Diamondbacks’ Sneaky Good Prospects

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Within the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system, most baseball fans have heard the names Archie Bradley, Peter O’Brien, Dansby Swanson, Aaron Blair, and Yoan Lopez, among others who consistently show up in the top ten and top 20 lists on the interwebs. What about those guys who have played their way up the prospect ladder that can make some noise in the future, but are not well-known by baseball fans, let alone by most Diamondbacks’ fans? Those are the guys that make a team good for years.

Yes, hitting on all of your first and second round draft picks will make a good team, and signing the occasional free agent stud can put you over the top, but it’s those random guys who seem to come out of nowhere that make your team lastingly good. Guys like Mike Piazza (round 62), Mark Buehrle (round 38), John Smoltz (round 22), Ryne Sandberg (round 20), Albert Pujols (round 13), our very own Mark Grace (round 24), Kenny Lofton (round 17), Don Mattingly (round 19), Keith Hernandez (round 42), Orel Hershiser (round 17), and my personal favorite, Nolan Ryan (round 12 in the inaugural MLB draft in 1965).

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That would be a pretty good team huh? What about the current Diamondbacks? Do they have any of these in the system? Hard to say, but maybe they do. This list aims to identify the top five prospects in the Diamondbacks farm system today that offer some skill (or skills) that could help them become a big league regular. There are three qualifiers, however. First, they must have been drafted in the MLB draft. No international signings or undrafted, independent league signings. Second, they must have been drafted below round 5, as in round 6 or later. Third, they must not have made it to the majors yet.

With those rules in place, for a gauge, Paul Goldschmidt would have qualified for this list before he came up, as he was drafted in round 8. Without further ado, here we go:

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