Not only are prospects and rookies playing important roles in this year’s World Series, but many of the players on the game’s largest stage right now were once top prospects themselves.

That’s why it’s so great that you keep sending in great questions about prospects for our weekly Pipeline Inbox. The players you ask about now, and below this week, are very likely to get the chance to be World Series heroes in the near future.

We tackled this question on this week’s edition of the Pipeline Podcast, and it will be very interesting to see what happens with those players who jumped levels and reached the big leagues. As Mike Rosenbaum pointed out on the pod, Luis Patiño and Ryan Weathers have slightly different profiles. Weathers hadn’t pitched above the Midwest League and has a definite starting pitching profile, so I think he’s more likely to head back to a lower level to start 2021. Now with what he’s done this year, that could mean starting in Double-A. Patiño, while he certainly can start long-term, could be called upon sooner to help in a bullpen role if there isn’t a spot in the rotation. He also had already touched Double-A in '19, so this wasn’t as big of a leap for him.

Overall, I do think the push of players to the big leagues could accelerate the full-time timetable for many of them. Yes, they missed the reps and innings a normal season would have given them, but I think many young players who were at alternate training sites and got their feet wet in the big leagues got to see what it takes to prepare for baseball at that level, and that will benefit them, without question.

I feel that this is a bit of a gimme question, given that Crochet, the club’s first-round pick this year and No. 4 prospect (No. 89 on the Top 100), has already pitched in the big leagues, albeit as a reliever. He’s also a college product while No. 6 prospect Kelley, taken in the second round, is a high school product. Especially given that Kelley wasn’t able to go out and pitch competitively because of the pandemic, even thinking he’ll be in the big leagues at all in three years might be a stretch.

Now, if you want to say five or six years, then perhaps that’s a more interesting debate. I think both have the chance to be very good starting pitchers in the big leagues long-term, and it is often the case that the prep arms, while riskier, turn into bigger stars once they establish themselves. But Crochet is a different kind of college arm and if it hadn’t been for the shutdown, he likely would’ve pitched his way up Draft boards and been taken before the White Sox picked. He has track record (from before 2020) and really electric stuff. So while I do believe in Kelley, I’m going to pick Crochet here. But a rotation with both of them in it, perhaps right behind Lucas Giolito and some combination of Dylan Cease, Dane Dunning and Reynaldo López should excite White Sox fans.

Different people have different definitions of what a “sleeper” is, but I dug down and found two players who aren’t on the Reds' Top 30 list, a hitter and a pitcher with high upsides.

On the offensive end, I’m going with Mac Wainwright, the club’s fourth-round pick in the 2020 Draft. An outfielder from the Ohio high school ranks, Wainwright wasn’t in our Draft Top 200, but the Reds see a very high ceiling. He’s from a cold weather area and was a two-sport standout. So he’s focusing on baseball only for the first time and has plus raw power.

On the mound, keep an eye on 2019 sixth-round pick Graham Ashcraft. The right-hander has always had really electric stuff, though many evaluators thought he was destined for a bullpen role because of command issues in college. He started during his pro debut a summer ago and struck out 10.1 batters per nine and he’s making strides in harnessing his command. If that continues and he can continue to start during his full-season debut in 2021, watch out.

We’ll end with a look at the top teenagers in baseball. To make one list, I’m going to combine the 18- and 19-year olds into one list, using our Top 100 as a guide. The teenagers on the Top 100, listed by rank, are as follows (current age in parentheses):

1. Wander Franco, SS, Rays (19)
2. Julio Rodriguez, OF, Mariners (19)
3. Marco Luciano, SS, Giants (19)
4. Kristian Robinson, OF, D-backs (19)
5. Jasson Dominguez, OF, Yankees (17)
6. Zac Veen, OF, Rockies (18)
7. Ronny Mauricio, SS, Mets (19)
8. Francisco Alvarez, C, Mets (18)
9. Robert Hassell, OF, Padres (19)
10. Austin Hendrick, OF, Reds (19)
11. Mick Abel, RHP, Phillies (19)

A couple of things stand out here. The first is that there’s only one pitcher on the list in Abel, the Phillies’ first-round pick in this past Draft. This is a testament to the lengths young pitchers have to go to jump on prospect radars, the reluctance in the industry (and among us writers) to over-rank young pitchers because of the risk, or some combination of the two. The other theme here is that there are only four drafted players on this list, all first rounders in 2020. The rest come from the international market.