SSTN Mailbag: Top-30 Prospects, Bullpen Arms, And Lombard!

I said it out loud to a work colleague the other day that the Yankees were on a nice little run in Spring Training. Both of us know that the games are meaningless in terms of score, but it's always fun to know that the Yankees are winning fistfuls of games. So of course, just a day or two after my comment, the Yankees get absolutely drubbed by the Red Sox 15-0. Feel free to hang that one on me; clearly, I jinxed the club.

Most critically, the Yankees are healthy-ish, which is strange to say. I've grown accustomed to not feeling that way in Spring Training, so I'm left just waiting for the other shoe to drop. This year, that feeling is exacerbated greatly by the WBC. As I've noted, I don't particularly have strong feelings one way or the other about the WBC, but I do have apprehension regarding all of the critical Yankees playing at the tournament. I'm all for growing the game and bringing attention to the sport globally, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't doing my version of a rain dance and any other ritual I can think of to ward off injuries to key members of the club.

An injury to Aaron Judge would be absolutely devastating, but injuries to any of the guys like Austin Wells, David Bednar, or Jazz Chisholm would be pretty terrible also. Again, for those that enjoy the WBC, I'm not trying to be a Debbie-Downer, but I'll be holding my breath for the next couple of weeks.

As always, thanks for the great questions and keep them coming to SSTNReadermail@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll talk about MLB Pipeline's updated Top-30 Prospects list for the Yankees, the early returns on some of the guys competing for the final bullpen spots, and top prospect George Lombard's early Spring performance! Let's get at it:

Alan B. asks: Andy, MLB.com came out with their new Top 30 for the Yankees this week. Any comments about it, or big surprises? Personally I find lots that scratch my head.

(You can find MLB Pipeline's Yankee Top-30 here.)

I want to start with the fact that I am incredibly impressed by the work most of the publicly available scouting services provide for public consumption. Prospect reports by Jim Callis at MLB.com or Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski at Fangraphs (just to name a couple of examples) take an enormous amount of work and effort to put together. These guys do it for a living and work incredibly hard to see a ton of guys in-person, watch video, and get as much behind the scenes information as possible. I get to watch some guys, evaluate video, and write about prospects on my own time; these guys do it for a living, so any disagreements are not at all indicative of the quality of the assessments, just a difference of opinion. I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a prospect hound, as there's such a wealth of information out there about players than there used to be, between video and in-depth scouting reports.

I will freely admit, MLB Pipeline is typically the list with which I disagree most, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think the list lacks value; the scouting reports are incredibly insightful and really takes a deep dive into the system. I also don't always have a good feel for when the list is generated (meaning that I'm not sure when the players on the list were observed), so often the grades and write-ups feel a bit outdated to me.

With those caveats out of the way, I think that the Yankees' farm system is in a transitional place, so there is going to be a very wide variance between everyone's list. The Yankees have cleared a ton of prospects out of the system through graduations and trades in recent seasons, so once you get past the first 10 prospects, there's a steep drop-off in prospect volatility and likely projection. The Yankees also have a ton of guys with tools in Latin America and Complex leagues for whom we don't have much information, so there's a huge variance in how many of those guys appear in these lists.

Naturally, I do have some quibbles with this list, but it's not for anyone that would make my personal Top-15. While I might rearrange that order to some extent, I think MLB Pipeline did alright at identifying the 15 best Yankee prospects in some order. I know that many will be shocked to see Spencer Jones at 6, but based on 50th percentile future projection, I have a hard time arguing that he belongs above Hess or Kilby at 5 and 4, respectively. While I might have a slightly different order, I think the Top-6 prospects were identified perfectly.

Of the top-15 on the list, I would likely bump Kohn up to 7 from 10; he's a lefty I really like, with very real deception and athleticism in his delivery with stuff that is good and plays up. I'm lower than most on Bryce Cunningham, not because of injury or raw stuff, but because I don't think he has a lot of deception in his delivery, which causes all of his pitches to play down a bit. Brock Selvidge showed up to camp with the 2-3 ticks of extra velocity we've all been waiting for over the last couple of years. If it holds into the regular season, Selvidge bumps into the top-10 for me. I also don't have Kaeden Kent among my top-15 prospects, but I also recognize I'm the low-man on him; I see no semblance of approach, and he struggled more mightily than he should have at his assignment coming from major college ball.

Otherwise, any of my commentary would be deeper cuts, and it's not particularly fair to denigrate lists for those types of disagreements. To me, Beck and Rivas are both in the top-15 conversation, so they'd be higher up in the list (I wrote about Beck and Rivas in previous months). On the omission front, I think that Jackson Lovich is the only truly egregious omission. I think he can hit even once he moves up to an age-appropriate level, and he's a good athlete who should be able to play multiple positions.

I think I have fewer disagreements with MLB Pipeline's list than usual.

James K. asks: What do you see from the guys competing for the last bullpen spots so far? Anyone pulling out in front?

Right now, I'm not terribly impressed by most of the options the Yankees have compiled. In fact, I think there's a real argument to be made that the Yankees would be best served by putting Lagrange or Hess in the bullpen from the get-go and let them learn to get big league hitters out in the bullpen. The Yankees won't do that to start the season, of course, but it speaks to the lackluster start some of the bullpen arms have seen thus far.

I came into Spring really liking the Yankees' Rule 5 pick, Cade Winquest. The Yankees are clearly trying to run him out there often to see what they have in him, and also working to help him acclimate to a bullpen role after a minor league career as a starting pitcher. The early returns are decidedly mixed. I think he has a big fastball and a hammer curveball, so the pieces are there, but he falls short on control and command. He may yet put the pieces together, but Winquest clearly still needs seasoning.

Angel Chivilli looks...incredibly hittable. Shockingly hittable, in fact. Right now, I see some stuff, but I don't know if any of it works together. Chivilli has faced really weak lineups and has gotten hammered thus far. It'll be tough to trust him.

Right now, I think the Yankees will wind up with Jake Bird and Brent Headrick grabbing the last bullpen spots. Bird looks nasty, but we don't know what that will look like when the lights get brighter, and Headrick is a nice find, but not someone who will anchor a bullpen. I think the Yankees will need to reinforce this group.

David M. asks: Lombard has made some spectacular plays all over the diamond early in camp and his bat looks good too. Anything new that we should be looking at?

Lombard is an exciting prospect! I think defensively, he could pick it at SS, 2B, or 3B at the big league level right now. He runs well, is a smart baserunner, and takes command in the infield. Those parts of his game aren't a question.

The bat will continue to be a question mark until he makes more consistent contact. Lombard has good raw pop, and I think he'll grow into even more as his body continues to fill out. However, I still see a fair amount of stiffness in his swing, and I wonder if he'll be able to make consistent hard contact in multiple areas of the strike zone. He remains incredibly young, and I already see some swing adjustments early in camp, but he has a lot left to prove down in the minors.

I know some people love to rush and dream on prospects, but I really don't expect to see Lombard in pinstripes this year. This is a pivotal year for Lombard. If he shows he can hit at AA and higher, his prospect stock will really get some helium. If he has another year where he looks like he has a sub-45 hit tool, his prospect status will really take a hit. This sounds like a cop out, but the jury is still out on what kind of a hit tool Lombard will bring to the table. The rest of the ingredients are really exciting, so I have my fingers crossed that his baseball aptitude will shine through at the plate eventually.