Nellie falls four spots from last year’s ranking as he begins to enter the higher levels of competition.
It’s not that he had a terrible season in 2016, but Nellie Rodriguez’s stock seems to be dropping among Cleveland Indians fans. Once the most promising power arm in the farm system, the 22-year-old could become redundant with Bobby Bradley’s prodigious power coming up behind at an even younger age. But it’s still never a good idea to sleep on Nellie.
Last season, in which Rodriguez played all 132 games with the Double-A Akron RubberDucks, the man with a thousand forearms set a career-high in home runs with 26, had one of his highest walk rates in any season, and his isolated power rating was just a shade under what he put up in 32 games during his Rookie League days in 2012.