Rob

Per Paul Sullivan via twitter: No surprises.

I kinda did.

16-25 would probably contain Candelario, Antigua, Castillo, Flaherty, Beliveau, Malave, Beeler, Dunston Jr., Kurcz, and Amaya in no particular order... Struck might sneak in there for me, as might Acosta or DeVoss. As to Rusin... I actually just like him a lot. Crazy groundball rate and doesn't walk many... he just keeps pounding the ball down in the zone with enough movement to get guys on top of it. I have a hypothesis that guys with that general profile are going to have an easier time adjusting to a higher level. The upside is limited, but I honestly believe we could slot him in at the back end of our rotation today and he'd be a good #4. Contrast that with a guy like Antigua, who has a higher ceiling, but is more likely (in my mind at least) to experience significant struggles until developing some level of consistency, if he ever does... I dunno, as often as I prefer upside, for whatever reason I just like Rusin there.

We wont take that much of a hit in the rankings... most of that already happened with the Garza trade (and in fairness, Archer and Lee were in our top 5, Guyer in the top 10, and Chirinos wasn't far from the top 10). Last I saw, most analysts had already slid us down to around the #20 system before this season even started. But I'm with you... this is the most interesting the minor league system has been in a while. Upside is a magical thing.

Subject to vast changes as I think on it more, but a rough outline for mine would probably go something like this: 1. Brett Jackson 2. Trey McNutt 3. Matt Szczur 4. Javier Baez 5. Dillon Maples 6. Dae-Eun Rhee 7. Ben Wells 8. Josh Vitters 9. Marco Hernandez 10. Junior Lake (I just can't help myself) 11. Reggie Golden 12. Robert Whitenack (would be a lot higher if not for the injury. I'm basically slotting him where I expect him to show back up on peoples lists next year when he returns) 13. Jae-Hoon Ha 14. Dan Vogelbach 15. Chris Rusin I absolutely hate slotting Maples that high as I have some issues with his mechanics based on some predraft videos I saw... but his draft status and ceiling probably warrant a high ranking. I never gave up on Rhee quite like most of you, but from 6-15 I really didn't feel there was all that much separation. I'm sure most of you wont have Lake popping up in your top 30, let alone top 10... but I've discussed him plenty. Whitenack is getting the same treatment I gave Rhee, where he's basically going to get 2 free passes at this slot... once next year because he hasn't pitched much if at all, and once the year after that just so long as he stays healthy in his first full season back. Vogelbach could jump way up this list with a nice year, (or even a massive time at Instructs), but for now this is about as high as I feel comfortable putting him. Rusin is my token upper-level guy who I feel can be sneakily productive if given a shot... gotta love that groundball rate. I may work later at expanding this list into a top 30 or 50... or I may do nothing with it at all.

Rendon went #6 this year, I do believe.

Yeah, you may be in trouble. In fairness, TT and I spent a long time warning you. I also made a ban bet that the gap in WAR between our 1B and Dunn wouldn't put us in the playoffs this year. I had forgotten all about that. Oh well, no matter.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Boston could still make the playoffs depending on what happens with the Rays game... but wow. I don't care if the end result is that the Cardinals are going to the playoffs. Today has been a ridiculously awesome night of baseball.

I just had some fun reading through thread dedicated to him last offseason. On a related note, I don't give imb! nearly enough credit. Each time I reread an old thread, he seems to end up on the right side of it.

I found out today that a guy in my fantasy league apparently works like 4 rows over from Bartman.

I can't decide whether to make a new top prospects list or wait until we've seen some from the AFL and Instructs.

Absolutely. But I can't see Epstein making a panic move like that purely for PR purposes.

Two years ago, I was sure he could mash big league pitching. To start this season, I thought he might be able to hit big league pitching. Now, I wouldn't mind keeping him in the system, but wouldn't waste a 40 man spot on him. The A's though, given their budgetary concerns and how absurdly punchless that offense is as currently constructed... this gamble makes a lot of sense for them.

Chiefs really need to get the lights on the scoreboard for the radar gun reading fixed.

Yeah, I'm getting the same error now Banedon is reporting.

Victorino sounds good as a ceiling comp. As a more middle of the road projection, I kinda look at Coco Crisp.

If I can't dance around that then you can't dance around the idea that it's very unlikely he gets asked to move in the first place. The guy won a GG in '09 as a CF at 24, and at 26 in '11 he probably had the best season of any CF in the game. Even if both of us agree that he's not great shakes as a CF and would be an excellent RF, that could be said about ANY competent CF. He's not an Andruw Jones, Van Slyke, or Mike Cameron out there in CF, but that's not going to be a good enough reason for a team to move him from CF. Rafael Palmeiro won a Gold Glove in 1999 while only playing 28 games at 1B. Let's not pretend Gold Gloves have any meaning whatsoever.

Okay, the argument has shifted from just an established player moving, but an established in-their-prime star. Here's an admittedly incomplete list of Hall of Fame players whose careers started after 1900 who were already established at a position and changed positions sometime betwen the ages of 24 and 33 (catchers excluded). I just went down the list on baseball reference and clicked on guys whom I seemed to recall a position change for. Ernie Banks moved off SS at age 30. George Brett moved from 3B to 1B at age 33. Rod Carew moved from 2B to 1B at age 29. Andre Dawson moved from CF to RF at age 28. Hank Greenberg moved from 1B to LF at age 28. Rickey Henderson moved from LF to CF at age 24, then back from CF to LF at age 28. Al Kaline went from RF to CF at age 29, then back to RF at age 31. Until very late in his career, Harmon Killebrew never really settled down at a position... spending a year or two at 1B, 3B and LF and shuffling through all of them again later in his career. Fred Lindstrom went from 3B to OF at age 24. Willie McCovey spent his first 3 years at 1B, then moved to the OF, then back to 1B at age 27. I'm not even going to try to list all of Paul Molitor's position changes. Rest assured, they started early and never stopped. Stan Musial moved from OF to 1B at age 33. Tony Perez moved from 3B to 1B at age 29. Kirby Puckett moved from CF to RF at age 33. Sam Rice moved from CF to RF at age 32. Frank Robinson moved plenty between 1B, LF, and RF beginning early in his career. Jackie Robinson moved from 2B to OF at age 33. Babe Ruth switched from P to OF, obviously... but he also spent almost his entire career splitting games between LF and RF every season. Joe Sewell moved from SS to 3B at age 29. Al Simmons moved from CF to LF at age 25. Duke Snider began moving from CF to RF at age 31. Carl Yastrzemski played in the OF til moving off for 1B at age 29. He spent one year there, moved back to the OF for one more year, then back to 1B for most of the rest of his career. And of course there's Robin Yount switching from SS to CF at at 28. Players change position. Even good ones. Stop pretending it's such a big deal.

That doesn't answer the question though. There aren't too many established guys who get asked to move that I can think of. There's always talk of a move a'comin, but I can't remember too many guys actually making the move. While I agree that moving Kemp from CF to RF isn't asking anything crazy and it's one I've been pushing as much as anyone, I just don't think it's something that's likely. There's a team who'll pay the price for him to man CF for them. Current players who moved from CF to a corner OF after being 'established': Josh Hamilton Carlos Beltran Torii Hunter Vernon Wells Juan Pierre Andruw Jones Cody Ross David DeJesus Mike Cameron Corey Patterson You'll probably see Grady Sizemore and maybe Marlon Byrd join this list next year. I left off a few iffy names like Carlos Gonzalez who maybe played a higher percentage of their games in one spot, but never really settled in there. Also most players who don't get any real starting time. Obviously some of those are more important than others... but it just serves to prove guys do get moved for a variety of reasons. Hell, if we expand what we're looking at a bit more, we can point out that Michael Young went into this season without a position at all.

I wonder what it would take to get Ethier. Say we did get Fielder and Wilson, Ethier would be a great complimentry piece, and then we could resign him the next offseason. He wouldn't be cheap in terms of prospects or players however. Ethier's salary will be north of $10 mil next season. We could get the Dodgers to pitch in some, but that will hurt our farm system more. I'd rather we avoid him.

People were saying that about Casey Coleman this time last year. If you want to give LaHair a minor reserve role and see if he can't play his way into more, fine. But counting on him in any real capacity would be a mistake.

Too late. They're sold out.

That's actually a pretty stacked roster.

Erm... Yeah... Hard to be that valuable with an OBP under .300, let alone most valuable. But hey, Scioscia loves Jeff Mathis too. And he obviously gets his way with the Angels FO.