When I interviewed Baseball America executive editor J.J. Cooper this week about the publication's new top 100 prospects list, it was clear that while the Orioles' Adley Rutschman was ranked as the outlet's No. 1 prospect, he was not an easy choice to be No. 1. As good as Rutschman is, and Baseball America also rates him with three 70-grade tools, two other players had strong cases for No. 1. They are Seattle's 21-year-old outfield prospect Julio Rodriguez from the Dominican Republic and...

When I interviewed Baseball America executive editor J.J. Cooper this week about the publication's new top 100 prospects list, it was clear that while the Orioles' Adley Rutschman was ranked as the outlet's No. 1 prospect, he was not an easy choice to be No. 1.

As good as Rutschman is, and Baseball America also rates him with three 70-grade tools, two other players had strong cases for No. 1. They are Seattle's 21-year-old outfield prospect Julio Rodriguez from the Dominican Republic and Kansas City's 21-year-old shortstop prospect, Bobby Witt Jr.

Rodriguez, who was ranked No. 2, played 74 games last year between High-A and Double-A ball and batted .347/.441/.560/1.001 with 19 doubles, two triples, 13 homers and 46 RBIs.

Witt, rated No. 3 prospect, played in 123 games between Double-A and Triple-A ball batting .290/.361/.575/.936 with 35 doubles, four triples, 33 homers, 99 runs, 29 steals and 97 RBIs. He filled up the stat sheet, but still finished third in the final ranking.

Cooper said that some years there is a clear No. 1, like in 2021 with Tampa Bay infielder Wander Franco, who was No 1 with Rutschman No. 2 last January. And some years - like this one - there are three players, all with strong cases for the top spot. He said there were some interesting and lengthy debates among the Baseball America staff before they kept Rutschman where he ended the 2021 rankings - still at No. 1.

"We talked about the difference in run values for a right fielder versus a shortstop, versus a catcher. That was part of the discussion," Cooper told me during a phone interview. "But then also, it gets complex in other ways. I would expect Adley Rutschman to play fewer games per year than the other candidates for No. 1. Because he's a catcher and catchers often and generally don't play as much. You don't want to wear them out and also they are at a higher risk of injury, so that played a factor. And that works against Rutschman for No. 1.

"But then you see the other side which is, right now, if you look around baseball and you say who is the best shortstop in the game? There are several candidates. Someone may say Fernando Tatis Jr., while someone else could say Carlos Correa or Corey Seager. You get down the list a little bit and there a lot of guys you might like. You can say the same of corner outfield. Then you start discussing catcher, especially now that Buster Posey has retired. You start running out of guys that can both hit and play (top) defense really quick and that is a factor in this discussion. I don't have the full answer to this, but is Adley more valuable than a top shortstop or corner outfielder prospect because it is much harder to find a player that can do what he does?"

Cooper remembered a recent season when the debate for No. 1 was strong like it was this time.

"If you go back to 2018, we had the top three of Ronald Acuña, Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And it's 2022, and I still don't know who should have been No. 1 because they are all three so good," he said.

As an aside, that top 10 in 2018 was really strong now looking back. After Guerrero at No. 3 was Eloy Jiménez at No. 4 and Victor Robles No. 5, followed by Gleyber Torres, Nick Senzel, Bo Bichette, Tatis and pitcher Forrest Whitley. The O's highest-rated player in 2018, when they had three in the top 100, was outfielder Austin Hays at No. 21.

Rutschman played in 123 games in 2021 between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk, batting a combined .285/.397/.502/.899 with 25 doubles, two triples, 23 homers, 86 runs and 75 RBIs. He produced an OPS of .900 with Bowie and .895 for Norfolk. In 43 games at Triple-A after his Aug. 10 promotion, he hit .312/.405/.490 with nine doubles, two triples, five homers and 20 RBIs.

Rutschman caught 80 games this season between the two teams, played at first base 28 times and was the designated hitter in 14 games. No one could say the Orioles limited him in any way as he led the farm in total plate appearances with 543. Kyle Stowers, who shared the Brooks Robinson Minor League Player of the Year Award with Rutschman for 2021, was next at 530.

Rutschman got 70 grades from Baseball America for his hit and power tools and also for his arm. Rodriguez got two 70 grades, for his hit and power tools. Witt got two for power and running and his three other tools all graded out at 60. Very strong, and he was one homer from a 30-30 year and again he ranked third on their top 100.

Among the 28 Orioles on the farm last season that had 300 plate appearances or more, Rutschman was an impressive No. 1 in walk rate (14.5) but combined that with being hardest to strike out on that list with a 16.6 strikeout rate. Nice combo.

"With Rutschman, the thing that came up over and over is he has such a good approach and you don't see catchers with that approach. You don't see switch-hitting catchers with that approach. So the overwhelming kind of consistency of why do all these teams love Rutschman as a prospect, that's a big reason why," said Cooper.

Cooper said as the Baseball America staff tried to choose their No. 1 player between these three, they looked at the warts, too. Were there things they could nitpick and/or find any reasons for future concern with this group?

"If there is any concern, and it's not some thinking he's going to be a bust or anything like that, but nitpicking with Rutschman, his swing from the left side, evaluators don't think it's as good as his swing from the right side," Cooper said. "And that's going to be the side from which he is going to bat most of the time. So it will be interesting to watch his left-handed swing in the majors. Again, the evaluators you talk to, the teams we have talked to, they don't say anything like, 'He's going to get smoked versus right-handers.' It's more, that swing, it's a steep swing. So that could be something that he needs to make an adjustment on.

"And partly I bring that up because Matt Wieters, the Orioles' other No. 1 prospect, that is one that we look back on say and he had a very good career but not a great career. And if you say, 'What happened with Wieters?' Think there are two things that stand out to me. Reason one, it is a cautionary tale of catchers. And the other is if you look over his major league career, he was not as effective versus right-handed pitchers (a .701 career OPS and .783 versus lefties). I say that again, not to say let's rain on Adley Rutschman, but we just got to the point with these three elite prospects and we're trying to figure out, in addition to what could go right, what could go wrong here?"

In the end Rutschman got the nod for No. 1 giving the Orioles two players in the top six with Grayson Rodriguez at No. 6. The Birds placed three others on the top with lefty DL Hall at No. 52, infielder Gunnar Henderson No. 57 and outfielder Colton Cowser at No. 98.