While a lot of people like to look at prospects in terms of “who’s best”, an alternate approach that I think has more immediacy and relevance for the upcoming season is to look at prospects in terms of “who’s most likely or ready to contribute next season”. In this type of ranking, Casey Fien, Jeff Larish, William Rhymes, Rudy Darrow, et al. are higher rated prospects than Porcello, Iorg, Crosby, and Perry because they are much more likely to contribute this next season.

However, I do think a candidate for most surprising contribution in 2009 is Brett Jacobson, as I think he’ll be one of the most consistent (and accurate) relievers in ‘09. I’ve said it before, but Perry is a little too similar to Matt Anderson and Kyle Farnsworth for my taste, in that he also has a big fastball that hitters love to sit on.

As much as I can’t wait for the dominance that is named Porcello, I am stoked to see Ryan Perry in action.

He may be the closer we’re looking for in the near future. I cant wait for spring.

-s

Porcello is the easy answer, but Ryan Perry and the rest of the flame-throwing relievers from last June’s draft should be fun to watch. Also, there’s been a lot buzz around Cale Iorg so it will be interesting to see if he’s actually cut out for the majors.

If Cale were to make it up and stick, he’d be the first… His 2 older brothers Isaac (with the Braves, now out of baseball) and Eli (with the Astros, finished ‘08 in AA) haven’t yet.

Though he is from baseball pedigree with Dad (Garth) and uncle (Dane) playing and managing in the bigs.