PCA – Pic by Todd Johnson

No one was expecting two prospect lists to come out in one day, but that’s what happened today. Earlier this morning Keith Law of The Athletic released his top 20 cubs list. Now it’s time for Kylie McDaniel of ESPN to drop his. Because it is behind a pay wall, I can only give you some information and not too many details or quotes.

System Rankings

McDaniel places the Cubs at 11th overall, but then clarified that they were actually forth in quality depth, which would mean the number of prospects better than 40 FV and his list actually wound up with an amazing 53 players

The Top 18

1. Pete Crow-Armstrong
2. Jordan Wicks
3. Kevin Alcantara
4. Cristian Hernandez
5. Hayden Wesneski
6. Owen Caissie
7. James Triantos
8. Brennen Davis
9.Alexander Canario
10. Cade Horton
11. Ben Brown
12. Caleb Kilian
13. D.J. Herz
14. Jackson Ferris
15. Matt Mervis
16.Moises Ballesteros
17. Daniel Palencia
18. Miguel Amaya

Just based on his top 100 prospects from last week, it was not shocking to see Jordan Wicks situated at number two, but it’s still is a little bit jarring to see Wicks ranked so high when he hasn’t been on too many lists. It was also interesting to see Cristian Hernandez ome in at number four and Owen Caissie, who was an afterthought this morning comes in at number six followed by Triantos who is number four this morning.

Both Brennan Davis and Alexander Canario get some love at eight and nine respectively while the pitching parade began with Cade Horton followed by Ben Brown, Caleb Killian, DJ Herz, who was also missing this morning, and JacksonFerris. Like Law, McDaniel is not high on Mervis, who McDaniel placed at number 15 and McDaniel included Daniel Palencia at 17 who I think could be a top 10 guy fairly quickly if he pitches well in AA. Scratch that, he’s top ten for me now.

For the next tier of guys, there is not really a lot of separation. There’s a ton of guys with 35+ fantasy value and a few at 40+ fantasy value who could play up this year. That’s probably the group that we’re going to see the most growth from including Kevin Made and Ed Howard, Christopher Paciolla, Nazier Mule, Drew Gray, and maybe even Ryan Jensen . It was interesting to see the recently signed Derniche Valdez in this group along with Jose Escobar, who hit well in the Dominican last year. There’s just a super large collection of guys and it’s not really worth going into some of them, as they really need to separate themselves from each other. But I would think that Adan Sanchez, Porter, Hodge, Pedro, Ramirez, Cole, Franklin, Luis, Verdugo, and Jefferson Rojas could have big seasons to move from that 35 value to 40 by mid summer.

I was disappointed to not see a ton praise for Luis Devers and Porter Hodge, but they could change that around quickly with good starts, especially if they get to Tennessee this year.

At sometime around 6 tonight, I will have an update on Twitter with the Prospect Ranking totals for this season. You can find me at: @CubsCentral08.