Sorry to resume my Yankee (and by extension, Cashman) bashing, but I find it interesting that Sporting News still lists Henson as a top prospect, especially after his dismal AFL in '02.

Jonah Keiri writes in BP.com:

"Drew Henson (NYY): The Yanks had made some noise about letting Robin Ventura walk to make room for Henson. Ha! After dominating the AFL last year, Henson's been awful this year. Instead of attacking ground balls, he leans back and lets them eat him up. Every other throw he made seemed to be wild. Oh yeah, and he swings at everything and rarely makes contact. When he does, his timing's off. Every fan in the park caught a foul ball. OK, everyone except the statheads."

Yet Sporting News' Kevin Wheeler still includes Henson as one the AFL's top performers:

"Many are starting to question whether or not Henson has what it takes to be a major leaguer, but I still think he can make it. His raw talent is undeniable; he just lacks the "feel" for the game most advanced prospects have because he's spent so much time playing football. He only hit .211 and he fanned 40 times in 147 at-bats, but he clubbed six home runs, twice as many as the Corey Hart, and improved later in the season. Given time, Henson will be fine. "

Who are you going to believe? The stathead or the guy who's got a feeling Henson can make it? (I guess the Yanks can take solace that $17 MM can apparently buy considerable goodwill, if not major league caliber performance.)

Michael Jordan's raw talent was undeniable too, and he never got a "feel" for the game. If Henson keeps progressing a couple of steps behind his peers, he'll be 30 before he's an average major leaguer.

I don't know when Sporting News posted their list, but Arnold and Ford-Griffin are both listed as A's.

Three nominations, one third-place finish, two last-place finishes. Clearly, I'm the Bridesmaid of the Primeys -- which would make a neat low-budget horror flick, come to think of it. Well, it truly was an honour just to be nominated. I'm not upset.

Ranking prospects is terribly difficult --- there's really no objective way to prove that #36 is a better prospect than #35. The only way to do such a list, to my mind, is lump all 50 into one list and present them alphabetically or by position or whatnot. But I'm a low-risk kind of guy, and I have no Primeys either.

Aaron's assessment of Cash and Arnold seems bang on the money, which is more than I can say for The Sporting News. Not only have they not bothered, as Jurgen points out, to correct the team affiliations for some players, they're out of their tree if they think Quiroz is a better prospects than Gross, among other quirks. Then again, consider who's providing the assessment of the Blue Jays prospects there -- some guy named Richard Griffin. Anyone out there who's using TSN's Fantasy Yearbook to prepare for their roto drafts, keep in mind that the Blue Jays analyses might not be the most accurate of the lot. And not only that, but I didn't win a Primey.

Damn ,2 Canucks in the top 13(Morneau and Harden).How can Riccardi justify firing all my buddies who scout Canada.Is it their fault they missed on these guys as well as Gagne,Zimmerman,Walker,and Bedard!(Well maybe it is their fault.....but now I don't have any insight into the team and I'm sinking fast)

Hey, what about me?

Jordan, look what multiple nominations with no awards did for Susan Lucci's career. Sorry, strike that. You did have some tough competition, for sure.

It's a shame how far TSN has fallen from their glory days. I included the links mostly because I couldn't believe how sloppy the content is. They'll have comments on the prospects later, we're told. So what? If they don't know what organizations they're in, why should we care how they're ranked? I'm still stunned that they think the Mets are the tenth best team in baseball, and I wish Aaron had done a Top 100.

http://www.baseballblog.blogspot.com
Thanks for kind words and plug!

You guys might be interested to know that my ranking of Cash in the top 50 has generated more email response than anyone else.

In case anyone is wondering, Werth, Griffin and Adams would have made my top 100 and McGowan, Rosario, Gross and Rios would have been right on the bubble.

I don't think the Jays have any future superstars in the system, but they have a lot of guys that should be nice major leaguers.

BTW, did I read that correctly? You called me a "prodigy"?!
Man, I might have to find a way to work that quote into a pickup line of some sort.

What does everyone think of this...
"Hey baby...the boys are Batter's Box think I am a prodigy. And they're Canadian!"

Smooth.

Now that you're here, Aaron...

Cash seems overmatched with the bat at each new level, then eventually catches up. No question about his remarkably quick feet and rifle arm, but it remains to be seen if he'll ever hit enough to be more than a defensive specialist as a big-leaguer. Werth might be a career utility man, and so far, has the same vulnerability to good fastballs as Cash. I like Adams and Griffin better than both, but as Jordan correctly stated, that's an unprovable opinion.

I'm sure you got some feedback about a Twins bias, but I completely agree that Mauer and Cuddyer are that good. I't's the B.C. kid, Justin Morneau, who surprises me a bit at #11; I hope you're right for reasons of national pride. The other Canadian on your list, #13 Rich Harden, would look very good in a Jays uniform, and he's closer to the Show, so you must love Morneau's potential.

Chicks dig statheads, especially if they're prodigious; it must be the spreadsheets. But please don't tell them you know us.

I wouldn't put much Wes Stock into what Kevin Wheeler has to say about prospects anymore...."Wheels" no longer has the time to do any quality research due to the fact that he is stuck doing the overnite shift (here in N.Y.C) at WSNR (which,by the way,is about to go the way of the old Met goat mascot...ta-ta'sville,and from what I hear it will be replaced by the Russian Theatre Review Show...I for one can't wait for their review of the comedy/musical "GREASE" set in a Gulag).....

http://www.baseballblog.blogspot.com
Cash seems overmatched with the bat at each new level, then eventually catches up. No question about his remarkably quick feet and rifle arm, but it remains to be seen if he'll ever hit enough to be more than a defensive specialist as a big-leaguer.

As I said in the article, I am banking on Cash being able to hit .250+ in the big leagues. That, with the D and the walks and power, would be enough to make him one of the better catchers in baseball. If he only hits .220, he is going to have a very tough time justifying the ranking.

I'm sure you got some feedback about a Twins bias, but I completely agree that Mauer and Cuddyer are that good. I't's the B.C. kid, Justin Morneau, who surprises me a bit at #11; I hope you're right for reasons of national pride. The other Canadian on your list, #13 Rich Harden, would look very good in a Jays uniform, and he's closer to the Show, so you must love Morneau's potential.

Yeah, I am surprised by how many people have emailed me to say they think I am just being a homer with my Twins rankings.
I think there is no doubt that Mauer is a top 5 prospect and the consensus on Cuddyer is that he is a top 10-15 prospect no matter what list he's on.
I think he is going to be a Tim Salmon type of player.
.280-.300 average, 70-80 walks, 30+ homers, 30+ doubles and, eventually, some pretty good D in RF.
Plus, he is ready for the Majors right now, which counts for something.

As for Morneau...
He has been slightly disappointing as far as power goes, but he's still very young and has consistently hit for a very good average everywhere he plays.
His power has certainly been decent, just not as good as the hype.
I don't know that he'll ever hit the 40 HRs a year that scouts used to predict for him, but I think he'll be an upper-level 1B or DH for many years.

The guys from 10-20 could all be flip flopped quite frankly.
Part of the reason I have Harden lower than Morneau or Kotchman is simply that he is a pitcher and I am a lot more conservative with pitcher rankings (despite my ranking of Kazmir!).

An Oakland rotation of Zito, Hudson, Mulder, Harden and Lilly could be un-freaking-believable.
If you want to slap some labels on them, that is 4 #1 starters and a #2-3 starter. And they are all young.

and I wish Aaron had done a Top 100.

If only you knew how long I spent on the 50...

I actually do pretty much have a top 100 ranking.
I originally had a list of about 210 guys, cut that down to 150, down to 100, down to 75 and then ranked them, 1-75.
I've got the list somewhere...perhaps hidden next to my Biology textbook or something.

Aaron,

Thanks for joining us. But shouldn't you be studying? (Wink, wink.)

Regrettably, the A's will most likely not be able to keep their big three intact, much less add Harden to the trio. And, if you've read my little forum on ESPN, you'll see that I don't share your optimism with Ted Lilly.

If the right deal comes around, the A's will trade Rich Harden for an OF who can actually hit. At this time two years ago, Mario Ramos was a hot prospect -- though a different pitcher than Harden -- and he was shipped for Carlos Pena, who turned into Lilly. Myself, I'd rather have Pena, or at least Weaver, as I said in my column; I think Oakland gave up on Pena too soon, since historically he struggles his first time through a new league.

The A's can trade Harden (and Jason Arnold and Eric Hinske and John Ford-Griffin, even if they didn't draft them) because of their overall philosophy. Much is made of Billy Beane's ability to find hitters and relief pitchers, but he also has a keen ability to pick up cheap effective starters to fill out the back end of the rotation: Cory Lidle, Gil Heredia and Omar Oliveras (at least for a year) come to mind right away, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others. Plus the A's draft college pitchers, who reach the majors quicker and who tend to be less risky than high-school pitchers, as many people have pointed out. Some of these guys don't pan out -- Eric Dubose, for example -- but I think we know of a few who did.

There is always the risk the prospects will run out, as they did in Cleveland, and not everybody will trade you Brian Giles for Ricardo Rincon. At some point the A's will have to keep some of their prospects and stop, for instance, giving them to the Blue Jays for overblown closers. They stole Hinske from the Cubs, and JP stole him from the A's.

I'll keep my faith in Beane, however; I may not agree with everything he's done, but, overall, of course, he's been brilliant.

Rany Jazayerl presents his Top 40 Prospects today, amid BP's annual eclectic roundtable. Arnold gets his lowest (arbitrary) ranking so far at #29, Werth makes the list at #37, and both Cash and Jason Perry are given honourable mention in the discussion.

Oops! In fairness to Rany, I forgot the "i" at the end of his last name.

By the way, Perry seems to be one of the most intriguing hitter in the system, and I, for one, will be watching his development closely in the coming year.. I'm surprised we dont' hear more about him after his monstrous debut. (I know BA has raved about the 6th round pick once or twice). Does anyone know where he is projected to play this year?

What used to be Baseball Weekly also has a prospect report this week, on the AL East. The football paper buries the Pastime in the back now, but it rates the Jays as the ninth best organization in MLB and tops in the division. Mostly the names already discussed, but they list Jason Dubois as a Jays prospect, which assumes J.P. can work a trade with the Cubs to keep the big guy. Ideally, Toronto could send him to destroy AA like he did the FSL. He could rake a little in college, too -- in 57 games for Virginia Commonwealth in 2000, he hit .435 in 193 AB, scored 70 runs, drove in 74, had 12 doubles, 5 triples and 19 HR and walked 51 times. That's a .533 OBP and a .845 SLG, leading his conference in pretty much everything. He was a second-team All-American as a "Utility" player, because he was also a pretty fair pitcher, but he's a LF/DH in the pros.

Prospect? Maybe, but if the Cubbies realize their mistake and want him back, there's another possibility. Depending on how he performs in Florida, Dubois could play the role I was playfully handing to Reggie Sanders in another thread -- fourth OF and RH pinch-hitter for the Jays. That would be something, if Toronto nabbed two Rule 5 picks who managed to stick.