Industry Sources: Top Prospect Lists and Organizational Rankings

The last few weeks have been huge for prospecting.  Several top 100 lists, top 10 team lists, and organizational rankings have been published.  That includes lists and rankings from the major industry sources, Keith Law, John Sickels, Jonathon Mayo, Baseball America, and Baseball Prospectus among others.  Below is a sort of compilation, along with analysis, of those lists and rankings.  Format is by category.

Neal Huntington and the Story of Brad Hawpe

Free Draft Pick

I'm an unabashed supporter of Neal Huntington. I believe he should and hope he is the Pirates General Manager for several years to come.  That said, I do not believe that he's without fault.  In fact, he's made plenty of poor moves in his tenure with the Pirates.  He non-tendered Matt Capps who was traded for top prospect Wilson Ramos months later.  The 2009 draft has been a disaster.  His intentions and logic may have been right, but the results have been poor.  Adam LaRoche was traded for Hunter Strickland and Argenis Diaz when his value couldn't be lower.  Huntington's major league free agent signings have been largely been disasters. That said, my biggest gripe with Huntington has been something he's failed to do.

MLB Draft Day 1 Recap

Overview:

Yesterday marked Day 1 of the Rule 4 MLB amateur entry draft.  The draft started at 7 P.M. and by the end of the night, the first round and first supplemental round saw their conclusion.  The Pirates had two picks out of the first 60 selections that were made yesterday, number #8 overall and #45 overall.  The first pick was the Pirates natural selection in the first round due to last year's record while the second pick was compensation for losing Ryan Doumit to the Twins.  With that #8 selection, the Pirates picked Stanford pitcher Mark Appel.  The #45 selection was used to nab Texas Tech outfielder Barrett Barnes.