122, Law's No. 16. Sheffield remains young for his levels, but ZiPS was concerned that his strikeout and walk rates went backward from 2016. Giving up 14 homers was too many to allow in 93⅓ innings in Double-A; if he were projected to pitch in a less homer-friendly stadium than Yankee Stadium, Sheffield moves back into the top 100. In fact, as a Tampa Bay Ray he would get up to No. 68.
Jack Flaherty, starting pitcher, St. Louis Cardinals: ZiPS' No. 11, Law's No. 43. ZiPS has been on the Flaherty bandwagon for a while. The Cardinals agree, which is almost certainly part of the reason the team was willing to say goodbye to Mike Leake's innings-eating and not go aggressive with re-signing Lance Lynn or one of the other free-agent pitchers, talking more with other teams about outfield talent. There's always the risk that a pitcher with less than top-notch stuff getting strikeouts in the minors that he won't get in the majors, but as Keith notes, Flaherty's stuff has improved, and he can hit the mid-90s, something you don't expect from one of those minor league junkballers cheating fate.
Bo Bichette, SS, Toronto Blue Jays: ZiPS' No. 70, Law's No. 17. While ZiPS sees Bichette as an eventual starter in the majors, the Florida State League is a long way from Toronto. We still have to see how good his batting average looks when he doesn't have a .432 BABIP, as he does professionally, because that's not sustainable in the majors. I can see a solid 2018 moving Bichette up very quickly, however, when ZiPS is more confident about the data.
Mike Soroka, starting pitcher, Atlanta Braves: ZiPS' No. 14, Law's No. 60. Another Braves starter that ZiPS adores, Soroka is another high schooler who looks to be panning out. Soroka keeps the ball in the park and while he wasn't a strikeout machine in Double-A, he was also just 19 at the start of the season, so there's a lot of time for that to come. With a middle infield of Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson in Atlanta, Soroka's sinking stuff projects better in Atlanta than with the average team.
Aramis Ademan, SS, Chicago Cubs: ZiPS' No. 18, Law's No. 78. ZiPS has a strange thing for Cubs infielders with alliterative names, also liking former Cub Arismendy Alcantara better than most prospect observers. That didn't quite work out, but maybe the second time's the charm and Ademan's seven homers in 68 games as an 18-year-old is more impressive than it sounds with both the Midwest and Northwest Leagues being pitcher-friendly environments. Keith thinks that Ademan could hit 20 homers a year in his prime; ZiPS agrees.
Yordan Alvarez, 1B/OF, Houston Astros: ZiPS' No. 168, Law's No. 40. Like Yonder Alonso back when he was a prospect, ZiPS remains unimpressed by Alvarez's lack of power in the minors so far. That could still very easily come -- he certainly looks like a guy who should develop power -- but ZiPS is going to be a bit standoffish on a guy at the easy end of the defensive spectrum until he actually demonstrates the power in the minors.
Austin Hays, CF, Baltimore Orioles: ZiPS' No. 19, Law's No. 79. ZiPS already has Hays projected to a .281/.310/.468 line with 24 homers in 2018 and while that's below average for a corner outfielder these days, it's still just his age-22 season. ZiPS projects Hays to be a 120-130 OPS+ hitter in his prime, good enough to be a solidly above-average contributor in a corner given that his defense isn't Mark Trumbo-ish. If he really can fake center field well enough to play the position in the majors -- and let's be honest, isn't Adam Jones doing that these days anyway? -- he could be even better.
Brandon Woodruff, starting pitcher, Milwaukee Brewers: ZiPS' No. 21, Law's No. 93. Woodruff is one of those low-ceiling guys with very high floors that a projection system will tend to value more than prospect watchers. You don't have that same shot as having a star, but in a world in which a win costs $7.5 million or more in free agency, a polished prospect with strong odds of being a No. 2 or 3 pitcher in the rotation can have a lot of surplus value. Woodruff gave up only eight homers in 16 starts for Colorado Springs in the Pacific Coast League and anybody who can survive that can probably survive the majors. And playing in Miller Park, one of the most homer-friendly parks in the majors, that's a coveted asset.
Austin Riley, 3B, Atlanta Braves: ZiPS' No. 27, unranked by Law. And to think people think I have a vendetta against the Braves, mainly for my Matt Kemp/Nick Markakis jokes. You don't really hear that much buzz about Riley, but it's hard to ignore a .900 OPS in the Southern League at age 20. Riley has a good shot at sticking at third base, and if he hits his projections, he won't have any trouble pushing Johan Camargo and Rio Ruiz out of the way. ZiPS doesn't see a high batting average or on-base percentage, but does see Riley hitting 25-30 homers a year. If he does need to move to first, ZiPS is much less confident (as I would be).