Prospect Watch

2022 Is Already a Banner Year for MLB Debuts

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For better or worse, some of the mystique around MLB’s traditions has evaporated in recent years. Complete games, hitting for the cycle, and the 500-home run mark don’t have the same meaning they used to. In some ways, they’ve been replaced by newer benchmarks like 115 mph exit velocities, immaculate innings, and 100 WAR. In any case, our perceptions of the game’s greatest individual accomplishments have changed.

For as much as baseball has evolved, the magic of an MLB debut remains indelible. The nervous butterflies, irrepressible grins, and special moments like a first hit or strikeout are just as special for today’s rookies as they were 100 years ago.

However, not all rookies are created equal. The buzz surrounding an elite prospect like Bobby Witt, Jr. dwarfs that of a 28-year-old reliever’s debut. Just a few games into the 2022 season, we’ve already witnessed a better class of top-tier debutantes than in the entire previous year.

2021 Debuts

2021 was a “normal” baseball season in the sense that if you look at any regular player’s stats from that year, they appear as they ought. For example, Aaron Judge hit .287 with 39 home runs over 148 games. These are the kind of numbers we expect from an All-Star during a 162-game season. They could just as easily belong to Reggie Jackson or Frank Robinson from another era, but in actuality, MLB was still in a pandemic recovery phase.

For the purposes of debuts, the 2020 alternate site system took some of the thunder out of 2021. Only a handful of prospects were able to report to their organizations in 2020, causing many of the very best to debut that season. Some of them were probably a year too early, such as Jo Adell, Dylan Carlson, Luis Patiño, and a handful of “third catchers” like Joey Bart, Luis Campusano, and Keibert Ruiz.

As a result, there wasn’t as deep of a talent pool for debuts in 2021. Prior to the season, seven of the top 16 on FanGraphs’ top 100 prospects list had already breached MLB the previous year. Here are the remaining players on that list who would debut in 2021:

Obviously, Wander Franco is a singularly special talent, so it’s not as though this group is entirely bereft. NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India didn’t make this particular top 100 list at all and AL winner Randy Arozarena actually came up in 2019. We also got to see Oneil Cruz and Shane Baz at the end of the year, who both missed the cut in FanGraphs’ preseason ranking. With all of that having been said, it’s a relatively bland group of debuts compared to other seasons.

2022 Debuts

The nice thing about a top 100 prospects list is that there will always be 100 players. The minor leagues restock themselves each year, which means there are just as many top-shelf prospects to get excited about as there was the year before. Even though the season has just begun, here are the 2022 FanGraphs’ top 100 prospects who have already debuted this year:

The list above doesn’t even include Seiya Suzuki, who isn’t considered a prospect but made for just as exciting of a debut. In addition to these eight prospects, there are several others who will very likely debut at some point in 2022:

Even without the expected future debuts, the 2022 list is more packed with star power than the 2021 group and it has only been a couple of days. A new clause in the collective bargaining agreement could be one of the catalysts. Clubs that promote a player to the Opening-Day roster and keep him in the majors for a full season will be eligible to receive up to three draft picks if the player finishes in the top three in the ROY voting or top five in MVP/Cy Young voting before he is eligible for arbitration. Having 28-man rosters in April doesn’t hurt either.

Regardless of the reasons, we’ve already enjoyed several fun MLB debuts in 2022. By the time the season is over, we’ll get to watch several more. It’s a welcome change from 2021.

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