This article is part of our Farm Futures series.
This is the second and final installment of my prospect predictions for the 2016 season. Some of these are bold, some are just sensible, and some will inevitably look horrible at the end of the season. This week's Farm Futures will feature predictions regarding pitching prospects, and in next week's piece we will finally get to break down some actual minor league games.
1. Lucas Giolito will be the most valuable pitching prospect in 2016. Steven Matz, Jose Berrios and Kenta Maeda are safer bets for obvious reasons, but if Giolito throws 120 innings in the big leagues, his value could surpass that of pitchers with significantly more innings. The Nationals will no doubt want to win the NL East, and to do that, they can't afford to give too many starts to Tanner Roark or A.J. Cole if Giolito appears ready to contribute in May.
2. Julio Urias will make more starts for the Dodgers in the first half than in the second half. If one assumes that the Dodgers view Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir, Kenta Maeda, Alex Wood, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson as their seven best big league starters, and one also notes that at most, four of those seven starters will be available between now and mid-May, and they could have all seven available in August and September, it seems like the best use of Urias this year would be to bring him as soon as he's deemed
This is the second and final installment of my prospect predictions for the 2016 season. Some of these are bold, some are just sensible, and some will inevitably look horrible at the end of the season. This week's Farm Futures will feature predictions regarding pitching prospects, and in next week's piece we will finally get to break down some actual minor league games.
1. Lucas Giolito will be the most valuable pitching prospect in 2016. Steven Matz, Jose Berrios and Kenta Maeda are safer bets for obvious reasons, but if Giolito throws 120 innings in the big leagues, his value could surpass that of pitchers with significantly more innings. The Nationals will no doubt want to win the NL East, and to do that, they can't afford to give too many starts to Tanner Roark or A.J. Cole if Giolito appears ready to contribute in May.
2. Julio Urias will make more starts for the Dodgers in the first half than in the second half. If one assumes that the Dodgers view Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir, Kenta Maeda, Alex Wood, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson as their seven best big league starters, and one also notes that at most, four of those seven starters will be available between now and mid-May, and they could have all seven available in August and September, it seems like the best use of Urias this year would be to bring him as soon as he's deemed ready to join the big league rotation. If he came up sometime in May, he could approach 90 innings around the All-Star break, and then proceed as part of the Dodgers' bullpen for the rest of the season.
3. Alex Reyes will serve as the Cardinals' setup man in September and the postseason, and he will average more than a strikeout per inning. The 21-year-old righty will miss 50 games to start the season after testing positive for marijuana, and while the Cardinals should keep him in the Double-A and Triple-A rotations until the end of the minor league season, his lack of early innings will prompt the team to keep him pitching until St. Louis is eliminated from postseason contention. Reyes will then join the big league rotation in early 2017.
4. Jose Berrios will make his big league debut on April 25 in a home start against the Indians. He can be called up to take Ricky Nolasco's spot in the rotation on April 15 and the Twins would gain an extra year of control, but I think the Twins will want to give Nolasco at least a few starts to try to prove he belongs in the rotation. Of course, he will make things easy by struggling mightily in three starts, and his fourth start lines up for a home game on a Monday, so Berrios will get to pitch in front of a supportive crowd while the Twins get to use his prospect status to gain a bump in ticket sales on a day that they typically struggle to approach a sell-out.
5. Jorge Lopez will be the Brewers' best starter in the second half of the season. The bar to clear here obviously isn't very high, barring a breakout year from Jimmy Nelson or Taylor Jungmann taking another step forward. That said, Lopez has the best pure stuff of any of the Brewers' pitching prospects who should be up in the first half, and he should be able to log around 180 innings between the minors and the majors this year after throwing 153.1 combined innings last year.
6. Braden Shipley's K-rate bounces back to something in the 22-27 percent range with a move to Triple-A after it dipped to 17.8 percent last year at Double-A. He's still figuring out sequencing and had some mechanical things to figure out last year, but his stuff is just too good not to rebound into being an average or above average bat misser.
7. Anderson Espinoza will finish the year as a top-three pitching prospect in dynasty leagues. He will start at Low-A, and may not get past High-A this year due to workload concerns, but his stock will be through the roof thanks to excellent K-rates and dominant ratios in the lower levels.
8. Cody Reed will be next year's Raisel Iglesias, as a dominant run in the second half will set him up for a 2017 ADP inside the top 150. He should be up at some point in the first half, and will be a better pitcher on a per-inning basis than Robert Stephenson.
9. Taylor Guerrieri will enter 2017 as a top 10 pitching prospect for dynasty leagues, and speculation will abound as to when he will debut in the Rays' rotation. Much like Blake Snell this year, it will be impossible to determine when the Rays will give him a shot in 2017, but dominant runs at Double-A and Triple-A will have dynasty league owners anxiously awaiting his big league debut.
10. Sean Manaea will be the A's second-best starter for a six-week stretch this summer, but he will be shut down sometime in August, either due to an innings cap, or an injury. He went from throwing 121.2 innings in 2014 to 100 innings last year (including his AFL work), and while he has never struggled to miss bats, his owners should temper their expectations for quantity and focus instead on the quality Manaea will provide this year.
11. Jake Thompson will post an ERA north of 4.50 in a run of starts to close the year at the big league level. There will be some bumps along the way for Thompson, and he will be tempted to rely too heavily on his fastball and slider in his first chances against big league hitters, which will lead to too many walks and not enough strikeouts. It's unclear if he will be a starter or reliever long term, but as long as he is a starter, he will fail to offer much fantasy value this year.
12. Sean Newcomb will either finish the year as a top five pitching prospect, or outside the top 100 on next year's top 200 prospect list for dynasty leagues. This is obviously hedging quite a bit. Newcomb has walked too many hitters to this point to justify where he is ranked on other industry lists, but he's also young enough to get that taken care of. If he cleans up the control, he can be a front line starter; if not, the consensus will start to shift to him being a reliever long term.
13. Robert Stephenson will be transitioned to a relief pitcher by the end of the season. Given the rest of the starting pitching talent in that organization, it will cease to make sense to keep Stephenson on a starting track after he carries his control woes to the majors this year. He could profile as the team's closer in 2017.
14. Michael Kopech will bounce back from another off-the-field incident to be viewed as a top 10 pitching prospect at the end of the year. His stuff is light years ahead of his maturity right now, but for a guy who won't turn 20 until the end of April, that can be forgiven. The mound will serve as his sanctuary.
15. Franklyn Kilome will finish the year as the Phillies' No. 1 prospect and a top five pitching prospect in the game. This assumes J.P. Crawford and Nick Williams graduate, but if that happens, Kilome's high-90s fastball, plus slider and uber-projectable body will wow evaluators across the game.
16. Kodi Medeiros will start to look like a future No. 2 starter after posting an ERA below 3.00 and averaging over a strikeout per inning in the Florida State League. There are many in the industry who think Medeiros is a reliever long term, but if he can take a step forward with his command and his changeup, that will be a difficult corner to be in at the end of the year.
17. Max Fried will be the most impressive Braves pitching prospect this season, now more than 18 months removed from Tommy John surgery. With the benefit of not having to rush back from elbow surgery, Fried should re-emerge as one of the most electrifying pitching prospects in the game, and will overshadow guys like Newcomb and Aaron Blair.
18. Tim Cooney will operate in the Cardinals' rotation for the entire second half of the season, pitching like a top 40 starter over that stretch. St. Louis may turn to Marco Gonzales or Tyler Lyons in the early going if they suffer an injury, which they will at some point, but if Cooney can use the first half to build up strength in his shoulder, he will offer a clear upgrade.
19. Dylan Cease will finish the year as the Cubs' top pitching prospect. His ability to hit triple digits has already put him on the map, but if he can show even fringe average command in a full-season environment, the hype train will hit full steam.
20. Mark Appel will make over a dozen big league starts this season, but he will struggle to the point that he is not guaranteed a spot in the Phillies' starting rotation heading into camp in 2017.
