ESPN's 2009 Organizational Rankings

[logan82]

If we had an infield of Overbay, Spivey, Counsell, and Helms I think that people would be looking forward to our current prospects a lot more. At this point there isn't much need to rush them since we already have quality players. I think a lot of the hype had to do with such a sucky MLB team. Of course that doesn't explain the Pirates.

 

With our 3B situation there is already some small push for Gamel there. I would bet that if Kendall doesn't play defense as well as last year we will start to hear more people pushing for Salome to come up sooner than later.

[Ennder]

If we had an infield of Overbay, Spivey, Counsell, and Helms I think that people would be looking forward to our current prospects a lot more

 

This is true though I'm not convinced Gamel will be a better player than Overbay or that Escobar will be all that much better than Counsell in his prime at least.

[ILuvDaBush]

I was just saying based STRICTLY on ceiling, we have one of the best systems. Ideally, Gamel's defense becomes above-average, Salome continues to hit and becomes the GG defender he has the talent to become, Jeffress continues to K more of his contemporaries than all his cronies, Escobar's bat doesn't turn back into a pumpkin, and Lawrie... Well right now, he could be....A-Rod, behind the dish or at the hot corner. The only two players on the Pirates who can rival the Brewers' top 5 would be Pedro and Tabata (though that's more Tabata the Pirate than Tabata the Yank). The Cubs? Vitters...on a good day. Cards....Colby could be 30/30 which is nice, but beyond that? 'Stros. No. Reds...great prospects but outside of Neftali Soto and Juan Duran, no one's ceiling jumps off the page.

[logan82]

Ennder wrote:

This is true though I'm not convinced Gamel will be a better player than Overbay or that Escobar will be all that much better than Counsell in his prime at least.

No, but I am sure there would be a big push by posters to get Gamel up at 3B over Helms. I think many people would be willing to try Escobar at SS over Counsell especially if we were not expected to be competitive like when those players played the infield for us. If we were expected to be bad, then why not let the cheap youngsters play. This isn't the case however. We are very close to having a team good enough to win at least the wild card. We also more than likely would still have LaPorta who would be pushing for 1B playing time in the majors pretty soon.