Weekly Mailbag: Top 30 prospects, Favorite prospect to watch, Tommy John return

Another edition of our weekly mailbag article

Welcome to another weekly mailbag article. If you have a question that you want to be answered, leave a comment below that starts with ‘mailbag question,’ or you can DM me on Twitter (@__Murphy88), or you can email bucsondeckqa@gmail.com.

I look forward to answering what you guys have!

Tyler H: Will the site be doing your own prospect rankings?

I know we will be doing our site rankings at some point, but honestly, I’m unsure when and how the format will be.

I have a rough draft of about 30-40 prospects saved right now, with more written down. I don’t see why we can’t go as high as a Top 50, but the bigger question would be how best to format something like that.

The easy answer would be to break it down by doing 10 prospects per article and then going one master one with the list on its own that we can link to the top of the site and click to go straight to.

I'm thinking out loud at this point, but yes, we will have our own site rankings at some point.

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Rick W: Who is your favorite prospect to watch? Anyone you can think of in particular that stands out?

He didn’t pitch much last year, but in 2022, I made it a point to be available to watch Bradenton on days that Carlos Jimenez pitched.

I like my pitchers, and there’s plenty to watch in the Pirates system. I planned an entire trip to Greensboro to see Bubba Chandler play, so that would be the safe answer.

I’ve seen nearly every start Jared Jones has made (that’s been available on MiLB.TV) since his professional debut, and I finally got to see him live this past year.

At the time of the 2021 draft, Lonnie White Jr. was my favorite pick, and I was excited to see him play this past year. He does it all on the field, so he’s fun to watch.

I watch so many minor league games that it’s hard for me to pick anyone because I see almost all of them consistently.

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Mel Schuster - emjayinTNPitchers and Catchers are a little more than a month away from reporting. For guys coming off of TJ surgery and rehab - BRU and Mike Burrows especially - will they have them report a little earlier just to give them the one-on-one time and oversight? Where are both with regard to their throwing programs at this time? What will be their rehab schedule from now until June or July?

Every pitcher is different and may not go by the same recovery schedule. Still, Brubaker had the surgery about a month before Burrows, so theoretically, he should return first.

What will be different is that after Burrows is ‘done rehabbing,’ he’ll likely remain in the minors, and Brubaker will head to the majors.

As far as reporting early, I feel like the mandatory ‘report date’ is really just ceremonial at this point. Most players are there early anyway, and I’m sure the two players rehabbing from TJ will be among them.

I feel like any one-on-one time will come after all the players head north and they are still at the facility. They probably have their throwing programs all set up and don’t require too much supervision other than medical checkups.