Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
While the big news today is Masahiro Tanaka signing with the Yankees (sad, but oh well), I’m more excited for Baseball Prospectus’ Top 10 Dodgers’ prospect list.
Jason Parks ranked Julio Urias No. 1 in the system, which was no surprise. The rest of the rankings weren’t much of a surprise, either — except for one fella.
1. Julio Urias, P
2. Corey Seager, SS
3. Joc Pederson, OF
4. Zach Lee, P
5. Chris Anderson, P
6. Chris Reed, P
7. Ross Stripling, P
8. Tom Windle, P
9. Onelki Garcia, P
10. Victor Arano, P
Wait, Arano at No. 10? That’s ballsy.
While I’m higher on Stripling than most in the prospect world (especially more than Reed), the rest of the Top 7 are pretty status quo. And Parks didn’t rank Alexander Guerrero and wouldn’t rank Masahiro Tanaka because both have professional experience elsewhere.
Arano was signed by the Dodgers last year out of Mexico. He posted a 4.20 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 9.5 H/9, 0.7 HR/9, 2/4 BB/9 and an 8.9 K/9 as an 18-year-old in the Arizona League. Not bad. It was enough for me to be intrigued by by him, and to rank him as the 33rd-best prospect in the system. But Parks was much, much higher on Arano after talking to industry sources.
“Arano has a very easy arm with good present strength, and can pound the zone with a low-90s fastball that can bump a little higher. He shows both a quality curveball and a changeup, although both offerings are inconsistent at present.”
Not bad. He’ll have to improve his consistency going forward, but that’s pretty high praise for someone most have never heard of.
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Overall, this Top 10 is good. Like I said, I’d have Reed lower and I contemplated putting Windle in my Top 10.
My first round of write-ups, discussing prospects 41-50, will drop later today. You’ll get to read about guys who might never see the majors. Fun! After thinking about it a bit, I probably should have ranked Jarret Martin higher than No. 46, but here we are.
