Coming Soon To A Stadium Near You: Minor League Starting Assignments

The minor league season starts up on Thursday for full season affiliates, and with the major league rosters being finalized over the past few days, we have a very good idea now of where a number of the top prospects will be playing that day. With that in mind, I've made the attempt to find out where as many of the top prospects are starting their season.

Every effort has been made to verify these assignments, specifically through the use of Twitter (both from players themselves, beat reporters, and other bloggers), press releases from both major and minor league organizations, and through posts done by the team-specific sites here at SBNation as well. I have not relied upon the roster pages over at MILB.com, only because they are generally only updated when teams announce the rosters for the start of the season. By no means is this a complete list, as there are likely at least a few top prospects where their assignment has either not been confirmed or, frankly, were just missed in my research.

Top Prospects On Major League Rosters:

Xander Bogaerts (BOS), Masahiro Tanaka (NYY), Jose Abreu (CHW), Nick Castellanos (DET), Billy Hamilton (CIN), Yordano Ventura (KC), Travis d'Arnaud (NYM), Carlos Martinez (STL), Chris Owings (ARI), James Paxton (SEA), Erik Johnson (CHW), Jonathan Schoop (BAL), Josmil Pinto (MIN), Mike Olt (CHC), Marcus Semien (CHW), Kolten Wong (STL), Brandon Workman (BOS), Michael Choice (TEX)

Top Prospects On Major League Disabled List:

Taijuan Walker (SEA), Dylan Bundy (BAL)

• The A's are doing the same thing they did last year, moving top high school draftee Billy McKinney straight to High-A Stockton like Addison Russell did. Should be interesting, and I think they get a pass after seeing how Russell did with the assignment overall.
• Kyle Zimmer will be held back in extended spring for about a month to start the year, but will be ramped up in the hope that he can provide important innings for the big club by September. He'll head out to AA from XST.
• The team in Wilmington is absolutely stacked with talent, and could be the single affiliate with the most top prospects on their roster. Top picks Hunter Dozier and Sean Manaea will be there, as well as Bubba Starling and Raul Mondesi.
• Tennessee (AA) is another affiliate worth checking out, with Kris Bryant and C.J. Edwards among the top prospects on the roster to start the year. It's entirely possible that they will also have Dan Vogelbach and Albert Almora from High-A by the end of the year as well.
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