Now that we have entered the month of May, you are going to start hearing a lot of chatter about prospects who will be getting the call to the big leagues.
Major league clubs won’t come out and admit it, but they want to keep their top players in the minors to delay their arbitration clocks and gain another year of control. It is a smart financial strategy, though it can hurt your playoff chances come October.
For instance, last year, the Los Angeles Angels kept the corpse of Vernon Wells in left field and sent Mike Trout back to Triple-A to start the year. Wells was awful, as expected, for a month, leading to Trout being called up and having the season he had.
But because the Angels started out the year so slowly, they missed the playoffs by four games. The odds of Trout alone being worth four wins in one month are zero, but having that presence at the top of the lineup might have helped Albert Pujols and others start faster.
Of course, not every prospect will have the impact that Trout did last year. A lot of the names on this list are going to struggle out of the gate, but that is to be expected. It is how they adjust that will make all the difference.
Here are the 10 prospects on the verge of breaking into the big leagues very soon.
Note: All stats courtesy of MiLB.com unless otherwise noted.