The following is an excerpt from this week's Pipeline Podcast, in which Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis talk to Tim McMaster about the upcoming Top 100 Prospects list, who executives think should be No. 1 and more. To listen to the show in its entirety, go to the MLB Pipeline Podcast page.
Tim McMaster: What's a position that really stands out to you as far as prospects in these lists right now?
Jonathan Mayo: The easy choice is pitching because there's always a lot of pitching, but I'm going to say, for me, the one that surprised me is outfield. There's always a good group of outfielders from top to bottom, but I feel like it's even better this year, it's even deeper this year. I think the emergence of Ronald Acuna and Victor Robles, who obviously -- I'm not giving anything away, they're near the top of lists -- and things like that, but all the way down and even beyond what the Top 10 list will look like. I feel like there were a lot more outfielders this year to choose from and put in the Top 100.
McMaster: Jim, is there another list to you or another grouping that stands out more than normal on this list?
Jim Callis: I'd say, more than normal, maybe third base. I think it's not going to reveal too much to say that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Nick Senzel are two of the 10 best prospects in baseball, and then I think there's some depth behind them with guys like Miguel Andujar, Christian Arroyo, Michael Chavis, Austin Riley, Colton Welker and Ryan Mountcastle, and on and on. I know it's like there are some years where it seems -- Jonathan, I think you probably agree with this -- where when we're filling out the Top 10 third basemen list -- because we do Top 10s for each position -- even if the Top 100 itself does not fill them out. There are some years where we're kind of scraping and trying to figure out what third basemen we're going to put on the end of the list. And I really felt like among the lists that we had to fill out this year, third base was the easiest. We had plenty of candidates. We probably could have gone 15 deep with third basemen we liked if we had to.
Mayo: Yeah, no, I do agree with that. Just very quick on that end, it's true. I feel like we always have to remind people, even if at the end of the third basemen list are not all Top 100 guys, that doesn't mean there aren't quality players at that position. You're right, there was a stretch there where it was tough finding legitimate third-base prospects. Even the non-Top 100 guys and the guys who aren't on the list are really interesting and are guys who you want to see if they can take a step forward in 2018.