Will a pitcher ever rank No. 1 again?

The Baseball America Top 100 Prospects list has been around for 34 seasons. The Top 100 has been around long enough that prospects from the first Top 100s are now Hall of Famers.

- J.J. COOPER

At the top of the list, we’ve had outfielders (14), shortstops (six), catchers (four) and third basemen (three). Pitchers, however, have disappeared from the top spot.

It has been 17 seasons since a pitcher ranked No. 1 on the Top 100 Prospects list. This year, the top four prospects on the Top 100 are all position players.

Not only has no pitcher ranked No. 1 since Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Red Sox claimed the top spot in 2007, the only pitcher who has ranked in the top three in the past 10 years is Shohei Ohtani. And he’s a special case, because he also happened to be an outfielder/DH who had 35-home run potential as a two-way player.

It wasn’t always this way. A pitcher topped the list in each of the first three years of the Top 100. Steve Avery (1990), Todd Van Poppel (1991) and Brien Taylor (1992) are also a useful reminder of why just three pitchers—Matsuzaka, Rick Ankiel and Josh Beckett—have ranked No. 1 in the 31 seasons since.