John Sickels from MinorLeagueBall.com reviewed his top 20 Boston Red Sox prospects list last Friday.
His list, which he created in pre-season, had Hanley Ramirez at the number one spot while Anibal Sanchez at the four. Now both players are obviously gone, so it will be interesting to see how the top five looks once he does it for the 2006 season.
Ramirez's stock was dropping already, so I would have been very surprised to see him as number one on the 2006 list. That honor will probably go to Jon Lester who had a fantastic year this this season and will see himself pitching in Pawtucket to start the season.
On the other hand, Sanchez's stock was on the rise. He put up jaw-dropping K/9 numbers, but I think many people were skepticle of what he could do at the higher levels. If he was still in the system then Sickels probably would have rated him the #2 or #3 prospect overall.
This brings me to one of my goals for the off-season. I want to have a community effort to come to a somewhat conclusive decision of the top 20 prospects in the Red Sox farm system. Where would you rank Lester? Is Jon Papelbon still a prospect? Where does Jeff Corsaletti rank among some of the Sox outfielders?
I'm not quite sure how to do it at this point though. Maybe I should have everyone comment on their top 20, and then average them out with the rest of the community to see what we come up with. I'm excited to see the results.
Look for a post coming up about the prospects list to be posted on the website. And if you have any ideas for the prospect list, then leave a comment. Everthing is welcome.