MLB LAD Pipeline top thirty breakdown

Phil Gurnee ♦ March 6, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

MLB pipeline released their top 30 Dodger prospects for 2019 a few days ago, and as we have done in the past we break it down.

In 2018 Walker Buehler was head of the class and is now the hurler expected to lead the Dodger rotation into 2019.

Alex Verdugo is now considered the top prospect though I’d have gone with Keibert. Two players acquired in the Puig trade crack the top thirty with Jeter and Josiah Gray.  Dustin May moves into the top pitching prospect spot. Gavin Lux is now the top infielder though he might be pushed by Jeter Downs if Downs is as good as we have heard.

Just to show how strong the Dodger catching depth is, they have three catchers in their top ten with Ruiz, Smith, and the new teen-ager Diego Cartaya. Not far behind them is Connor Wong at 14. This deserves its own article because owning the catching depth in important in an era where MLB catchers have fallen behind the rest of baseball.

MLB Pipeline finally figured out something the rest of us knew almost two years ago and that is Yadier Alvarez and Jeren Kendall have a lot to prove before they can be called prospects again.

Players who were in the 2018 MLB Pipeline and made the biggest jump were Tony Gonsolin going from 24th to 5th, Gavin Lux going from 13th to 4th, and Dustin May going from 11th to 3rd.

Caleb Ferguson might have made the biggest jump but he used up his rookie status. The pre-2018 ranking had Caleb at 16 and I think he’d be right behind Dustin May if he was still a rookie. Walker Buehler was the top-ranked prospect last year and he rewarded that ranking with one of the great rookie seasons in LAD history.  No one else graduated from the 2018 ranking.

Players traded or taken in the Rule 5 draft from the 2018 ranking were Yusniel Diaz, Kyle Famer, and Drew Jackson.

Players dropped from the 2018 Pipeline ranker were Starling Heredia, Jordan Sheffield, Imani Abdullah, Errol Robinson, Morgan Cooper, James Marinan,  Romer Cuadrado, Ronny Brito, Luke Raley, Donavan Casey. That is a lot of players from one year to the next.

Replacing those players were Jacob Amaya, Gerardo Carrilo, Omar Estevez, Edwin Uceta, Leonel Valera, Braydon Fisher, John Rooney, Robinson Ortiz, Marshall Kasowski, Miquel Vargas, and Zach Willeman.