Baseball America Named 4 Sox Prospects to Top 100 List

Yesterday, Baseball America released its annual Top 100 Prospects List and the White Sox certainly have to be happy with the results. Four prospects landed on the list, and yes, I know that's not that impressive, but three were all acquired within the past calendar year, so after years of cleaning house, the Sox's plans to restock their farm system are coming right along.

The players named are Gordon Beckham (#20), Dayan Viciedo (61), Aaron Poreda (63), and Tyler Flowers (99). Also of note, there are four former Sox farmhands on the list. Three are in Oakland; Aaron Cunningham (55), Chris Carter (75), and Gio Gonzalez (97) and Kansas City's Daniel Cortes (90).

I'm hoping to pick up copies of Baseball Prospectus 2009 and Baseball America's Prospect Handbook over the weekend, but I've read that the White Sox farm system has jumped 12 places and is now ranked #16 overall. Obviously that doesn't help the Major League team in the short-term, but the perception that the Sox do not have a bottom-feeding minor league system any more is certainly nice.

Three Farmhands Make BP's Top 100 Prospects List

Baseball Prospectus's Kevin Goldstein just released his Top 100 Prospects list. The White Sox landed 3 players; #38 Gordon Beckham, #74 Aaron Poreda, and #99 Brandon Allen. OK, that's not as impressive a feat as, say, the Orioles who landed three prospects in the Top 20, but given that the White Sox's farm system was a mess a year ago, it's still commendable. I don't have a BP subscription, so I can't read the rest of the article, but I've also read whispers that say Goldstein rated both Viciedo and Flowers as "near misses," due to the difficulty projecting them; Viciedo because his skills are still so unknown and Flowers because nobody trusts him defensively.

Some notes...

• Six players from the 2008 Draft are ranked ahead of Beckham, including Justin Smoak, the power hitting first baseman from the University of South Carolina who was drafted by Texas. Smoak, as you may remember, was the other player the Sox were considering with their pick. He is also the only player drafted after Beckham in 2008 that precedes him on this list. The other five 2008 draftees are Pedro Alvarez (PIT), Buster Posey (SF), Tim Beckham (TB), Eric Hosmer (KC), and Brian Matusz (BAL).
• Another name you'll recognize on this list is Oakland's Chris Carter, ranked #41. Carter was drafted by the White Sox in 2005, but was traded to Arizona last year for Carlos Quentin. If you're wondering, he wound up with Oakland a few weeks later as part of the deal that sent Dan Haren to the Diamondbacks.
• The AL Central received very little love. Only 11 prospects from our division made the cut (if distribution was even, we'd have gotten 16 or 17). The Tigers had the best prospect in the division, Ricky Porcello (#7), but that was their only appearance on the Top 100.
• Surprisingly, the Royals only placed 2 prospects in the Top 100, Eric Hosmer (#18) and Mike Moustakas (#21). The Royals have had Top 10 picks in the June Draft every year but once since 1997. They've also nine supplemental pick first/sandwich round picks in that time.
• Cleveland matched the Sox's 3 players in the Top 100, Matt LaPorta (30), Carlos Santana (33), and Nick Weglarz. Minnesota's 2 are Ben Revere (36) and Aaron Hicks (39).

Jenks' trade value, Top 10 Prospect Shake-Up, and Farm Team featured on Deadspin

Another pretty quiet day for the White Sox in Las Vegas. The same general rumors are still floating around, Jermaine Dye is available, Jim Thome is available, Paul Konerko is available, but nothing really substantial. The biggest news of the day is that the two best closers available, K-Rod and Kerry Wood look like they've either signed contracts or are close, which of course affects the trade value Bobby Jenks, another asset the Sox supposedly have not been afraid to make available. It's been widely known that the closer market is one of the rare, truly buyer-friendly markets now, as evidenced by the "small" 3 year, $37 million deal Francisco Rodriguez signed with the Mets this afternoon. By no means, loose change, but considering the contract Rodriguez envisioned midseason, its obvious the glut of available closers and relative lack of teams needing closers will affect their value. This, of course means, the Sox will probably not be able to get fair value for Jenks this off-season and at this point, I'd expect him back for '09. Nothing, though, will really surprise me at this point.

Reds manager Dusty Baker weighed in on the ongoing Dye-to-Cincinnati trade rumors and revealed that the biggest stumbling block in the deal was Jermaine's contract, worth potentially $23.5 million over the next two years.

Not terribly shocking from the Red's perspective, they are well known cheap asses, plus it's pretty shitty to lose one of your top prospects (Bailey), rent a guy for 1 year at $10 million and then forfeit your top draft pick in 2010 when he walks as a free agent. This is however, interesting from the Sox's perspective who have repeatedly insisted they're not just slashing payroll for the sake of slashing payroll. If that were really the case, why was it so hard to come to a number everyone liked? I mean, I know it's a business and maybe Williams and Co. are waiting for a few of the other big dominoes to fall before gauging Dye's true current value, but if the real goal of the Sox is to simply get younger and more athletic, then you'd think eating some of Dye's salary wouldn't be such a deal-breaker. This makes me think that either:

1. The Sox are just cutting payroll for the sake of cutting payroll or...
2. The Sox are cutting payroll in anticipation of some other unseen moves later down the line.

Here's something that ought to give you nightmares. Joe Cowley, citing unnamed sources, claims that the Sox might try to reunite with Freddy Garcia. I shit you not,

A major-league source told the Sun-Times not to be surprised to see Freddy Garcia back in a Sox uniform in spring training if his current ''aches'' subside. The Sox know what they get with Garcia, and he'd love to be reunited with Ozzie Guillen.

If one of management's new goals was to rebuild some organizational depth, then consider the past 12 months very, very succesful. According to the Tribune's Mark Gonzales, Baseball America is putting the final touches on their 2009 prospect guides and the White Sox revised (since the Vazquez trade) top 10 will look like this:

1. Gordon Beckham
2. Dayan Viciedo
3. Aaron Poreda
4. Tyler Flowers
5. Clayton Richard
6. Brandon Allen
7. Jordan Danks
8. Brent Lillibridge
9. Chris Getz
10. John Shelby

The bolded names (1/2 the list) are guys who have been in the White Sox organization for less than 1 year. Very unlikely that any of these newcomers will make any, let alone major, contributions at the MLB level in 2009, but considering the complete mess that was the White Sox farm system just 1 year ago, this influx of young talent is very encouraging.

There has been a surprising lack of interest in free agent Orlando Hudson, at least that's what this guy thinks. Considering a few months ago, Hudson was thought to be the prize free agent on Kenny Williams wish list, it is a bit surprising to see those rumors completely vanish. However, the more I think about it, the more this seems to be the KW MO. He was able to snag Dye and Pierzynski for bargain prices before the '05 season because of their injury/character questions and the two have been outstanding, key members of the organization ever since. So even though the Hudson rumors have lulled, I'm not giving up on the thought of him starting at 2B for the White Sox in '09.

Elsewhere, a few other former Sox making news. The shortstop-less A's aren't thrilled at the prospect of signing Orlando Cabrera and forfeiting their 1st round pick in next year's draft. Don't expect OC to sign anywhere until Rafael Furcal, who was not offered salary arbitration by the Dodgers and carries no draft pick compensation, lands somewhere. Also, Jon Garland's name has been popping up. His most previous employer, the Angels, don't seem to keen on bringing him back, and while there were some rumors about him signing on with the Cardinals, the Orioles may also be in the mix.

Finally, the White Sox's newly renamed A-ball affiliate, the Winston-Salem Dash were featured on Deadspin today, the king of the sports blog world. Reason?

The team's new phallic-inspired logo.

I'll probably still just call them the Warthogs.