Respected evaluators place four Phillies minor leaguers on top prospect lists

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Adonis Medina is becoming one of baseball's top pitching prospects

With just three more weeks to go before pitchers and catchers begin to report for Phillies 2019 spring training in Clearwater, Florida and still no resolution to the Bryce Harper or Manny Machado free agency situations, baseball is moving on – for now.

It is around this time each year that some of the most respected resources begin to release their top prospect lists for the upcoming season. Baseball Prospectus has now joined MLB Pipeline and Baseball America in releasing their lists here at the start of 2019.

The Philadelphia Phillies organization placed four prospects across the three lists Top 100 Prospects rankings (101 in BP’s case), but only one of those was unanimous in appearing on all three lists.

Last August we released our own Phillies Top 20 Prospects list here at Phillies Nation. Finishing at the top of that list was pitcher Sixto Sanchez. Nearly six months later the 20-year-old Dominican right-hander remains the crown jewel of the minor league system.

Sanchez was ranked as baseball’s #13 overall prospect by Baseball America, #21 at MLB Pipeline, and is sitting at #23 on the Baseball Prospectus list.

Two different players, pitcher Adonis Medina and third baseman Alec Bohm, each make an appearance on two of the three lists. Bohm placed second and Medina fourth in our PN rankings last summer. I wrote just last week of Bohm’s upcoming campaign to prove that he is the Phillies third baseman of the future.

Medina is ranked at #57 overall in baseball by Baseball Prospectus and #64 by MLB Pipeline, but does not appear on the Baseball America rankings. Bohm comes in at #50 for MLB Pipeline and #65 with Baseball America but is unranked by Baseball Prospectus.

The final Phillies prospect to show up on one of the major ranking lists is shortstop Luis Garcia, who Baseball America placed as the #88 prospect in all of baseball in their rankings. We had the 18-year-old from the Dominican Republic at #14 in the organization as of last August. Back in October, Baseball America named Garcia the top prospect in the Gulf Coast League.

Frankly, not much happens in a Major League Baseball off-season that would impact genuine change to prospect rankings. The few exceptions would be for trades, career-threatening injuries, or tremendous breakouts in the Arizona Fall League or Caribbean winter leagues.

Here at Phillies Nation, we don’t want to be publishing lists just for their own sake. So, you’ll see our updated rankings towards the end of the upcoming 2019 minor league season in August. Thus, the most recent full on-field performances are factored in with the 2019 MLB Draft results and in-season trades.

Originally published at Phillies Nation as "Four Phillies prospects land on respected 2019 Top 100 lists"