Top Prospects Turning Heads After Minor League Season's Opening Week

The minor league season may only be just over a week old, but there have already been a number of impressive performances put forth by some of baseball's most highly touted prospects.

But not all impressive performances are of the head-turning variety—and they don't all belong to baseball's top young talent.

Take Texas' Joey Gallo, for example. We've come to expect big power numbers from the slugging third baseman, so while his four home runs in seven games in a return to Texas' Triple-A affiliate is noteworthy, it'd be far more impressive if he had done so without striking out seven times in the process.

Boston's Aaron Wilkerson has done his best Pedro Martinez impression thus far, allowing one earned run and six baserunners over 10.2 innings of work while striking out 17 batters for the team's Double-A affiliate, but he's not considered a prospect, much less a highly touted one.

The only requirement for inclusion on this list is that a player appears on MLB.com's top 100 prospects list. Wilkerson not only fails to meet that criteria, he doesn't even make an appearance on Boston's top 30 prospects list.

Which top prospects have done enough to turn our heads? Let's take a look.

Andrew Benintendi, OF, Boston Red Sox

2016 Stats (High-A): 7 G, 10-for-27 (.370), 2 2B, 4 3B, 6 RBI, 5 R, 1 BB, 1 SO, 1-for-1 SB

MLB.com Rank: No. 23

Andrew Benintendi has hit everywhere he's gone since Boston selected him seventh overall in last year's draft—including a cameo appearance in spring training, where he went 3-for-4 with a double in two exhibition games—so it's not really surprising to see him succeeding with High-A Salem.

The 21-year-old has reached base safely in four consecutive games (with at least one extra-base hit in each) and five of the seven he's played with his new team. 

His total of 20 bases leads the Carolina League, while, per MiLB.com's Sam Dykstra, he leads all of minor league baseball with four triples, tying his total over 54 games last season. With that said, it's only a matter of time before some of those extra-base knocks wind up in the stands instead of the outfield gaps thanks to his developing power.

Thanks to a deep outfield, the Red Sox don't need to rush Benintendi through the minors, though his bat will ultimately dictate how quickly he progresses. It wouldn't be at all surprising to see him receive a midseason promotion to Double-A, where he'll get a chance to face more advanced pitching every day.

Alex Bregman, SS, Houston Astros

2016 Stats (Double-A): 6 G, 8-for-24 (.333), 3 HR, 5 RBI, 6 R, 2 BB, 2 SO, 0-for-1 SB

MLB.com Rank: No. 20

Teams tend to take things slowly with their top prospects for a number of reasons, including the desire to not stifle their development by exposing them to advanced competition too early in their careers. That's especially true for players entering their first full professional seasons, as Alex Bregman is in 2016.

But that didn't stop Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow from deciding that the best place for Bregman, who the Astros selected second overall in last year's draft, to start the year was at Double-A and not back in High-A ball, where he hit .319 with 15 extra-base hits and an .839 OPS in 37 games last season.

Luhnow explained his decision to the Houston Chronicle's Jake Kaplan:

"

(High-A) Lancaster can teach some guys some bad habits, hitters and pitchers both, because it's such a drastic hitter-friendly environment. With a guy like him, we'd err on the side of (advancing him to Class AA) even if he's going to be a little over his head going to Corpus (Christi) and playing a game that more closely resembles the game he's going to play in the big leagues.

"

So far, the 22-year-old has looked anything but over his head against advanced pitching.

He's reached base safely in each of his first six games with Corpus Christi and nearly matched his home run total from last season, when he hit four across two levels of the team's minor league system over 66 games.

Without a clear path to playing time in Houston—he's blocked by Jose Altuve at second base and Carlos Correa at shortstop—a position change or trade could be in the cards for Bregman.

Brent Honeywell, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays

2016 Stats (High-A): 2 GS, 0-0, 0.75 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, 12 IP, 8 H, 1 BB, 11 K

MLB.com Rank: No. 41

While he's not as highly touted or as close to the big leagues as fellow Tampa Bay pitching prospect Blake Snell, Brent Honeywell made waves this spring when he decided to take on Washington's Bryce Harper over the reigning National League MVP's take on the state of the game in a pair of tweets.

Now the 21-year-old is making waves on the mound for High-A Charlotte, where he pitched to a 3.44 ERA and 1.10 WHIP over 12 starts to finish out his first full professional season. That may not sound much like progress, but he looks better than he did a few months ago.

Honeywell has allowed only one earned run over his first two starts while striking out more batters (11) than he's allowed baserunners (nine).

One of the few pitchers who throws a true screwball (basically a curveball in reverse), he attacks the strike zone relentlessly with an advanced arsenal while flashing outstanding control, walking only 34 batters through his first 176 professional innings.

It won't be long before he takes the next step in his development and makes his Double-A debut, but a trip to the big leagues will have to wait until 2017. Tampa Bay is notorious for taking things slow with their pitching prospects, and the Rays will stick to the script with Honeywell.

Dansby Swanson, SS, Atlanta Braves

2016 Stats (High-A): 7 G, 11-for-29 (.379), 5 2B, 5 RBI, 5 R, 4 BB, 5 SO, 2-for-2 SB

MLB.com Rank: No. 6

With every swing, the trade that bought Dansby Swanson to the Atlanta Braves looks more and more lopsided. Acquired from Arizona in the Shelby Miller swap, Swanson, the top overall pick in last year's draft, has wasted little time getting acclimated to his new surroundings.

Swanson has reached base safely in each of his first seven outings with High-A Carolina, delivering four multihit games along the way and leads the Carolina League with five doubles. But as the 22-year-old tells MiLB.com's Michael Avallone, he's not getting caught up in his hot start to the season.

"You can't worry about results," Swanson said. "It's about having quality at-bats and staying in your routine day after day. Whether you have success or not, you only control what you can control. My preparation each day takes care of the rest and will ultimately let me be the best version of myself."

Swanson figures to reach Double-A at some point this season, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him make his MLB debut with the Braves once rosters expand in September.

Julio Urias, LHP, Los Angeles Dodgers

2016 Stats (Triple-A): 1 GS, 1-0, 0.00 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 5 IP, 4 H, 9 K

MLB.com Rank: No. 2

It took one pitch for Oklahoma City pitching coach Matt Herges to know that Julio Urias' first start of the 2016 season, against the Memphis Redbirds, St. Louis' Triple-A affiliate, wouldn't resemble his last outing in 2015, when the Redbirds tagged him for six earned runs and nine hits over 3.1 innings.

"I had a little apprehension because when he went up to Triple-A last year [and] it didn't go well," Herges explained to MiLB.com's Tyler Maun. "I thought that might be in the back of his mind. But after I saw the first pitch, I thought, 'OK, this is going to be good.'"

That might be the understatement of the season thus far, for the 19-year-old Urias was downright filthy.

Urias tossed five scoreless innings this time, scattering four hits while striking out nine. At one point, he had retired 12 consecutive batters and, per SB Nation's Eric Stephen, had former big league outfielder Carlos Peguero jumping up and down "like a youngster pitching a fit" after going down on strikes.

While the Dodgers wisely want to take things slow with Urias, the youngest player in Triple-A, it's going to be impossible for them to keep him out of the big league rotation for long if he continues to shut down the opposition like this.

Unless otherwise noted, all statistics courtesy of MiLB.com and are current through April 13.

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