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December 17, 2007

Future Shock

Oakland's Top 11 Redux

by Kevin Goldstein

Just five days after publishing my Oakland Top 11 Prospects, Billy Beane, David Forst, and the gang over in O-Town decided to completely blow things up by trading Dan Haren and deceptive reliever Connor Robertson to Arizona for most of the D'backs minor league system. Not only does this make the not-so-far-away Arizona Top 11 much more interesting (and challenging), but it also renders the original Oakland list nearly irrelevant, or as I like to see it, much deeper, as former No. 11 prospect Sean Doolittle is now No. 16.

Four of the six players received would make a revised Top 11 for the A's, and here's how I have it:

Five-Star Prospects
1. Daric Barton, 1B
2. Carlos Gonzalez, OF
Four-Star Prospects
3. Brett Anderson, LHP
4. Trevor Cahill, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
5. Chris Carter, 1B
6. James Simmons, RHP
7. Aaron Cunningham, OF
8. Henry Rodriguez, RHP
9. Andrew Bailey, RHP
10. Corey Brown, OF
11. Jermaine Mitchell, OF

Greg Smith, a command and control lefty, comes in at No. 13 for me, after Javier Herrera but before Jerry Blevins, while Dana Eveland is no longer eligible for prospect rankings, though he's seemingly always eligible for a seat at the buffet table; when you're David Wells, being fat is kind of cool, but when you're 25 and have yet to establish yourself in the big leagues, it's kind of annoying.

But let's talk about the big four briefly, because they're not going to get full write-ups because of the timing here. You could argue with me that Gonzalez should be the number one guy, and I probably wouldn't put up much of a fight. His tools are outstanding, his performances merely good, and his effort highly questionable. Still, there is tremendous upside here, including the possibility of a Hanley Ramirez-like "OK, I'm in the majors, now I'll be good" type of breakout. It's of some importance to note that when Gonzalez moved up to Triple-A this year, Arizona moved him to center, if anything, to showcase him there, as there was no room in Arizona's big league outfielder for him. He also was moved to center recently for Zulia in the Venezuelan Winter League, and according to scouts, he's a good enough outfielder to be an average center fielder for the first few years of his career. With Oakland's center-field situation currently in flux because of Mark Kotsay's chronic back issues, Gonzalez has a shot of being in the Opening Day lineup.