By Mason McRae
After just finishing Eric Pardinho’s article last week, I got an itch to release to complete the ranking. As you can see listed below, the top 25 players in the system under 25. Note: the ages listed were on September 1st when I started the articles.
| Rank | Age | Name | Current | Potential | Grade |
| 1 | 20.5 | Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 60 | 70 | 66.2 |
| 2 | 21.5 | Bo Bichette | 55 | 60 | 57.6 |
| 3 | 23.0 | Nate Pearson | 40 | 60 | 52.2 |
| 4 | 24.4 | Danny Jansen | 45 | 50 | 47.1 |
| 5 | 19.8 | Jordan Groshans | 20 | 55 | 42.1 |
| 6 | 21.6 | Alek Manoah | 20 | 55 | 42.0 |
| 7 | 24.4 | Cavan Biggio | 40 | 45 | 41.9 |
| 8 | 24.5 | Rowdy Tellez | 40 | 45 | 41.9 |
| 9 | 24.4 | Anthony Kay | 40 | 45 | 41.9 |
| 10 | 19.0 | Adam Kloffenstein | 20 | 50 | 38.9 |
| 11 | 18.9 | Simeon Woods Richardson | 20 | 50 | 38.9 |
| 12 | 18.6 | Eric Pardinho | 20 | 50 | 38.9 |
| 13 | 22.1 | Griffin Conine | 30 | 45 | 38.7 |
| 14 | 24.0 | Sean Reid-Foley | 30 | 45 | 38.5 |
| 15 | 17.8 | Orelvis Martinez | 20 | 45 | 37.5 |
| 16 | 24.2 | Patrick Murphy | 30 | 40 | 36.6 |
| 17 | 19.5 | Elvis Luciano | 30 | 40 | 35.6 |
| 18 | 19.0 | Miguel Hiraldo | 20 | 45 | 35.5 |
| 19 | 19.0 | Kendall Williams | 20 | 45 | 35.5 |
| 20 | 23.1 | Kevin Smith | 30 | 40 | 35.2 |
| 21 | 23.6 | Cullen Large | 30 | 40 | 35.1 |
| 22 | 24.1 | T.J Zeuch | 30 | 40 | 35.1 |
| 23 | 24.5 | Reese McGuire | 30 | 40 | 35.1 |
| 24 | 23.8 | Hector Perez | 30 | 40 | 35.1 |
| 25 | 17.9 | Dasan Brown | 20 | 40 | 32.2 |
To give a quick breakdown of how I created top-10: To fairly compare guys like Anthony Kay who has nowhere near the upside of a guy like Eric Pardinho, SWR, or Adam Kloffenstein. I created a ‘total grade’ formula that weights their current grade higher than the future grade and also factors in age. So a 30/45 player who’s 21, is ranked lower than a 20/50 18 year old.
Obviously Vlady Jr, and Bo Bichette are the two best players in that order. No questions asked. The third is their future closer – Nate Pearson, he’s their best prospect and will be a player they build around. Danny Jansen at 4 is questionable, after taking a step backwards in year two, you’d assume he’d drop but he still looks like the Jays catcher of the future.
The last two first-rounders Groshans and Manoah round up the top-6. I think Manoah’s too high, but some high-ups in the jays’ organization convinced me to move him up. Biggio, Tellez, and Kay are 7,8,9 in that order. Biggio will be a middle-of-the-order threat, Tellez will be a solid platoon 1B under control and Kay is a solid 3/4 rotation arm from the left side, something the Jays still lack aside from Pardinho.
Lastly, 10 and 11 are Adam Kloffenstein and Simeon Woods Richardson. Both are low, especially SWR. But they still haven’t proven much in their short careers, which is something you can’t hold against them – but it has to be considered. Both are going to be impact starters in a future rotation. If the Jays’ rebuild gets going, it’s going to because of these two guys.
There it is, the top 25/under 25 players in the Blue Jays organization, let me know what you disagree with.
Kay is a solid 3/4 rotation arm from the left side, something the Jays still lack aside from Pardinho. I have no clue what you are talking about here. What does the LHP Kay have that only RHP Pardinho have?
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Messed up and put Pardinho was a LHP, when he’s a RHP.
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A good deal of your grades are puzzling to say the least. In what world does Rowdy Tellez garner the same present and future value as Cavan Biggio? Biggio just had a tremendous rookie season whereas Tellez struggled throughout his time in the big leagues. Biggio provides about average quality defense at 2nd base, is a tremendous baserunner and provided above league average offense. Tellez may be a decent defender but at first base which really limits his value, a poor baserunner and provided below average offense.
Another glaring example I really don’t agree with is giving Vladdy Jr. a higher current ranking than Bo Bichette. How does this make any sense? One is a shortstop capable of providing quality defense how just torched MLB pitching, and the other is one of the worst defenders in baseball at third base, a terrible baserunner, and barely posted above average WRC+. Sure you can project Vlad to be a better overall player than Bo in the future, but if you really believe that is the case now then I really don’t see how you can come to that conclusion.
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I think Tellez and Biggio are both Platoon starters with below avg defense at their respective positions and I don’t think Bo will hit like he did last year – While Vlady will get better and be the best player on the roster.
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I felt that Biggio was improving at second base once the team stopped moving him around on the diamond, he is far from a finished product defensively. At least to my eye he seemed to be getting better jumps to the ball later on in the year, perhaps there is an adjustment period to the turn at Roger’s center and with how hard the ball is hit at the major league level. He didn’t show an extreme platoon split so far, WRC+ of 119 vs RHP and 104 vs LHP with similar K and BB rates vs each. That doesn’t scream platoon player in the slightest to me. He is one of those guys that appears to get the most out of his skills due to high baseball intelligence, and has been severely underrated as a prospect as he continues to get better every year for several years now.
I have no issue with you saying Vlad will be the better player long term, maybe he will maximize his talent with a more serious off the field regimen, however to state that he is presently a better player than Bo suggests that you didn’t pay attention to what actually happened on the field.
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You don’t need to watch the games, the numbers don’t lie.
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Which numbers would those be exactly? We must be looking at different numbers by the sounds of things.
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Bichette played in 46 Games, as I said in the article. He’s going to be a perennial all-star. But his sample size is way too small. Too think he’ll put up similar numbers (or better) is asinine. Vlady struggled mightily when called up and figured it out by September.
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Hey Kevin, If you have a Twitter. Mine is Mason_mcrae I’d love to talk to you about this in DM’s instead of back-and-forward responses over the period of 3 days.
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Unfortunately I don’t have twitter to discuss this more easily. For Vladdy have a look at his September numbers, he put up a WRC+ of 45!!! from that point forward, although he did have a monster month of August where he put up 159 WRC+. I found that his rookie season was ultimately pretty disappointing, you can see that he possesses mountains of talent, unfortunately his mountains of extra flesh may ultimately prevent him from leveraging that talent completely. After seeing so many of the other super talents hit the league with an explosion, guys like Soto, Bichette, Acuna, etc., it was so disheartening to see Vladdy Jr. struggle so much in comparison.
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You’ve made a lot ofgreat points, some that are 100% correct. But a lot of the stuff I write about involves the projection of a player, not just the face value of a players current contribution. I’m sure you can understand that.
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