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The Red Sox have placed seven prospects on Fangraphs' Top 100 Prospects list, including yet another second place finish for Xander Bogaerts. Their full representation is as follows:
Xander Bogaerts (2)
Jackie Bradley (35)
Garin Cecchini (51)
Mookie Betts (59)
Blake Swihart (66)
Henry Owens (72)
Matt Barnes (98)
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It's amusing that, at this point, we can almost call this showing a poor one given how well the farm system has done in similar rankings this year. Only two prospects in the top-50 is unusually low, as are a couple of the rankings, particularly for left-hander Henry Owens, who has seen plenty of top-50 finishes on the year.
This finish is particularly odd given that Owens would seem to have a reasonably high ceiling. With Marc Hulet calling this year's crop "the thinnest compilation of the top 100 players, in terms of cielings" in the last 10 years, you'd think Owens might actually get a bump up, rather than taking a step down. Given that, Hulet might well be lower on Owens than even his ranking lets on.
On the flip side, 59 is pretty high for Mookie Betts, who has drawn plenty of attention but also missed out on some lists while evaluators wait to see if he can repeat his breakout performance from 2013. Betts would seem to be the recipient of the bump we might have expected for Owens given his nature as a high-variance prospect. Not even Keith Law, who acknowledged Betts' upside as a potential All-Star, had him quite so high.