Midseason Prospect Report

Baseball America has posted their midseason top 25 prospects.

The top 10:

1. Jason Heyward, of, Braves
2. Mike Stanton, of, Marlins
3. Jesus Montero, c, Yankees
4. Justin Smoak, 1b, Rangers
5. Madison Bumgarner, lhp, Giants
6. Buster Posey, c, Giants
7. Carlos Santana, c, Indians
8. Chris Tillman, rhp, Orioles
9. Brian Matusz, lhp, Orioles
10. Logan Morrison, 1b, Marlins

Impressive that the Orioles have already called up the best prospect in baseball (Wieters), an OF that could contend for the ROY (Reimold), and 3 pitchers who are all contributing (Bergeson, Berken, Hernandez), and still have two pitchers in the top 10, along with Jake Arrieta in the top 50.

The Giants, Rangers, Orioles, Marlins, Phillies, Indians, and Rays all have at least 2 in the top 25, and others in the top 50. What does that mean for deadline deals? It means the Phillies certainly have enough to obtain Halladay like everyone has been saying with 3 in the top 25 (Dominic Brown 17, Michael Taylor 23, and Kyle Drabek 24) and that the Giants, Marlins, Rangers, and Rays all have the pieces to make a deal at the deadline if they wanted to as well. Although, I can't imagine the Giants trading Posey or Bumgarner, the Rangers trading Feliz or Smoak, or the Marlins trading Stanton or Morrison just to sneak into the playoffs this year. Those teams have too much going for them in the future to start abandoning the plan now. The Rays are different, I could easily see trading Desmond Jennings, Wade Davis, Jeremy Hellickson, or Matt Moore to help the team this year.

Think of the Giants, Rangers and Giants as the Rays last year, teams with a chance to make the postseason but not willing to make a move. And that's a knock on those teams or the Rays, there is a reason the Rays weren't involved on rumors trading David Price at the deadline. The Rays now however are an established team that is trying to win, which is why a trade involving their prospects is not only acceptable but likely.

This has been mentioned before, but it's worth noting again how stacked the Braves would be if they didn't trade for Mark Teixeira. They currently have the 1st and 11th rated prospects in the minors, and they could have had Neftali Feliz ranked 13th, another starting catcher in Jarrod Saltalamaccia, starting pitcher Matt Harrison, and current AL ROY favorite Elvis Andrus. Instead they got Teixeira for one calendar year without a playoff birth. Sometimes a deadline deal works out well (Randy Johnson) and it's sick, and sometimes a team gets screwed (Expos-Colon, Mets-Zambrano) and it sucks. It'll be interesting to see which of these players gets moved and then seeing how those trades hold up over time.