You can view our previous Top 10 Prospects columns: NL West | NL Central | NL East | AL West

The Chicago White Sox organization improved its minor league depth this past off-season with the trade of Javier Vazquez to Atlanta, as well as through the signing of Dayan Viciedo. The Cleveland Indians’ top prospects came from a combination of the amateur drafts, international signings, and trades. The club absolutely robbed the Dodgers for catcher Carlos Santana in a trade last season for Casey Blake. The Minnesota Twins organization has created incredible depth through the good ol’ fashion way: Draft and Development.

Kansas City has also learned about the value of drafting well, and the organization out-spent every other organization in baseball last year while acquiring talent in the June amateur draft. The Tigers also benefited from the 2008 draft, although it took a number of players with lower overall ceilings. Those players, though, will likely make it to the Majors much quicker, as one draftee – Ryan Perry – is already pitching at the Major League level.

The Minnesota Twins:
1. Aaron Hicks, OF, Extended Spring Training
2. Ben Revere, OF, Fort Myers (A+)
3. Wilson Ramos, C, New Britain (AA)
4. Anthony Swarzak, RHP, Rochester (AAA)
5. Jose Mijares, LHP, Rochester (AAA)
6. Danny Valencia, 3B, New Britain (AA)
7. Shooter Hunt, RHP, Beloit (A)
8. Angel Morales, OF, Beloit (A)
9. Kevin Mulvey, RHP, Rochester (AAA)
10. Tyler Robertson, LHP, Fort Myers (A+)

Other Prospects of Note: Jeff Manship, Carlos Gutierrez, David Bromberg, Deolis Guerra, Brian Duensing, Trevor Plouffe, Chris Parmalee, Joe Benson

Kansas City Royals
1. Eric Hosmer, 1B, Burlington (A)
2. Mike Moustakas, 3B, Wilmington (A+)
3. Tim Melville, RHP, Extended Spring Training
4. Mike Montgomery, LHP, Extended Spring Training
5. Danny Duffy, LHP, Wilmington (A+)
6. Daniel Cortes, RHP, Northwest Arkansas (AA)
7. Kila Ka’aihue, 1B, Omaha (AAA)
8. Daniel Gutierrez, RHP, Injured
9. Blake Wood, RHP, Northwest Arkansas (AA)
10. Johnny Giavotella, 2B, Wilmington (A+)

Other Prospects of Note: Tyler Sample, Carlos Rosa, Kelvin Herrera, Henry Barrera, David Lough, Derrick Robinson, Jose Bonilla, Yowill Espinal

Detroit Tigers
1. Rick Porcello, RHP, Detroit
2. Ryan Perry, RHP, Detroit
3. Casey Crosby, LHP, West Michigan (A)
4. Jeff Larish, 1B, Detroit
5. Wilkin Ramirez, OF, Toledo (AAA)
6. Cale Iorg, OF, Erie (AA)
7. Cody Satterwhite, RHP, Erie (AA)
8. Scott Sizemore, 2B, Erie (AA)
9. Brett Jacobson, RHP, Lakeland (A+)
10. Ryan Strieby, 1B, Erie (AA)

Other Prospects of Note: Casey Fien, Freddy Dolsi, Scott Green, Jonathan Kibler, Dusty Ryan, Casper Wells, Alex Avila, Will Rhymes

Cleveland Indians
1. Carlos Santana, C, Akron (AA)
2. Matt LaPorta, OF, Columbus (AAA)
3. Adam Miller, RHP, Columbus (AAA)
4. Nick Weglarz, OF, Akron (AA)
5. David Huff, LHP, Columbus (AAA)
6. Beau Mills, 1B, Akron (AA)
7. Michael Brantley, OF, Columbus (AAA)
8. Kevin De La Cruz, LHP, Kinston (A+)
9. Lonnie Chisenhall, 3B, Kinston (A+)
10. Hector Rondon, RHP, Akron (AA)

Other Prospects of Note: Tony Sipp, T.J. House, Jonathan Meloan, Luis Valbuena, Carlos Rivero, Wes Hodges, Trevor Crowe, Cord Phelps

Chicago White Sox
1. Gordon Beckham, SS, Birmingham (AA)
2. Dayan Viciedo, 3B, Birmingham (AA)
3. Tyler Flowers, C, Birmingham (AA)
4. Chris Getz, 2B, Chicago
5. Aaron Poreda, LHP, Birmingham (AA)
6. Brandon Allen, 1B, Birmingham (AA)
7. Jordan Danks, OF, Winston-Salem (A+)
8. John Shelby, OF, Birmingham (AA)
9. Clayton Richard, LHP, Chicago
10. John Ely, RHP, Birmingham (AA)

Other Prospects of Note: Clevelan Santeliz, Gregory Infante, Lance Broadway, Brent Lillibridge, Cole Armstrong, Eduardo Escobar, Brent Morel, Jon Gilmore

When you think of relief pitchers, pretty much everyone thinks of hard throwers who come in and fire 95 MPH fastballs for 20 pitches or so. Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon, Joe Nathan, Brad Lidge – they all bring big fastballs to the table. This is the prototype for a reliever.

The Tampa Bay Rays don’t care about prototypes. Their bullpen has an average fastball velocity of 87.7 MPH so far this year. It’s Grant Balfour (93.7 MPH) and a bunch of soft-tossing ninnies. Troy Percival’s the only other reliever who averages above 90 MPH, and several of them are way under that line.

Brian Shouse throws an 81 MPH fastball, and he’s thrown 83% of the time. J.P. Howell checks in with his 85 MPH heater, but he’s just as likely to throw a curve or a change. Joe Nelson and Dan Wheeler sit at 87-ish. Lance Cormier is averaging 88.7 MPH on his fastball.

The Rays have the token hard throwing/bad command guy, and then a bullpen full of pitchers who survive on control, movement, and deception. This is a conscious choice, too – the market for hard throwing relievers tumbled this winter, and any team who wanted to add a few for nothing had the chance.

Tampa decided they’d rather go with the softies. So far, it hasn’t exactly worked out – Percival continues to look like his career should be over and Wheeler may or may not be hurt, so the team could be shopping for a couple new bullpen arms pretty soon.

Yesterday a commenter asked about Tim Lincecum’s delivery since it appeared different. Well, after random sampling two of Lincecum’s starts last year and comparing them to this year’s starts, it’s safe to say his release point has indeed changed. Take a look for yourself:

Not by as much as I originally thought, but there still appears to be a conscious (or perhaps unconscious?) effort to lower his release point. There are also that set of dots way out there from the pack in which I have no idea what was going on with Lincecum, but it likely was nothing good.

Since I already had the Pitchfx hat on, I figured a glance at how Lincecum’s pitches were moving was worth the effort. They seem to be riding in to righties more and as mentioned yesterday the velocity is down a few ticks. Not sure if this should be cause for concern or not, perhaps it’s entirely intentional for Lincecum to have more break on his pitches and less velocity. Or maybe it’s just an anomaly that will soon be forgotten.

That added movement could explain his control issues though. If Lincecum’s grown accused tom topping out three to five inches of movement inward to right-handed hitters, and suddenly the ball is dancing five-to-seven inches it’s easy to understand why he’s missing the zone a bit more often.

Let’s see how Lincecum fares in his next few starts.

At 28 years old, Nelson Cruz is not much of a prospect anymore relative to the traditional usage of the term, but he is definitely going to great lengths to rid the Quad-A reputation he has developed over the last few seasons. Cruz’s story has been pretty well documented across the saber-savvy blogs, based on an odd ability to absolutely demolish minor league pitching while posting meager results in major league action. Cruz’s minor league numbers from 2006-08 were just silly:

2006 (AAA): .302/.378/.528 and .398 wOBA in 423 PA
2007(AAA): .352/.428/.698 and .464 wOBA in 188 PA
2008(AAA): .342/.429/.695 and .467 wOBA in 448 PA

Cruz was clearly much too dominant to stay in Triple-A, but his .279 and .288 wOBAs in the majors in 2006 and 2007, respectively, left many questioning whether or not he would ever succeed at the big league level. He went from resembling Albert Pujols with the bat to producing Punto-esque statistics. Last season, Cruz posted a .438 wOBA in 133 PA in the majors, proving that he could in fact produce at the highest level.

This season, even with the solid performance last season, many were still on the bubble with regards to believing in Cruz as a legitimate major league threat. Entering last night’s action, Cruz boasted a .406 wOBA with four dingers in his eight games of action. In a 19-6 rout of the Orioles, Cruz hit his fifth homer, a grand slam off of Radhames Liz. Nine games is still too small of a sample and Cruz could do well to improve his patience at the plate, but five home runs and a .400+ wOBA in the first couple weeks of the season are definitely promising performance components.

The Rangers ranked very high on Dave’s list of franchises moving forward thanks in large part to their dominant offense and extremely solid farm system. If Cruz can cement himself as a power threat in the major leagues contributing even 5/8 of his ridiculous minor league numbers, Rangers fans have to feel even more optimistic about the chances of their team moving forward.

Last year, Eric pointed you to a video of switch-pitcher Pat Venditte facing switch-hitter Ralph Henriquez. The match-up was a sensation and led to “The Pat Venditte rule”, as the Professional Baseball Umpries Corporation issued an official ruling on how such situations should be handled going forward.

Needless to say, Venditte has gotten significantly more recognition than most 20th round picks. However, with the way he’s pitched as a professional, he’s giving people reason to think that he might be more than a circus sideshow.

Last year, Venditte threw 32 2/3 innings, walked 10, struck out 42, and allowed just two home runs. His FIP was 2.34 – however, an older pitcher with college experience should be able to pitch well out of the bullpen in short-season ball, so he needed to continue to prove himself as a professional. So far, so good – his first four innings in full season ball have resulted in just two hits, no walks, and six strikeouts.

At some point, the Yankees are going to have to decide that he’s too good for the low minors and find out if his stuff can play at higher levels. Scouts continue to question his ability to get good hitters out with below average stuff, but his ability to always have the platoon advantage covers a multitude of sins. It’d be great for baseball if Venditte could prove that he had the chops to make it in the big show, so let’s hope the Yankees move him up this year and let the experiment get a real test.

After all, who doesn’t want a switch-pitcher to succeed?

We’ve got the 2009 minor league stats available right this second in the leaderboards and player pages. I also made a few minor changes to the leaderboards that make the standard/advanced sections contain the same stats as the major league ones. Nice to keep things consistent and all.

These will continue to be updated daily.

Now that all the early season fires have been put out, I can start working on new additions!

Our Top 10 prospects series jumps from the National League to the American League with the AL West today. You can read there NL West here, the NL Central here and the NL East here.

It’s been well documented that Oakland and Texas are both overflowing with talent. Texas is impressive because of all the pitching talent that it has, along with some intriguing hitters. Oakland has done a nice job stockpiling talent from other organizations in exchange for more expensive MLB talent.

Seattle does not have a ton of depth, but it has some key names at the top of the chart, including Phillippe Aumont, who should be an absolute monster coming out of the bullpen now that he’s been moved out of the starting rotation for better or for worse. In Los Angeles, the system is hurting – and that was before the organization lost its top prospect to a tragic traffic accident last week.

The Oakland Athletics
1. Trevor Cahill, RHP, Oakland
2. Brett Anderson, LHP, Oakland
3. Michael Inoa, RHP, Extended Spring Training
4. Chris Carter, 1B, Midland (AA)
5. Adrian Cardenas, 2B, Midland (AA)
6. Vince Mazzaro, LHP, Sacramento (AAA)
7. Sean Doolittle, 1B, Sacramento (AAA)
8. Aaron Cunningham, OF, Sacramento (AAA)
9. Gio Gonzalez, LHP, Sacramento (AAA)
10.Jemile Weeks, 2B, Injured

Other Prospects of Note: James Simmons, Henry Rodriguez, Josh Outman, Josh Donaldson, Brett Hunter, Rashun Dixon, Craig Italiano, Arnold Leon

The Seattle Mariners
1. Greg Halman, OF, West Tenn (AA)
2. Phillippe Aumont, RHP, High Desert (A+)
3. Michael Saunders, OF, Extended Spring Training
4. Adam Moore, C, West Tenn (AA)
5. Carlos Triunfel, SS, Injured
6. Jharmidy DeJesus, 3B, Extended Spring Training
7. Mario Martinez, 3B, Clinton (A)
8. Juan Ramirez, RHP, High Desert (A+)
9. Michael Pineda, RHP, High Desert (A+)
10. Matt Tuiasosopo, IF, Seattle

Other Prospects of Note: Joshua Fields, Dennis Raben, Carlos Peguero, Maikel Cleto, Shawn Kelley, Denny Almonte, Nolan Gallagher, Rob Johnson

The Texas Rangers
1. Neftali Feliz, RHP, Oklahoma City (AAA)
2. Derek Holland, LHP, Oklahoma City (AAA)
3. Justin Smoak, 1B, Frisco (AA)
4. Elvis Andrus, SS, Texas
5. Taylor Teagarden, C, Texas
6. Michael Main, RHP, Bakersfield
7. Julio Borbon, OF, Oklahoma City (AAA)
8. Max Ramirez, C, Oklahoma City (AAA)
9. Martin Perez, LHP, Hickory (A)
10. Wilfredo Boscan, RHP, Hickory (A)

Other Prospects of Note: Blake Beavan, Eric Hurley, Neil Ramirez, Tommy Hunter, Kasey Kiker, Wilmer Font, Tim Murphy, Guillermo Moscoso, Robbie Ross, Greg Golson

The Los Angeles Angels
1. Nick Adenhart, RHP, In Memory
2. Jordan Walden, RHP, Arkansas (AA)
3. Trevor Reckling, LHP, Rancho Cucamonga (A+)
4. Hank Conger, C, Arkansas (AA)
5. Mark Trumbo, 1B, Arkansas (AA)
6. Sean O’Sullivan, LHP, Arkansas (AA)
7. Will Smith, LHP, Cedar Rapids (A)
8. Trevor Chatwood, RHP, Cedar Rapids (A)
9. Pete Bourjos, OF, Arkansas (AA)
10. Mason Tobin, RHP, Rancho Cucamonga (A+)

Other Prospects of Note: Kevin Jepsen, Ryan Chaffee, Manuarys Correa, Anthony Ortega, Bobby Wilson, Ryan Mount, Chris Pettit

After the Yankees acquired Nick Swisher from the White Sox this winter, it was assumed he’d play first base for the Bombers. Then, they opened their wallets to sign Mark Teixeira, and Swisher became a man without a job. The Yankees fielded phone calls for both he and Xavier Nady, but decided that the offers didn’t make sense, and that they’d rather just go into the season with some extra depth.

That looks to have been the right decision. Swisher has been on fire to start the season, leading the majors with a ridiculous .682 wOBA. 9 of his 11 hits have gone for extra bases, as he’s quickly registering 2008 as an aberration rather than some kind of downward trend. With the way he’s swinging the bat, there’s no way the Yankees can keep him out of the line-up.

Now, they don’t have to. Nady left last night’s game with a “sharp pain” in his elbow, which is hardly ever good news. Even if he only requires a short stint on the DL, it’s unlikely that he’ll have a job waiting for him when he gets back. Swisher is the better player anyway, and his remarkable first week performance has endeared him to Yankee fans. Coming out of the bullpen to pitch mop-up duty didn’t hurt his reputation, either.

The old cliche is that the best trades are the ones you don’t make. In Brian Cashman’s case, that’s probably true for this winter – by keeping Swisher around as a nifty insurance policy, he’s allowed the team to not miss a beat despite early injuries to both Teixeira and Nady. There’s no rule against entering the season with 10 guys who deserve a starting job, and the Yankees are certainly benefiting from keeping Swisher around, even without a defined role for him when the year began.

The defending NL Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum, is going through a rough stretch to start this season. Only eight and a third innings through two starts for Lincecum – who averaged closer to seven innings per appearance last season – and his ability stats are off. Sure, he’s struck 10 batters out, yet he’s also walked six with only one of those being of the intentional kind.

Lincecum’s batted ball data suggests not much of a change, he’s getting more infield flyballs than ever, and also allowing more homeruns with only a slight bump in the amount of flyballs given up. The most worrisome aspects for Lincecum are his downed velocity. His fastball is averaging 92.8 MPH, a mild drop from this 94.1 career average. Lincecum’s slider has also dropped about MPH, his curve has dropped by closer to three, and his change has remained static. It is worth noting that during Lincecum’s last start he did top out in the 96 MPH range.

This isn’t a Daniel Cabrera or Scott Olsen situation, but still, for a pitcher coming off a huge workload, people are going to start wondering and rumoring. Remember all of those whispers about Lincecum’s durability around draft day? If he has a few more rough starts, expect those to creep up again, albeit perhaps unfairly.

At this point, it looks like a command issue more than anything; only ~45% of Lincecum’s pitches are in the zone and he’s only registering 39% first-pitch strikes, copare that to career averages of 50% and 58% and there’s a world of difference. Whether it continues or not is something worth watching, but don’t be surprised if Lincecum fails to match his 2008 season this year, or any year in the future.

After it became abundantly clear that the Mets were going in a different direction to fill the back of their rotation, Pedro Martinez had very limited options. Teams certainly had interest in his services but not for the $5-6 mil asking price. Considering that Martinez is closer to replacement level than very productive these days and that he is an incredible injury risk the hesitance made perfect sense. Many advocated the signing of an incentive-laden deal that would pay Martinez handsomely if he actually stayed on the field. Not realizing that he is but a shell of his former self, Martinez rejected the idea of such deals.

When nobody bit, he resorted to using the World Baseball Classic as an audition of sorts. Pedro did not exactly “wow!” anyone in the WBC and continues to remain available. Yet instead of lowering his asking price in the hopes that someone will bite, Pedro is now resigned to the idea that a team will see a pitcher or two go down with injuries and view him as a knight in shining armour… worth $5-6 mil on a guaranteed deal.

Mitch Williams mentioned that the Cleveland Indians might be a fit especially with the uncertainty surrounding someone like Carl Pavano. The Angels are certainly not among the interested parties as they are convinced injured pitchers like Ervin Santana and John Lackey could be ready in the same amount of time that it would take a free agent to prepare. The aforementioned Halo stalwarts certainly project more optimistic lines than Martinez as well.

Beyond Pedro, Odalis Perez is still available, and though it may seem as if I am beating a dead horse here, Perez is still quite productive and incredibly consistent. Over the last four years he has virtually posted identical +1.5 win values. How someone like Tim Redding was given a guaranteed deal by a contender with worse production and a more storied injury history than the equally aged Perez, who couldn’t even get a major league contract from the Washington Nationals will continue to puzzle me.

Pedro Martinez has had a tremendous career. He is a first ballot hall of famer and, in my eyes at least, owner of the two best pitched seasons in the rich history of this sport. He should not be signed, however, for anything above what Odaliz Perez could be signed for given that the latter has proven himself durable over the last several seasons and closer to league average. Pedro might provide better value when healthy but if I am investing a certain amount of money and have two options, my risk-averse personality is going to lean in the direction of the more reliable option. Pedro is one of the best pitchers of all time but he is not anymore, and $5 mil at this point for a fifth starter who might make three starts and then miss the rest of the season just does not make sense for a team, especially given that the teams in question are looking to fill voids that came undone due primarily to injuries.