Top 100 Prospects: A Wander-ful Number One

Wander Franco leads an eight-player contingent of Rays prospects.

This year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of our first Top 100 Prospects ranking in 1990. We hope it will come close to matching the pedigree of that 1990 list, which now includes a pair of Hall of Famers in Frank Thomas (No. 29) and Larry Walker (No. 41). This year’s ranking is led by Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who is the fifth shortstop to rank No. 1. The others include Hall of Famer Chipper Jones (1993) and Alex Rodriguez (1995). The most recent was 2016 National League Rookie of the Year Corey Seager. Jurickson Profar (2013) is the other.

Franco turns 19 on March 1 and is the second-youngest No. 1 overall prospect ever, bested only by Braves center fielder Andruw Jones, who was still 18 on Opening Day 1996.

Franco also becomes the third Rays prospect to rank No. 1 overall. Outfielders Josh Hamilton (2001) and Delmon Young (2006) are the others.

We improved our Top 100 Prospects display this year by including 2019 values for average exit velocity for batters and fastball velocity for pitchers, both in miles per hour.

Scouting grades represent future potential on the 20-80 scale, where 50 is average. For batters, we include grades for the five traditional tools: hitting (HIT), power (POW), speed (RUN), fielding (FLD) and throwing (ARM).

For pitchers we grade their pitches—fastball (FB), curveball (CB), slider (SL), changeup (CHG), cutter (CUT), split-finger fastball (SPLIT)—as well as their control (CTL).

All ages are players’ baseball ages in 2020.

1. WANDER FRANCO RAYS, SS ETA: 2020 | Exit Velo: 90 | Age: 19 HIT: 80 | POW: 60 | RUN: 50 | FLD: 55 | ARM: 50