FUTURE SHOCKED (MAJOR HEAD TRAUMA)

Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus has his latest Future Shock article on MLB team's top prospects. Goldstein is formerly of Baseball America. For the last few years he has been gracious with his time and patience in discussing the A's farm system in interviews on EiO. I am not going to pester KG this season and simply hope to run into him at Spring Training in February or March.


The scuttlebutt of any article on the Oakland A's is how much the hand of Billy Beane played into it.


Beane's propaganda is distributed through the local media and online publications. It shows. Beane knows he can manipulate and cherry pick what information he allows out and what he needs to tilt an advantage in the A's favor. Take the A's injury-related information. The A's give up nothing as far as information let alone details. Yet, their 40 Man roster looks like a roll call on trauma ward.


If you have access to Baseball America online or want to run to the local book store and check it out; the A's prospect lists over the last few years have been head scratchers to say the least. Three has always been a bent that Baseball America is the scout-heavy baseball site while Baseball Prospectus is stat head based. Short answer 'yes' with an 'if', long answer 'no' with a 'but'. The order of the prospects doesn't really matter much for me, personally. Again, for me, personally. I am not really concerned with who is the 'best' prospect. I am more concerned at which player is closest and the ceiling or long term impact the player might have.


You can argue that I am an idiot in that I really am arguing the order of the prospects. I would respond with, 'nuh ugh' and further suggest that the rankings matter little until they actually put on an A's uniform in the regular season. The reason being the A's prospects may not be comparable to another organization's prospects. The A's best prospect may not make the top 10 in Arizona's or Florida's organization. Still, the A's top prospect might be a regular for the A's in the coming season.


Anyway. Here's the list Goldstein provides. Head over to the FORUM and read more on the prospects. By tomorrow morning I will try to have the statistics for each of the players listed. And any day now we will have the PECTOA numbers from Nate Silver.


[ED NOTE] If at a certain point in your career as a baseball fan that you get more excited AFTER the season is over due to all the publications and statistics to analyze - welcome!

	FIVE STAR PROSPECT		DRAFTED
1.	Daric Barton	1B (DH)	2003 1st Round - 28th pick overall (St. Louis Cardinals)
	FOUR STAR PROSPECT
2.	Trevor Cahill	RHP	2006 2nd Round - 66th pick overall
	THREE STAR PROSPECT
3.	James Simmons	RHP	2007 1st Round - 26th pick overall
4.	Henry Rodriguez	RHP	2006 Signed - Venezuela
5.	Andrew Bailey	RHP	200 6th Round - 188th pick overall
6.	Corey Brown	OF	200 1st Round - 59th pick overall
7.	Jermaine Mitchell	OF	2006 5th Round - 158th pick overall
8.	Javier Herrera	OF	2001 Signed Venezuela
9.	Jerry Blevins	LHP	2004 17th Round - 516th pick overall
	TWO STAR PROSPECT
10.	Josh Horton	SS	2007 2nd Round - 90th pick overall
11.	Sean Doolittle	1B	2007 1st Round - 41st pick overall