Already on rise, how high can Reds prospect Abbott climb?

I don’t know about you, but it’s been hard keeping up with all of the prospect callups! Don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting, but can we all just take a breath?

We talked about the most recent ones, particularly Zach Neto, on this week’s MLB Pipeline Podcast, and we just wrote a story singling out a future impact callup for each team.

I’m taking a break from talking callups specifically in this week’s Inbox, though some of the prospects discussed below could very well see the big leagues in 2023.

Where could you see Andrew Abbott rising to? -- @ksnyder_9

To Cincinnati? Maybe that’s not what you mean. Abbott is currently the Reds’ No. 10 prospect, and if the start of his 2023 season is any indication, we may have under-ranked him just a smidge.

The left-hander was the Reds’ second-round pick in 2021 as a senior from the University of Virginia, one who had spent most of his college career as a reliever but showed he has the chops to start during his senior year of college. That continued with a solid first full season and even more emphatically in three Double-A starts to kick off this year. In 15 2/3 innings, the southpaw has given up just two runs on six hits (.113 batting average against), three walks and a whopping 36 strikeouts. Yes, that K total tops the Minor Leagues.

He now has a legitimate four-pitch mix as he’s added a new, harder slider, and he’s been getting swings and misses with all of his stuff so far while commanding all of his repertoire really well. In terms of how high Abbott could rise in the prospect rankings … Let’s just say we started talking about whether he belongs in the Top 100, which would mean he’d have to jump over some guys on that Reds list, and I’m OK with that. I’ll at least go so far as to say if/when we need another member of the Top 10 LHP list, I’d vote for him, which would move him ahead of Brandon Williamson. Then it will be a race to see what comes first: Abbott hitting the Top 100 or getting called up to help the big league rotation and graduating from prospect status.

In redraft leagues, are we looking to add the guys talked about most like Abbott, Liberatore, Pfaadt, Miller, Bibee ... or should we add Eury, Painter, Espino/Gavin Williams -- @vinoCreator

I think this might depend on the rules of your league and what you’re looking for, like how long you can hold a guy for, that sort of thing. For now, I might leave Andrew Painter and Daniel Espino down a peg just because of the injury concerns. I’m not saying don’t take them; maybe you can buy low because of that risk. If you’re looking for guys who might impact this year but don’t have as high of a ceiling, that would be the Matthew Liberatore, Brandon Pfaadt group, with Bryce Miller a touch ahead of them given his pure stuff. Eury Pérez has the highest ceiling in this group, and he isn’t hurt, so I’d target him as a long-term play. Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams might be a fantastic combination of feel for pitching and stuff, especially given how the Guardians develop pitching so well. Bibee’s a step ahead of Williams, and I think you’re going to see him soon. Between you and me (and everyone reading this), Bibee might be my favorite pitching prospect, and he has a Shane Bieber-like potential trajectory.

Where would you rank Jackson Holliday among the top SS prospects of the past 10 years? -- @StevieDAles97

Oh, Stevie, you always make us work. But this was a question worth digging into. Holliday is currently No. 5 on our Top 10 shortstop list, but I’m going to work under the assumption he tops that list at season’s end, and I’ll continue to tip my cap to Jim Callis, who named him a while back as a prime candidate to be the No. 1 overall prospect in baseball by the end of this year. And to make it simpler, I’m looking solely at those who topped the shortstop list at the end of each season since 2013 (with all due respect to the Bobby Witt Jr.'s of the world). Certainly unscientific, but here’s my list, with the years the shortstops were the No. 1 prospect at their position.

Wander Franco (2020-2021)*
Gunnar Henderson (2022)
Jackson Holliday (2023)
Gleyber Torres (2017-2019)
Corey Seager (2016)*
Carlos Correa (2015)*
Jurickson Profar (2013)*
Xander Bogaerts (2014)

*was the No. 1 overall prospect on the Top 100 at the end of that season

Who do you see as the likely winner of the Golden Spikes award, Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes, or someone else? -- @AlexGiobbi

Keep in mind that the Golden Spikes Award is for the top college player and not necessarily who will go first in the Draft. That said, this year it certainly looks like it’s kind of the same conversation. With all due respect to, say, Wyatt Langford of Florida, the two best players in college are the LSU teammates. So then it’s a question of whether it should be the bat in Crews (.491/.647/.828 in 36 games) or the arm in Skenes (1.69 ERA, 28 hits, nine walks and 104 K’s in 53 1/3 IP). I think it’s going to come down to who performs the best for the rest of the year but if I had to vote right now, I probably would lean ever so slightly to Crews.