Baseball Prospectus releases Giants top-10 prospects list

Considering the jumble of B to B- prospects in the Giants system, it's kind of odd that I don't remember reading a what-whoa list of Giants prospects yet. Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus, though, is ... idiosyncratic. And he's come up with the most interesting Giants-prospect list to date:

1. Kyle Crick

2. Adalberto Mejia

3. Edwin Escobar

4. Kendry Flores

5. Clayton Blackburn

6. Andrew Susac

7. Keury Mella

8. Joan Gregorio

9. Martin Agosta

10. Ty Blach

The parts of this list that differ from the Baseball America list and the John Sickels list are a) the aggressive Mejia ranking, and b) the unmitigated love for Kendry Flores, Keury Mella, and Joan Gregorio. None of them ranked in the top 10 of either BA or Sickels, but Parks is a fan:

At his best, Flores could spot up a 92-94 fastball, use his plus potential changeup to miss bats and barrels, and mix in a solid curveball to help change sight lines and disrupt timing. The feel for craft is very strong, and if the uptick in stuff proves to be legit, Flores could move quickly in 2014.

I'm not going to excerpt much more than that because subscribe, you goof. Sam Miller and Ben Lindbergh are two of the very best baseball writers alive, and then you also get the prospect stuff and the other excellent contributors ... just subscribe.

Here's a snippet of Mella's strengths while you get your credit card out:

Next to Crick, Mella might have the highest tool-based ceiling on the farm, with the type of fastball to project near the top of a major-league rotation. The secondary stuff is a long way away, but he already shows the ability to spin a hard breaking ball, and even though it’s raw, the changeup has potential because of the delivery and utility of the fastball.

I knew very, very little about Mella before this list. I've been so focused on the Cal League 5 that I forgot about the lower arms like Mella, Gregorio, and Flores. It's good to see someone so (relatively) enthusiastic about them. They add to the pile of arms the Giants have in the lower minors.

Parks (and fantasy contributor Bret Sayre) aren't in first-class seats on the Blachwagon, where the legroom is ample and the drinks are free, just yet. But there's time for that next year. The Giants have some interesting arms down there. That's probably good timing. They could use some of those pitchers in the next, oh, couple months. No pressure, young 20-somethings.

(Parks also wrote that Crick could be one of the top-10 prospects in the game with command refinement. So get on that, Kyle.)