That is utterly amazing. That's White Sox-level bad. Glad I didn't follow the minor league system back then.

Although Fossum was good for a few years and Delcarmen should be a really good setup man for at least a couple seasons.

To be entirely fair the missing players were 6. Freddy Sanchez, 7. Phil Dumatrait...so Sanchez makes the list a lot more palatable. Rene Miniel and Anastacio Martinez were AgeGate cases. Miniel was coming off an interesting 114/38 K/BB in 122 IP in Augusta at age 20, while A-Mart had a 145/123/39 IP/K/BB line in Sarasota, also at age 20. Neither of those lines were eyepopping, but given the age there was potential....until both turned out to be 23.

The next season Miniel was mediocre in every respect in the FSL and was traded by the end of 2003 to San Diego for Lou Merloni. Unsurprisingly, he was out of baseball by the end of 2004. A-Mart made it a little farther and even got 10 IP in the Sox pen in 2004. Even though his prospect status took a huge hit with AgeGate, there was some hope he'd turn out to be a back of the bullpen reliever. I remember an epic 3 IP, 8 K outing in Pawtucket somewhere along the line....but he never panned out and has been wandering the minors since.

There's no doubt our farm system is vastly superior now than it was in the past, even though it's impossible to fully compare a present system with a past system. Still, after the 2001 season....Song was a standard lively A-ball arm, albeit with good peripherals, Blanco was a typical feast-or-famine monster power hitter with serious plate discipline issues. They were worthwhile prospects...but it's hard to tell how far down they'd be ranked with today's crop. Doing my best to place myself in 2002, I think Song would probably fall somewhere in the middle of this year's top 10.

Oddly enough, the next year's top 10 looks pretty solid:
1. Hanley
2. Shoppach
3. Youks
4. Freddy Sanchez
5. Phil Dumatrait
6. MDC
7. Billy Simon
8. Jon Lester
9. Jorge de la Rosa
10. Josh Thigpen

Simon got injured and was never heard from again. Thigpen was traded after the season with Blanco to the Reds for Todd Walker and repeated low-A in 2003...and in 2004...and in 2005 before heading to indy ball after he had gotten a little worse each year. Phil Dumatrait may get a cup of coffee one of these days, but doesn't seem like more than AAA fodder. The other 7 guys, however, have all seen the majors and most seem likely to have decent careers. Maybe Jorge de la Rosa will eventually get put in the bullpen to fulfill his label as "the Mexican John Rocker".


I think I prefer the 2000 list, at least in terms of nostalgia for busted prospects.

1. Steve Lomasney
2. Dernell Stenson (rip)
3. Sun-Woo Kim
4. Wilton Veras
5. Tomokazu Ohka
6. Rick Asadoorian
7. Michael Coleman
8. Cesar Saba
9. Juan Pena
10. Casey Fossum

Asadoorian is still kicking around having converted to a pitcher full-time last year. He was a real bust of a 17th overall pick (you though Murphy was bad), but after not hitting for two years was bundled off to St. Louis for Dustin Hermanson...along with 1B Dustin Brisson and 1B Luis Garcia. Good times. I do have to say, the first two years of Asadoorian's career look a little too much Jason Place for my liking -- although Place was marginally better both in the GCL and in low-A. Does anyone remember the epic Ed Sprague trade in which we parted with Cesar Saba and Dennis Tankersley, thereby crippling our franchise for decades to come??? Saba must have been an AgeGate case and D-Tank.....well, I guess Peavy turned out a little better than Tankersley and Ben Howard for the Padres. But seriously, that's one epic list of busted prospects. I still get a little sad when I look at Juan Pena's career and see his 187.2 IP at age 19....how far we've come.

That's about as far back as I remember following the minors. I didn't actually start following closely until the era of the list Steve Dillard posted, but I remember a lot of the 2000 guys at later stages of their lengthy, illustrious careers.