2026 TCNs Top 50 Prospect Countdown

I have Prieto number 38 on my list.

Prieto has no position he can play effectively. He has little power. He doesn’t get on base enough. His redeeming quality is that he doesn’t strike out and can hit for average. It’s just not enough to be a DH or a utility player. At best, he could serve as a pinch hitter but I’m not sure who he’d pinch hit for. And he’s old and not likely to improve much more. Therefore, to me he’s just not much of a prospect.

he’s just not much of a prospect

It should be possible to accept that the system does not possess 50 players who are better prospects. Of course, you could go far enough back where there are no meaningful results against meaningful competition and just extrapolate however you want to come up with prospects. But considering how many of those pan out, the Prietos are not a bad bet.

I’m a little surprised Gurevitch is down at 38. I personally have him #19 as I really like the underlying tools Gurevitch has. I know his pro debut didn’t go well, but it was a small sample size and I’m going to trust the underlying tools until we have a larger sample.

Gurevitch was also Fangraphs #52 ranked prospect for the draft class pre draft. Is there a reason you don’t include Fangrahs rankings? Their takes on players are typically quite different as they do their own scouting and try not to be influenced by the other rankings.

my rankings aren’t based off reaching the majors, but more contributing value

Value for who? If a guy is unlikely to make the majors then he has little value to me and many of the guys we are voting for probably won’t make it to the bigs.

Bling, so 1 year of Bloom observing the organization, followed by 1 year of Bloom restructuring the development system, is enough time for the whole system to turn around? Bloom has been POBO for less than 2 months but he should have been able to develop better?

Do you really believe that nonsense?

Value for who? If a guy is unlikely to make the majors then he has little value to me and many of the guys we are voting for probably won’t make it to the bigs.

It comes down to talent acquisition. Guys like Prieto are always available on the waiver wire who can fill in for a brief stint when injuries strike and all an org has to do is fork over some salary commitment. Even if a guy has 5% chance of being a big league starter, that 5% shot when you weight the risk versus reward has more value and cost of acquisition than a depth fill in guy. Sure most shots fail, but you acquire as many upside players as you can and hope you get some successes.

My take on Kross is he has driven in runs at whatever level he’s in, college and pro. There is a skill to that. Situational hitting. Clutch hitting. It would be interesting to see his w/RISP stats and sacrifices. The homers and xbase hits from a guy who hits a lot of ground balls is interesting. He amounts to throwing a chunk of meat into the new PD system’s pen. We will see what they do with him. Hopefully not another mistake launcher who gets owned by advanced opposition.