Could Twins' Emmanuel Rodriguez Become the Top Prospect in Baseball?

[Omgbenji]

lol, lets see him stay healthy for two weeks in a row  before we talk about top prospect potential. This dude is out of the lineup more than Buxton has been. I can drool about his potential as much as the next guy, but his soft tissue is made out of Play-doh.

[tony&rodney]

It's all about the health. No surprise for me if Emmanuel is on the roster on or before May next season. I have watched a ton (200+) of his plate appearances via milb.com in the last couple of years. My biggest complaint going into this year was that Emmanuel gave away a ton of at bats in blow outs. He literally toyed with AA this year. The concern is an inability to stay on the field due to injuries. Once full health returns and the rust is off, EmRod is ready. If you have not watched him you cannot understand how impactful this player is at baseball.

Jenkins is going to be given a higher rating through this year and then, starting in mid season next year, he will go up or down based more on results than his initial status in the minors as a high draft choice in a talented draft. So far he looks decent. There wasn't coverage of his games last year on milb.com. I will wait until I have seen several dozen games and a 100 plate appearances next year before I get effusive or critical of Jenkins.  I'm hopeful for sure.

[twinstalker]

Answering the title question:

Sure, if he cuts his strikeouts down by a third. (So, no, imo).  I have him 5th with the Twins because of this.  And it's not just a main predictor I use, it's what the big lists use, and that's the question being asked.  If he struck out 18%, he'd be there or on or close to the podium right now.  He's also not quite at that superstar prospect age vs level that the #1s and and 2/3s are.  Caminero was barely 20 when he was promoted to MLB (and his monster age 19 season at AA yielded a 17% K rate), Holliday carved up AA at age 19 with a ~20% K rate.  Our guy is 21 at AA with a 27.5% K rate, which could be higher, as it's prone to noise, and he's been worse his whole career.

The good news for EmRod is that it appears all the superstar prospects are disappearing to the majors, and with the recent meh draft, the top few won't be as strong as they've been recently.  I just don't believe the predictive components that get a guy that highly ranked will favor him.  And not to bring up Julien, but there are reasons why Julien's 2022 monster season at Wichita didn't get him ranked very high.  He was 23, his K rate was 25%, and he wasn't top 100 pre-2023 by the big lists.  I think EmRod will be ranked much higher than Julien because of age vs level, but the strikeouts will limit his ceiling on lists.

[nclahammer]

A story about a guy who hasn't played in about two months due to injuries and who had played inconsistently over his career thus far being the top prospect in baseball is a non-story.

[Beast]

I do think he’s the best prospect in the system right now.  

Jenkins status is based solely on projection.  Erod has shown the power, discipline, etc at a high level.

Lee just doesn’t look like he has the ceiling Erod has.  Maybe a safer prospect, but I don’t see Lee ever being a superstar caliber player.

That said, there are better prospects across the minors than Rodriguez.  Likely not going to play a premium up-the-middle position.  As noted, has K and approach issues.  There’s just no way you can call him the best overall prospect in baseball with some of these insane 5-tool shortstops that seem to be in constantly in the pipeline.

[Fatbat]

On 8/20/2024 at 11:50 AM, bean5302 said:

A hamstring pull in April cannot be legitimately blamed for production at the plate in August. Jenkins is just raw, and he'll need more time.

Jenkins is raw. He is 19 yo so thats a given.  His early injury set him behind on development and that is affecting his production. Long term, he will be fine but look for him to be not much better than average until he gets more games/experience. 

[old nurse]

Last time I looked Alcala has ha only 2 bad outings all year. The sky is not falling there

Varland is not a left handed pitcher.  So far this year Varland has been equally bad versus both left and right handed hitting. I doubt that is going to be cured by a move to the bullpen . It would give the bloggers here something for clickbait