When I'm compiling the top seven or top eight White Sox prospect lists, it usually sits in a mostly finished state for weeks until FanGraphs finally comes through with its list in April or May.
This time, Eric Longenhagen gave us a present by putting the White Sox way higher on his list. He posted the White Sox's top prospect list on Thursday, with only the Brewers preceding them.
The bad news is only 26 prospects have a Future Value of 35+ or higher, as opposed to 28 last year. The good news is that it's a detailed list that mostly checks out:
- Colson Montgomery
- Bryan Ramos
- Oscar Colas
- Noah Schultz
- Lenyn Sosa
- José Rodríguez
- Sean Burke
- Cristian Mena
- Gregory Santos
- Norge Vera
Basing the rankings on FV means that a weak system is susceptible to fringe reliever hogging a spot that could be better used on a less fungible prospect. It's weird to see a guy the White Sox acquired via DFA this past week occupy the ninth spot, just like it didn't pass the smell test to have Caleb Freeman eighth in 2022, or Zack Burdi sixth in 2021.
Setting that aside, the rest of the list holds up, with only minor quibbles. I'm surprised to see this sentence about Colás, for instance ...
He only walked at a 7% clip in Japan and had a very expansive approach throughout 2022, slugging and BABIP’ing his way through it. The issue is drastic enough to keep Colas’ projection that of a corner platoon rather than an everyday right fielder. Perhaps there’d be enough power to support an everyday profile if Colas could play center field, but even though he spent a ton of time there while in A-ball, he trended more toward right field after promotion to Birmingham and Colas simply doesn’t have the sleek look or top-end speed of a viable center fielder.
... because one of the things that impressed me the most about Colás is how well he stayed on left-handed pitching for a lefty.
- vs. RHP: .301/.358/.521 over 411 PA, 31 BB, 93 K
- vs. LHP: .362/.417/.533 over 115 PA, 7 BB, 27 K
Perhaps Colás' impatience is more exploitable by major-league lefties than minor-league lefties, and the ISO advantage against righties translates better to the highest level, but Luis Mieses he is not, at least to this point.
Other highlights include a Lenyn Sosa placement that makes more sense than his fringe-top-10 status, and a hard look at Wes Kath, who fell from seventh to 22nd. It's worth perusing in between viewing of A Christmas Story, which you may remember me giving the Snopes treatment last year.
PERTINENT: Fact-checking the White Sox trade in 'A Christmas Story'
Merry Christmas and happy eighth day of Hanukkah to those who celebrate, and a Sunday Funday to all.
