The following is an excerpt from this week's Pipeline Podcast, in which Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis talk to Tim McMaster about prospects ready to jump into the new Top 100 list, the Rookie Career Development Program and more. To listen to the show in its entirety, go to the MLB Pipeline Podcast page.
Tim McMaster: Alright, one more thing I want to get from you guys is a thought on a guy each who is not in the current Top 100 Prospects but who will be in the new one that's going to be coming out later in the month. We don't know where these players would necessarily land, but a guy that you're excited about here in 2018 that's going to make that leap for the first time into the Top 100. Jim, you can go first.
Jim Callis: Well you know I want to pick multiple players, but I'll limit myself to just one. With the Arizona Fall League fresh in my mind, I'd say Monte Harrison of the Brewers. This is a guy who was the best athlete in the entire 2014 Draft. He could've played college football. If anybody wants to go to YouTube, you can see videos of him throwing down some monster dunks on the basketball court too as a Missouri high school product. And he was just hurt in his first two full seasons. He had an ankle injury in 2015 and broke his hamate in 2016 and really wasn't healthy until this year when he had a 20-20 season in the Minors.
The thing that struck me -- and he looked great too in the Fall League -- and he was on the taxi squad, so he only played twice a week. If he had been in the regular lineup, he probably would've led the league in homers, not Acuna, because he hits five homers to finish second in the league, even though he only played a handful of games. And the thing that struck me is talking to a lot of the professional scouts who work the Arizona Fall League, who aren't necessarily guys who have a history with Harrison as an amateur -- because there's a lot of times that the amateur scouts are different than the professional scouts -- and I just remember talking to guys, and seemed like almost every time or every other time that I would talk to one of those guys out there, and we'd talk about whichever player was at the game we were at or somebody in particular, and it didn't take very long before it seemed like the majority of those guys would say, "What do you have on this Monte Harrison guy? He's unbelievable." And like they didn't realize that he was a top, top draft guy who -- fallen by the wayside is strong -- but I guess kind of receded into anonymity for a couple years because he got hurt. I mean his tools are unbelievable. He's a big, tall, super athletic corner outfielder, and that guy could be a 30-30 guy at the big league level. Monte Harrison jumps out to me. Again, we haven't really finalized the list. I'm still fine-tuning mine so we can kind of combine them and sort them out. I'm not sure where he'll work his way onto my list, but he'll definitely be somewhere in the middle of my Top 100.
Jonathan Mayo: Yeah, he would've been my first pick too. I did my first draft and then realized that I had forgotten him and I probably was low on him. I agree kind of around where Jim is guestimated he ends up. I think the guy that I'm curious to see where he ends up is Heliot Ramos, the Giants' first-round pick from last year. A high schooler out of Puerto Rico, who I'll be the first to admit that I do Puerto Rico for Draft coverage, and area guys did not see him that good. He wasn't seen that well a lot leading into the draft, and I think that hurt his stock. But then he went out, and the Giants, who are always ones to not necessarily go off the board because taking him in the first round was not that big of a stretch, later in the first round, but he was not necessarily -- he crept into that conversation late, and a lot of that had to do with the Giants' interest in him. He went to the Arizona League and hit .348 and slugged .645, stole 10 bases. I know it's only 138 at-bats, but it was such an exciting debut, and he followed it up with a solid showing at instructs. So I'm very excited to see what he does for an encore. He's going to be 18 for all of the 2018 season. He doesn't turn 19 until September. It'll be interesting to see, does he perform his way to full-season ball right away? I'm going to say yes, and I'm curious to see how he does there. I know I put him square in my Top 100. Mike Rosenbaum did as well, so I think he's going to land somewhere in the Top 100 for sure.
McMaster: Great stuff, guys. That list, that Top 100 list will be out later in the month of January.