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We’re kind of at an interesting juncture in the 2021 season. On the amateur side, while there are still exciting NCAA postseason games going on, along with some late high school action, most Draft prospects have wrapped up their seasons with the Draft just over four weeks away. On the Minor League side of things, we now have over a month of performances to look at, and while you don’t want to draw too many conclusions from that, it is exciting to have real data to consider when looking at how top prospects are performing.
We live in both these worlds, especially now, in MLB Pipeline land. I’ve used that duality to split this week’s Pipeline Inbox in half, with two Draft-related questions and a pair about pro prospects.
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I hope everyone enjoyed Minor League Opening Day as much as I did. Let s tackle your prospect questions.
Who do you think will have the better career, Tork or Greene?
The Tigers have two of the game s best position prospects in corner infielder Spencer Torkelson, the first overall pick in 2020, and outfielder Riley Greene, the fifth choice a year earlier. Torkelson ranks No. 3 versus Greene at No. 17 on MLB Pipeline s Top 100 Prospects list, but the gap is closer than that might suggest.
I d go with Torkelson, because I heard so many scouts last year discuss how he was one of the best all-around offensive players to come out of the Draft in the last two decades, a potential plus-plus hitter with plus-plus power and tremendous plate discipline. But Greene is a similar hitter with just a grade less pop and more defensive value. He has a chance to stick in center field with a fallback option of right field, while Torkelson likely will be a first baseman.
Pipeline Inbox: Sizing up the Draft mlb.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mlb.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Teams are opening Spring Training camps this week, and though I won t be traveling to the Cactus or Grapefruit leagues this year, I m still invigorated by the dawn of a new season. Here s hoping that we get more of a normal year in the Majors and Minors than we did in 2020.
There are so many young big leaguers and prospects whom I m looking forward to seeing on the field again in 2021, and our Pipeline Inbox questions this week indicate that many of you are thinking along the same lines .
Can you name a couple hitters and pitchers that you re most excited to see make their stateside debut after the season being canceled last year?
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With our newly minted Draft Top 100 list out, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking and thinking about the 2021 Draft class. We did a breakdown of the Top 100, we did a way-too-early mock of the top 10 picks and we focused on the ’21 Draft for the entirety of our most recent Pipeline Podcast. We even answered a ton of questions from you on Twitter.
So it only stands to reason that I’d want to keep it going for this week’s Pipeline Inbox, right? There were still so many Draft-related questions, both from my initial call for Inbox queries as well as from the Twitter Q&A to more than fill up this week’s edition, starting with a pair of questions we answered on the podcast: