A Whole Mess of White Sox Prospect Rankings, Because, Why Not?

by Ricky O'Donnell on January 6 at 3:26PM

It's been all quiet on the White Sox front since the Pierre deal - yeah, still no DH - so now seems like as good a time as any to take a look a look at the farm system. Mad props to the fine people at Future Sox for putting this together.

Hudson and Flowers clearly seem to be Tier One. Seeing as even Freddy Garcia probably doesn't think Freddy Garcia can be counted on to pitch an entire season at this point, Hudson is safe bet to get his shot first. I liked what I saw at the end of last season.

Flowers is still blocked by AJ for another year, but it's possible he could see some DH time if the Sox decide to go with the Mark Kotsay/Andruw Jones DH Rotation of Death. The book on Flowers is that he's a very good hitter - power, patience, all that - but he still needs work defensively if he's going to stick behind the plate. Would the Sox risk his development at catcher to get his bat into the lineup in 2010? That'll be an interesting storyline come Spring Training.

The polarizing force here is Dayan Viciedo, the 20-year old some deemed "the Cuban Babe Ruth" when he signed with the Sox a year ago. He's as high as second and as low as seventh on the lists above. For a system considered generally weak, that's a big difference.

For the hater's view on Viciedo, we turn it over to BP's Kevin Goldstein.

Honestly, reviews have been very disappointing. Still a bit out of shape, swing at anything approach, not much power. Because of his age and where he's coming from, you have to give him more time than others to make adjustments. If anything, I think it's possible that they just started him at too high a level.

But that interview was given in July 2009. In the second half of last year, Viciedo took off. From Diamond Futures:

While the scrutiny one receives is substantial, when you sign a four-year $10 million contract as a 19yo, our perspective is that the critics paid more attention to the contract than to the overall performance. Viciedo played the entire season as a 20yo in AA, and posted, park-adjusted, League average numbers across the board. That was good enough to finish #13 in the League among hitters in our 2009 Performance rankings--despite it being his U.S. debut. But that only tells part of the story, as Viciedo posted a park-neutral OPS of .853 after mid-July.
...
What we are saying is that we expect him to perform similar in 2010 to the second-half of 2009, and when you give him that half-year adjustment, his numbers put him in the Top 100 prospect range--which is a heckuva a lot better than his detractors would like you to believe.

So there you have it, the best of the White Sox's farm system. For a team notoriously bad at developing talent (Beckham aside), I think I'd be satisfied if three or four of those guys turned into big leaguers.

But why stop there? The fuuuutuuure is ourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs!

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I imagine Kenny Williams playing the Morpheus role as the guy yelling on the platform, with the likes of Brent Morel and Jordan Danks in the crowd below. Not sure where Ray Lewis fits in, though.

A Whole Mess of White Sox Prospect Rankings, Because, Why Not?

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