| 14 January 2009
Baseball America's Jim Callis recently talked with ESPN... the 2009 Handbook will be available later this month, so he wouldn't give much away, but one Red Sox fan was able to get a ranking out of him:
M Kantar (Marlborough, MA): Hi Jim, I have actually pre ordered a copy of the 2009 Prospect Handbook. I did have one question about where would the Red Sox farm system rank in MLB, about #9 overall?
Jim Callis: The Handbook is off at the printer's and should be back in mid-January. I won't give away all of our farm system rankings-and we will update them again in spring training after more trades are made-but I will tell you that the Red Sox system ranked 13th...
I actually found this on the Yankees blog River Street Blues and Mike did a nice job explaining the drop from No. 2 in 2008 to No. 13 in 2009, but Jim actually addresses this later in the chat:
Mark Citrone (Natick, MA): The Red Sox are 13th? Weren't they in the top 5 recently? Why the change?
Jim Callis: They graduated Buchholz, Ellsbury, Masterson and Lowrie--four of their top five prospects--to the majors last year. They have a lot of high-upside talent and could bounce back quickly as it advances through the system.
Callis was also nice enough to reveal the Yankees ranking:
Doug (NY): Since you can't give away the Sox ranking without their heated rivals, yankees please. thanks!
Jim Callis: OK, that seems fair enough. The Yankees ranked 15th.
Bottom Line: None of this is surprising, but it will be interesting to see where the Red Sox stand as more and more kids work there way towards Fenway. Michael Bowden could see time at the major league level this season... Lars Anderson is the top ranked player in the system and could be with Boston in 2010... If Daniel Bard is traded, he could also get a call in 2009 to help the Red Sox bull pen... and Junichi Tazawa, Josh Reddick, Casey Kelly and Michael Almanzar are next in line for a shot at the pros.
We'll see what Baseball America has to say about the Red Sox and the rest of the MLB in a few weeks... for now you can read more at SoxProspects.com, get projections at FanGraphs.com and vote to determine who earns the No. 4 Ranking behind Anderson, Bowden and Bard at Over The Monster.
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