Misc. Offseason Brewers Prospect Rankings

[JosephC]

MLB Pipeline has updated the top 100 and no Brewer on the list.

 

Have to admit that I'm surprised that these lists are coming out and Small is not #2 on the Brewer's list. Just seemed that all the post draft talk was about Small was overlooked and should have been rated higher...more along the lines of where the Brewers took him and not in the 50-60 range...with talk like that I thought he'd be a solid #2 ahead of Lutz. Lutz is sure getting a ton of mileage off of pre-draft workout(s).

[wildcat2237]

Here is a link to the MLB Pipeline Top 100: http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2020?list=prospects

 

Gotta say I'm very disappointed as this is just not sustainable.

 

I'm really hoping Small, Lutz, Feliciano take a big step in 2020. With a good year I think both Small and Feliciano could be top 50 by this time next year.

 

However, ultimately I think Yelich and Hader trades will be needed to re-stock the system.

[adambr2]

They're simply not doing good enough in their supplemental to 2nd round picks. Bello, Gray, Lemons, Erceg, they have to do better than this.

 

They've been doing well in the 1st for the most part, Ray is the only 1st rounder in the Stearns era that looks like a total flop.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

They're simply not doing good enough in their supplemental to 2nd round picks. Bello, Gray, Lemons, Erceg, they have to do better than this.

 

They've been doing well in the 1st for the most part, Ray is the only 1st rounder in the Stearns era that looks like a total flop.

 

Bello and Gray and 19, and Lemons just turned 21. Probably a little early to dig the graves on their careers.

[adambr2]

They're simply not doing good enough in their supplemental to 2nd round picks. Bello, Gray, Lemons, Erceg, they have to do better than this.

 

They've been doing well in the 1st for the most part, Ray is the only 1st rounder in the Stearns era that looks like a total flop.

 

Bello and Gray and 19, and Lemons just turned 21. Probably a little early to dig the graves on their careers.

 

Never said I was. But Lemons has almost 3 professional years under his belt and all of 34 innings to show for it.

 

And while Gray and Bello may be 19, it's not a great sign to see them overmatched in Rookie ball. But they have a lot of time left.

 

Lemons is probably getting close to the end, actually. Age aside he probably needs to make some strides in 2020 to be stuck with much longer.

 

My point was they really haven't gotten much out of their post 1st talent lately aside from Corbin Burnes.

[clancyphile]

Wisconsin, I think will tell the tale. That said, if he is still hot in Wisconsin, I may use him to get a piece at the deadline. This is a profile that can flame out, especially if pitchers figure out how to get him to swing at trash more.

 

I'm certainly going to be watching his pitch count per AB in Wisconsin. Maybe he's just hitting the first strike he gets but if he's keeping ABs alive by fouling off balls or costing himself outs by softly putting bad pitches in play, then I won't get too excited about him. His GBOs are on the bad side of average.

 

His speed, contact skills and rumored defense in CF makes him a pretty hard type to wash out. However, controlling the strike zone is the difference between being a 5th OF and being a lead-off man. I'd also like to see him up his SB/CS percentages. Right now he's a fast kid who can't steal bases.

 

According to the stats, he does seem to be Tony Gwynn minus the ability to draw walks.

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=rodrig026car

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gwynnto01.shtml

[TJseven7]

Gotta say I'm very disappointed as this is just not sustainable.

 

At the end of 2018 Grisham was 19th in our system and no where near the top 100. Houser was 16th and no where near the top 100. Devin Williams wasn't listed.

At the end of 2017 Peralta was our 9th rated prospect and no where near the top 100.

At the end of 2016 Woodruff was our 25th rated prospect and no where near the top 100.

 

Also heading into 2016. Brinson was 14th, Diaz was 97th, Harrison was our 16th best prospect and Yamamoto wasn't listed. By the end of 2017 they were worth Yelich.

 

This system has a way of vaulting someone from off the radar to top 100 in half a year. Then a half a year after that they are graduated. The track record of that looks pretty sustainable. The guys doing the rankings on the other hand look very, well, uninformed. I don't blame them. MiLB is a beast to cover and getting film on the minors must be a complete chore. That doesn't excuse the fact that their rankings aren't worth jack. Their rankings are simply the best options in a sea of guesses.

 

Guys suck at ranking college football draftees and they are going to play in the NFL the next fall. Film of them is everywhere to be found.

[Manty Brewer Fan]

Just sharing that Hedbert Perez ranked VERY high on the BA top 100 intl signings from last year. I've been waiting for this ranking as i suspected based on fall writings he was a blow-up guy since July 2... Just thought I'd share. Probably the most excited I've been about one of J2 specs in the stearns era. I also think Jesus Parra will begin to fly up the ranks next year.

[sveumrules]

I think another thing to consider is that the Brewers have pursued value at every opportunity under Stearns.

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this extends to their valuation of amateur players/prospects.

 

If the Brewers are intentionally targeting players they believe are underrated by the rest of baseball, that will naturally show up in lower prospect ratings.

[clancyphile]

I think another thing to consider is that the Brewers have pursued value at every opportunity under Stearns.

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this extends to their valuation of amateur players/prospects.

 

If the Brewers are intentionally targeting players they believe are underrated by the rest of baseball, that will naturally show up in lower prospect ratings.

 

The soft-tossing lefty who knows how to pitch. A high-contact hitter with OBP skills but little power. The guy who will provide a consistent 110 OPS+, rather than a feast-or-famine player...

[Fear The Chorizo]

Gotta say I'm very disappointed as this is just not sustainable.

 

At the end of 2018 Grisham was 19th in our system and no where near the top 100. Houser was 16th and no where near the top 100. Devin Williams wasn't listed.

At the end of 2017 Peralta was our 9th rated prospect and no where near the top 100.

At the end of 2016 Woodruff was our 25th rated prospect and no where near the top 100.

 

Also heading into 2016. Brinson was 14th, Diaz was 97th, Harrison was our 16th best prospect and Yamamoto wasn't listed. By the end of 2017 they were worth Yelich.

 

This system has a way of vaulting someone from off the radar to top 100 in half a year. Then a half a year after that they are graduated. The track record of that looks pretty sustainable. The guys doing the rankings on the other hand look very, well, uninformed. I don't blame them. MiLB is a beast to cover and getting film on the minors must be a complete chore. That doesn't excuse the fact that their rankings aren't worth jack. Their rankings are simply the best options in a sea of guesses.

 

Guys suck at ranking college football draftees and they are going to play in the NFL the next fall. Film of them is everywhere to be found.

 

This is a great post and observation - Looking back at when the Brewers' system was actually considered among the very best in baseball just 3-4 years ago, almost all the names of prospects who gave the system that level of prestige have amounted to zilch as impact MLB players - several of them were very possibly traded at peak value to get Yelich. Even if Diaz, Harrison, Yamamoto and Brinson wind up making a couple all star game appearances between them during the course of their careers it's a huge win for the Brewers acquiring an MVP. Others were dealt towards the end of their minor league eligibility to help bolster the MLB roster during postseason runs (Ortiz, Phillips, Medeiros, etc).

 

The minor league system needs to be viewed more as a tool that helps improve the MLB roster and not just as another component of an organization that gets judged separately for how good it is based on rankings services that are too heavily weighed by recent draft positions - some of that comes from drafting/developing quality players internally that wind up contributing at the MLB level. But simply due to the sheer number of prospects, an equally big part is knowing when to improve overall talent in the organization by moving talented prospects with questionable MLB ceilings at their peak value for proven MLB talent.

 

The current Brewers' system is very young/undeveloped in terms of their top prospect list - partly because collegiate players like Hiura rocketed through the system in such a hurry there wasn't enough time for his true value to influence how an overall system looked on paper. An arm like Rasmussen will never be considered a top 50 prospect due to his age and injury concerns - but everyone knows if he stays healthy he's already a MLB reliever at worst with a pretty high ceiling. A guy like Small isn't yet considered a bigtime prospect because he wasn't throwing high 90's and didn't have enough minor league innings to dominate in higher minor league levels as a college draftee yet. Without even drafting any studs this coming June, I can see their overall system outlook moving into the middle of the league simply from prospects they already have staying healthy and getting another season of development in higher minor league levels that would better establish their potential as MLB contributors.

[TJseven7]

On top of that. Without saying Arica point to our J2 signings who impacted the ranking of our system? It's really been non-existent. The old rules prevented MKE from buying into that market and the program as a whole wasn't fully committed into it.

 

They've been committed to that for 2-3 years now. Well those 16-17 year old kids are now 17-20. That's still very young. However you are starting to see CRod, Garcia pop up in the rankings. You see the love fest articles about Medina and Perez. A good number of the top freak prospects that are in the top 100 are J2 19 year olds (in the past bought by CHI BOS and NYY alone) who are blowing up in A/A+. MKE is finally getting a few of those guys in the pipeline. The system being considered "bad" is also the calm before the storm. Some of these DSL kids are about to get noticed in our system. Crod seems to be the engine leading a building train of talent.

 

I'm not saying Eloy is down there, but they've stacked up some talent down there.

Before

2014 Mailen ranked 28 and Pierre ranked 22nd.

2015 Lara ranked 4th

2016 Pablo Abreu who was ranked 30th.

After

2017 Carlos Rodriguez, of, Venezuela (No. 8 prospect), Larry Ernesto, of, Dominican Republic (No. 26 prospect)

2018 Eduarqui Fernandez, of, Dominican Republic (No. 28 prospect) Branlyn Jaraba, 3b, Colombia (No. 41 prospect) Eduardo Garcia, ss, Venezuela (No. 49 prospect)

2019 Luis Medina, OF, Venezuela (No. 13 prospect) and some are very excited about Hedbert Perez, OF, Venezuela our #2 signing.

 

The oldest guys in this group are 21. Most haven't hit 20. Some are barely cracking A ball. That's going to pay off in the coming years.

[clancyphile]

On top of that. Without saying Arica point to our J2 signings who impacted the ranking of our system? It's really been non-existent. The old rules prevented MKE from buying into that market and the program as a whole wasn't fully committed into it.

 

They've been committed to that for 2-3 years now. Well those 16-17 year old kids are now 17-20. That's still very young. However you are starting to see CRod, Garcia pop up in the rankings. You see the love fest articles about Medina and Perez. A good number of the top freak prospects that are in the top 100 are J2 19 year olds (in the past bought by CHI BOS and NYY alone) who are blowing up in A/A+. MKE is finally getting a few of those guys in the pipeline. The system being considered "bad" is also the calm before the storm. Some of these DSL kids are about to get noticed in our system. Crod seems to be the engine leading a building train of talent.

 

I'm not saying Eloy is down there, but they've stacked up some talent down there.

Before

2014 Mailen ranked 28 and Pierre ranked 22nd.

2015 Lara ranked 4th

2016 Pablo Abreu who was ranked 30th.

After

2017 Carlos Rodriguez, of, Venezuela (No. 8 prospect), Larry Ernesto, of, Dominican Republic (No. 26 prospect)

2018 Eduarqui Fernandez, of, Dominican Republic (No. 28 prospect) Branlyn Jaraba, 3b, Colombia (No. 41 prospect) Eduardo Garcia, ss, Venezuela (No. 49 prospect)

2019 Luis Medina, OF, Venezuela (No. 13 prospect) and some are very excited about Hedbert Perez, OF, Venezuela our #2 signing.

 

The oldest guys in this group are 21. Most haven't hit 20. Some are barely cracking A ball. That's going to pay off in the coming years.

 

I'm a big fan of Aaron Familia...

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=famili000aar

 

Even in bad years, lots of walks. Plays third base and first.

[TJseven7]

That's sure an interesting path he's on. Rough year, great year, rough year, great year. As a 21 year old he needs to pick up the pace this year. A- to A and good results sure would help his prospects.

[clancyphile]

That's sure an interesting path he's on. Rough year, great year, rough year, great year. As a 21 year old he needs to pick up the pace this year. A- to A and good results sure would help his prospects.

 

I half-expect a rough year, since it's the jump to full-season ball, but the fact he walks - and that the walks carried over from DSL to Arizona - have me willing to be patient with his development.

[Jenkins5]

What do we all know about Hedbert Perez? We all were able to read a bunch on Medina but all of a sudden Perez’s name is popping up a lot more. Hard to find much on him. Know dad played in MLB and runs a baseball academy in which Hedbert played for. Outside of that, don’t know much about him

[Eye Black]

Just sharing that Hedbert Perez ranked VERY high on the BA top 100 intl signings from last year. I've been waiting for this ranking as i suspected based on fall writings he was a blow-up guy since July 2... Just thought I'd share. Probably the most excited I've been about one of J2 specs in the stearns era. I also think Jesus Parra will begin to fly up the ranks next year.

The Baseball America Prospect Handbook has 8 international signings from recent years ranked in the Brewers organizational top 30:

 

#8 - Eduardo Garcia, SS (Venezuela, 2018)

#11 - Hedbert Perez, OF (Venezuela, 2019)

#12 - Carlos Rodriguez, OF (Venezuela, 2017)

#14 - Luis Medina, OF (Venezuela, 2019)

#18 - Jesus Parra, 3B/2B (Venezuela, 2018)

#19 - Jeferson Quero, C (Venezuela, 2019)

#26 - Jheremy Vargas, SS (Venezuela, 2019)

#30 - Eduarqui Fernandez, OF (Dominican Republic, 2018)

 

I haven’t gone back and looked to confirm for certain, but I believe that is the most international signees that have appeared in the Brewers BA top 30 in recent years.

[TJseven7]

What do we all know about Hedbert Perez? We all were able to read a bunch on Medina but all of a sudden Perez’s name is popping up a lot more. Hard to find much on him. Know dad played in MLB and runs a baseball academy in which Hedbert played for. Outside of that, don’t know much about him

 

Nothing. Frankly I don't know what's going on that's driving the hype train. No one really talked about him when MKE signed him but 1 place. Now multiple places are acting like they spent more than Medina money on him. I stated earlier, something changed with MKE's dedication to DSL/J2 3 years ago. The last 3 years they have been pulling value there.

 

Above 8 guys who were J2 in the last 3 years are top 30 prospects. Those guys usually don't hit the majors until 22-23 and only a few have cracked age 20. Good things are on the way and if they can even bolster the farm it'll be more help than we've gotten from the international market for quite some time.

[CheeseheadInQC]

While the initial results obviously aren't completely indicative of future success, I think last year was the first year that the Brewers' DSL team was even league average for hitting and that was with a team that was mostly rookies.

 

Hopefully the improvements continue and the success of guys like Garcia, Parra and Cabrera carry over stateside this coming season.

[Eye Black]

What do we all know about Hedbert Perez?

The scouting report from Baseball America is absolutely glowing. Hedbert Perez is rated as an overall future value BA grade of 55. The only other Brewers prospects that BA ranks as FV 55 are Brice Turang, Eduardo Garcia, and Drew Rasmussen. I’ll paraphrase his BA scouting report below:

 

- High contact hitter that has a compact, efficient swing. Barrels the ball to all fields.

- Disciplined hitter who has the ability to get on base at a high percentage.

- Has at least 55 raw power currently that should get to plus or better as he gets stronger.

- Excellent athlete with plus or better speed.

- Above average defender in CF (reads ball well off bat and takes good routes). Has a plus arm with good accuracy.

- Fluent English speaker that “draws praise for his confidence and leadership”.

 

As you mentioned his dad, Robert Perez, played six seasons with the majors including a few years with the Blue Jays and a brief stint with the Brewers. Some interesting facts about Robert Perez in his Wikipedia page including the fact he spent 27 seasons playing in the Venezuelan League and is considered a living legend because he broke many of the career hitting records in the league.

[Jenkins5]

What do we all know about Hedbert Perez?

The scouting report from Baseball America is absolutely glowing. Hedbert Perez is rated as an overall future value BA grade of 55. The only other Brewers prospects that BA ranks as FV 55 are Brice Turang, Eduardo Garcia, and Drew Rasmussen. I’ll paraphrase his BA scouting report below:

 

- High contact hitter that has a compact, efficient swing. Barrels the ball to all fields.

- Disciplined hitter who has the ability to get on base at a high percentage.

- Has at least 55 raw power currently that should get to plus or better as he gets stronger.

- Excellent athlete with plus or better speed.

- Above average defender in CF (reads ball well off bat and takes good routes). Has a plus arm with good accuracy.

- Fluent English speaker that “draws praise for his confidence and leadership”.

 

As you mentioned his dad, Robert Perez, played six seasons with the majors including a few years with the Blue Jays and a brief stint with the Brewers. Some interesting facts about Robert Perez in his Wikipedia page including the fact he spent 27 seasons playing in the Venezuelan League and is considered a living legend because he broke many of the career hitting records in the league.

 

Thank You! An amazing profile! Can’t believe how little hype he got around signing. Just keep the high end lottery tickets coming and eventually you hit on one big! Hopefully at least one blows up this year. A Garcia post injury revenge tour would be very nice. I’m real high on Parra

[Eye Black]

The Brewers did bring Perez and Medina to Miller Park to hit before a game in mid-July. Below are very short Twitter videos from Ben Badler of both taking batting practice.

 

Hedbert Perez BP at Miller Park

 

Luis Medina BP at Miller Park

[brewcrewdue80]

Not Brewer related but MLB put out their top 100. No Brewers of course. But interesting that they had all top 10 of the catchers in it. Feel like generally 2-3 in a season has been the norm but 10! Just wow. At the same time, I think they are over ranking a good majority of them. I feel like maybe 1 catcher prospect every 3 years graduates and lives up to their potential more than 2seasons. Otherwise the rest struggle to even get a major starting role. Stearns may have found a way to get ahead of the Catcher curve by getting Narvaez Because with a catcher like Pina I really didnt see the team losing ground to the other 30teams with what he brings. In fact I think Pina brings a positive in to top 15 teams in baseball with his defense and effect he has on pitchers.

[TJseven7]

The Brewers did bring Perez and Medina to Miller Park to hit before a game in mid-July. Below are very short Twitter videos from Ben Badler of both taking batting practice.

 

Hedbert Perez BP at Miller Park

 

Luis Medina BP at Miller Park

 

Not that I know what I'm looking at but I like Hedbert's swing.

[clancyphile]

The Brewers did bring Perez and Medina to Miller Park to hit before a game in mid-July. Below are very short Twitter videos from Ben Badler of both taking batting practice.

 

Hedbert Perez BP at Miller Park

 

Luis Medina BP at Miller Park

 

Not that I know what I'm looking at but I like Hedbert's swing.

 

Josh Murray looked good in batting practice.

 

He's best known for being Andi Dorfman's ex after that season of the Bachelorette.