Photo Credit: Andy Kuno | SF Giants | Getty Images
So far in the Top 50:
#50-46 (Lisbel Diaz, Hayden Wynja, Alix Hernandez, Carson Ragsdale, Ben Madison)
#45-41 (Jose Cruz, Tyler Myrick, Eric Silva, Nick Zwack, Josh Bostick)
#40-36 (William Kempner, R.J. Dabovich, Scott Bandura, Cole Foster, Nick Avila)
#35-31 (Jairo Pomares, Manuel Mercedes, Ryan Murphy, Erik Miller, Spencer Miles)
#30-26 (Kai-Wei Teng, Cole Waites, Randy Rodriguez, Maui Ahuna, Liam Simon)
#25-21 (Gerelmi Maldonado, Carson Seymour, Adrian Sugastey, Onil Perez, Diego Velasquez)
#20-16 (Heliot Ramos, Trevor McDonald, Landen Roupp, Victor Bericoto, Wade Meckler)
#15-12 (Tyler Fitzgerald, Joe Whitman, Vaun Brown, Reggie Crawford)
For what is almost certainly going to be the final time, we reach the top of the rankings and find the pair who have had a stranglehold on the top spots for most of the time I’ve been doing these Top 50s. For three straight years now, the top two spots have been held down by the same two players, and the subject of today’s post, Marco Luciano, was my #1 prospect the year before that in my very first Top 50 on this site. Basically, as long as Luciano and Kyle Harrison have both been active members of this organization, they’ve been the #1 and 2 guys.
In last year’s Top 50, I flipped the ranking, boosting Harrison up to #1, and knocking Luciano out of the top position he’d held for two straight years. That change was based almost solely on the fact of Luciano’s mid-season back injury. They’d started the year thriving at the same High-A level, but because of that injury, only Harrison had been able to show what he could do against Double-A competition (and boy, did he show what he could do!). Harrison had been available for the opportunity, and he took advantage of it.
In 2023, however, the pair had remarkably similar seasons in a lot of respects. There were ups and downs. There were positive signs mixed with difficulties. Both had time on the IL. And both ended the year in the majors at 22. Ultimately, those similarities in the overall shape of their seasons dissuaded me from thinking about shuffling the order again. Both showed what they could do and what they still need to work on, and I more or less let inertia be my guiding light on this one. There’s no clear reason to change the order, so I let it be.
What’s really important is that both have now put themselves beyond the importance of rankings. They are both in line to play important roles in the coming year, possibly from Day One, with the hope that they will continue to play important roles for years to come. Luciano’s path might not be as smooth as Harrison’s — and there’s still reason to believe he might not start the year in the majors, or stick immediately if he does. Still, barring calamity, this will be the last time either appears in a prospect ranking. They should soon join their fellow 22-year-old, Luis Matos, in the hard work of establishing themselves as that most complicated of monikers: real big leaguers.
Major leaguers are made in the major leagues, and both Luci and Harry (and Luis, too) are now embarked on the process of fixing and creating the real shape that their careers will take on. The work on the field will determine their worth from now on — not what anybody guesses it might be, but what it actually is.
Tomorrow is finally today.
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