With the MiLB season starting later today, I thought I would kick off the opening day festivities by predicting what the 2019 Top 50 mid-season prospect list will look like. Once the games start, I will stop predicting, and will start analyzing, which now that I think about it, will probably lead to more predictions. Are prospect lists and fantasy advice anything other than predictions anyway?

1) Wander Franco TB, SS, 18.1 – Assigned to Full-A. If Franco performs even half as well at Full-A as he did in the Appy League, he will be the undisputed top prospect in baseball.

2) Bo Bichette TOR, SS, 21.1 – Bichette will be 25 at-bats into his MLB career by list season and will hit the ground running with 2 homers, 2 steals and a .285 average. The hype will be real.

3) Forrest Whitley HOU, RHP, 21.6 – Pushing, shoving, carving, “Fucking and Punching” (shout-out to any Californication fans out there) or whatever the hell else everyone now seems to be calling it, Whitley will be doing it at the major league level by mid-season, and his 2.81 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 27 innings pitched will be enough for everyone to forget any inherent risk that comes with young pitchers.

4) Royce Lewis MIN, SS, 19.10 – Returning to High-A to start the year, but by mid-season he should have at least gotten a taste of Double-A, allowing Lewis to show off his all category potential in the upper levels of the minors as a 20-year-old.

5) Kyle Tucker HOU, OF, 21.4 – With him still not called up to the majors, MLBTradeRumors will mention his name 436 times in the month of July.

6) Jo Adell LAA, OF, 20.0 – Will likely return to Double-A in June when he recovers from his hamstring and ankle injuries, but the possibility of a slow start to shake some of the rust off could prevent the hype from being where it would have been had he remained healthy.

7) Carter Kieboom WASH, SS, 21.7 – With Dozier struggling, the calls for Kieboom will grow louder and louder by mid-season, juicing up his value on mid-season lists with his ETA moving up earlier than expected.

8) Keston Hiura MIL, 2B, 22.8 – As Orlando Arcia continues to struggle, Milwaukee will move Moustakas to SS, proving the shift has completely killed and redefined positional value, which will be the tipping point for Manfred to ban the shift. Hiura will be solid but unspectacular in his first taste of the majors before getting hot during the stretch run.

9) Alex Kirilloff MIN, OF, 21.5 – Will prove too advanced for Double-A, as the home-schooled Kirilloff was taking batting practice at his dad’s indoor training facility while the pitchers he will be facing were sitting in History class.

10) Taylor Trammell CIN, OF, 21.6 – Assigned to Double-A, and once you start producing at Double-A, the resistance on prospect lists fades away.

11) Brent Honeywell TB, RHP, 24.0 – Only a few starts into his MLB career, Honeywell will still have some rust to shake off from last year’s Tommy John surgery, but the raw stuff will remind everyone why he was ranked so high in the first place.

12) Brendan Rodgers COL, SS, 22.8 – With McMahon, Hampson, or both firmly establishing themselves as Colorado’s second baseman of the future, Rodgers ETA will become murkier and murkier, and his future in Colorado might come into question as his name pops up in trade rumors.

13) Jesus Luzardo OAK, LHP, 21.6 – He shouldn’t be on this list, but the shoulder injury will likely prevent Luzardo from passing his rookie limits by mid-season.

14) Jonathan India CIN, 3B, 22.3 – Advanced, battle tested SEC bat with power, speed, and a good feel to hit will unsurprisingly rip up the minors, proving his low off-season ranking by many outlets to be too conservative.

15) Kristian Robinson ARI, OF, 18.4 – A good full-season debut as an 18-year-old with Robinson’s tools is a recipe for top 10 prospect status in short order.

16) Casey Mize DET, RHP, 21.11 – Mize’s mid 90’s heat with plus command and a plus splitter will put up some crazy K/BB numbers that will finally have the computers and humans come together in universal agreement. This will lay the seeds for future cooperation between man and machine, preventing the impending robot takeover. Yes, Casey Mize will unintentionally save the world.

17) Luis Robert CHW, OF, 21.8 – Once the production comes, Robert’s top 5 fantasy prospect tools will shoot him up lists.

18) Nolan Gorman STL, 3B, 18.11 – Will be talked about as one of, if not the top, pure power hitting prospects in baseball. Gorman is close to the same age as many of the high school kids in this upcoming MLB draft.

19) MacKenzie Gore SD, LHP, 20.1 – With the unexpected Tatis promotion, I’m half expecting Gore to be headlining the Padres rotation by August.

20) Yordan Alvarez HOU, OF, 21.9 – The “hyped up Houston 1B prospect who is blocked” baton will now be passed to Alvarez. Seth Beer is readying himself for the hand-off on the next leg of the race.

21) Andrew Vaughn 1B, California, 21.0 – I’m always aggressive with ranking incoming draft guys, which led me to rank Andrew Benintendi in my top 10 in 2016, but also Zack Collins in my top 25 in 2017. It’s a give and take.

22) Bobby Witt Jr. SS, High School, 18.10 – The top power/speed combo in the draft, and while his hit tool is high risk and high school stats don’t mean much, he does have a 5/16 K/BB in 22 games this season to go along with 11 homers, 10 steals, and a .587 BA.

23) Jasson Dominguez OF, NYY, 16?? – Ranking Dominguez will simply be an exercise in who is willing to take on the most risk for that unknown upside. For a fantasy list especially, you have to skew upside.

24) Cristian Pache ATL, OF, 20.5 – With Pache’s plus centerfield defense, he only needs to be competent against Double-A pitching as a 20-year-old for the hype to really start to push and shove like a 5th grade bully.

25) Michael Kopech CHW, RHP, 22.11 – Underwent Tommy John surgery in September 2018, so no news will be good news, but out of sight, out of mind is a very real thing on prospect lists. Just ask Dusty Colorado.

26) A.J. Puk OAK, LHP, 23.11 – Puk should have at least a few rehab starts under his belt by mid-season, which will be enough to prove his stuff has returned and allow him to flash that elite K upside.

27) Gavin Lux LAD, SS, 21.4 – Speaking of upside, Lux might not have a ton of it, but a 21-year-old with a moderate power/speed combo and a good feel to hit who is performing well at the upper level of the minors will be tough to overlook.

28) Drew Waters ATL, OF, 20.3 – Aggressively assigned to Double-A to start the season, giving Waters the opportunity to prove he is among the most talented prospects in baseball. I wouldn’t bet against him.

29) Vidal Brujan TB, 2B, 21.2 – Tampa takes it nice and slow with their prospects, as Brujan will head back to High-A where he put up a 1.015 OPS in 27 games last year. He might not be able to do quite enough damage at Double-A, if any, for mid-season prospect lists to really fire up the hype train for him.

30) Andres Gimenez NYM, SS, 20.7 – I expect Gimenez to perform well at Double-A, but not explode, which should keep his prospect stock relatively stable.

31) Daz Cameron DET, OF, 22.2 – Hit tool and plate approach will be good enough against advanced Triple-A pitching for Cameron’s power/speed combo to shine through.

32) Adley Rutschman C, Oregon State, 21.2 – Slashing .420/.592/.570 with 8 homers and a 18/37 K/BB in 26 games. I should note that Vaughn in particular (13 for 52 with 2 homers) and Rutschman (2 homers in his last 14 games) haven’t been quite as good since conference play began.

33) Jazz Chisholm ARI, SS, 21.2 – Another aggressive Double-A assignment, but this one is a little riskier with Jazz’ 32.5% K% at High-A

34) Ian Anderson ATL, RHP, 20.11 – I wouldn’t be shocked if Anderson was up with the big league club by list season, and nothing jumps you up lists faster than performing well in small MLB samples.

35) George Valera CLE, OF, 18.5 – Everybody who was able to draft Valera later than they should have been able to in their off-season prospect draft should thank that hamate bone injury for ending his season after just 6 games. The buy window will be slammed shut by mid-season.

36) Sixto Sanchez MIA, RHP, 20.8 – Held back in extended spring training in an effort to limit his early season innings, but also because he may not be 100% healthy after elbow troubles last season and collarbone soreness that held him out of the Arizona Fall League. The injuries are starting to dampen the hype.

37) Dylan Cease CHW, RHP, 23.3 – Returning to Double-A where he put up a pitching line of 1.72/0.99/78/22 in 52.1 IP last season. I expect Cease to be eased into the Majors as a relief pitcher to help Chicago down the stretch in the playoff race.

38) Luis Urias SD, SS/2B, 21.10 – Surprise … Tatis cracked the roster and Urias was sent down. How sad is it that it is absolutely shocking and worthy of praise when baseball teams actually have their best players break camp.

39) Luis Garcia WASH, SS, 18.10 – Back in 2017 I had Leody Taveras ranked 99th and Fernando Tatis Jr. ranked 100th (the vast majority of lists did not have Tatis in their top 100 at all), and wrote, “Hopefully these two lottery tickets turn out better than the one sitting on my coffee table right now.” I don’t think I have to tell you how that turned out so far. Garcia is in a similar boat where the numbers haven’t necessarily been there, but he has been very young compared to his competition and the talent is evident.

40) Jeter Downs LAD, SS, 20.8 – I talked about Downs being one of my favorite underrated prospects in 2019 on the Reunion episode of the Razzball Prospect Podcast, where Ralph Lifshitz and I ran down our favorite prospect targets.

41) Jarred Kelenic SEA, OF, 19.8 – Strong full-season debuts from 19-year-old power-speed combos is a sure way to get the fantasy community dreaming about that upside.

42) Triston McKenzie CLE, RHP, 21.8 – Will be out for about the first month of the season with an upper back strain, which could delay his Triple-A promotion and thus delay the real hype until 2020 off-season lists.

43) Julio Rodriguez SEA, OF, 18.3 – Aggressive assignment to Full-A gives Rodriguez more at-bats to impress prospect rankers, and is an indicator of how high Seattle is on him.

44) Ke’Bryan Hayes PIT, 3B, 22.2 – The power is coming and Hayes will be knocking on the door of the bigs.

45) Bubba Thompson TEX, OF, 20.10 – Will make the leap this year with an improved plate approach and development in the power department.

46) Nico Hoerner CHC, SS, 21.11 – Assigned to Double-A to start the year. I guess the theme of a lot of the risers on this predicted list is if your team believes in you, and gives you the opportunity to shine at higher levels, the list makers will love you.

47) Hunter Bishop OF, ASU, 20.9 –  Turned it up even more since conference play started, with 6 homers in his last 8 games. He’s also young for his draft class. Bishop’s fantasy fypd stock is soaring.

48) Austin Riley ATL, 3B, 22.0 – The only thing between Riley and Atlanta’s 3B job is the brittle and declining Donaldson. I don’t think he will take it over by mid-season, so short of him going Rhys Hoskins at Triple-A, his value should remain stable.

49) Jesus Sanchez TB, OF, 21.6 – Sanchez’ dynasty value has remained pretty stable since 2017, with solid but unexciting stat lines, and I’m expecting the same for 2019.

50) Victor Victor Mesa MIA, OF, 22.8 – Somebody has to be a dropper (taking into account all the graduates) and I’ll go with Victor Victor as he gets picked apart by professional scouts and adjusts to stateside ball.

Just missed: Luis Garcia, Nick Madrigal, Corbin Carroll, CJ Abrams, Riley Greene, Trevor Larnach, Xavier Edwards

Graduates: Vlad Guerrero Jr., Eloy Jimenez, Victor Robles, Fernando Tatis Jr., Nick Senzel, Alex Reyes, Tyler O’Neill, Pete Alonso, Garrett Hampson, Chris Paddack, Christian Stewart, Yusei Kikuchi, Yusniel Diaz, Austin Hays, Danny Jansen, Francisco Mejia, Josh James, Corbin Burnes, Mike Soroka

By Michael Halpern (@MichaelCHalpern)
Email: michaelhalpern@imaginarybrickwall.com
Twitter: Imaginary Brick Wall (@DynastyHalp)