I received the 2012 Baseball America Prospect Handbook yesterday and I'll give Phil Rogers credit this year. He compiled an interesting list for the White Sox. And, given the shallowness of the White Sox system, it's difficult to criticize the placement of any player. He also managed to escape not one but two scheduled chats on BA's website, eventually leaving it to John Manuel to answer questions, so he did not have a further opportunity to say anything outrageous. And for those of you who entered the John Ely pool, he waited until all the way at the write-up for #31 to mention his boy. So congratulations to HappyHuman for winning this year's Winston-Salem Warthogs beanie.

Baseball America's full list, along with my commentary, is after the jump. As the top ten was released prior to the publication of the book, I won't repeat the comments I made on those players here. Also note that the book goes to press in December so it does not reflect the Jason Frasor or Carlos Quentin trades. From Manuel's chat, it was clear that Simon Castro would have made the top ten. It's unclear where Pedro Hernandez, Miles Jaye and Dan Webb would have been on the list, if anywhere, though I'd expect that at least the first two would have made it.

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Yoenis Cespedes finally connected in a big way during his slow start in the Dominican League, turning around a 97-mph fastball for a towering home run. Here's the video:

I don't know about you guys, but I really hope the White Sox buy lots and lots of MODESTO.

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Baseball Prospectus published its list, authored by Kevin Goldstein, which includes 20 names:

Four-Star Prospects
1. Addison Reed, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
2. Nestor Molina, RHP
3. Trayce Thompson, OF
4. Jake Petricka, RHP
5. Simon Castro, RHP
6. Keenyn Walker, OF
Two-Star Prospects
7. Eduardo Escobar, SS
8. Jhan Marinez, RHP
9. Myles Jaye, RHP
10. Tyler Saladino, SS
11. Andre Rienzo, RHP

12. Juan Silverio, 3B
13. Jared Mitchell, OF
14. Brandon Short, OF
15. Pedro Hernandez, LHP
16. Gregory Infante, RHP
17. Erik Johnson, RHP
18. Michael Blanke, C
19. Dylan Axelrod, RHP
20. Ozzie Martinez, SS

Note that #12-20 are not necessarily Two Star Prospects, as Goldstein does not assign stars after #11. Some commentary from me after the jump.

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The White Sox announced the signing of Venezuelan RHP Luis Martinez for $250,000. Here is Baseball America's scouting report:

Martinez, who turns 17 on Jan. 29, is 6-foot-4, 195 pounds and gets good downhill angle on an 88-91 mph fastball that has hit 92, an increase from the 84-88 mph velocity he was showing last summer around July 2. He has a projectable frame with long arms and plenty of room to fill out, so he should have at least a plus fastball in time. Martinez has a solid delivery, a high-70s curveball that is his best secondary pitch and he mixes in a changeup as well.

Martinez is the largest single expenditure on an international amateur free agent since the Dave Wilder scandal years. In 2010, the club signed LHP Jefferson Olacio for $125,000, which, as near as I can tell, was the post-Wilder record.

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Of the 438.1 relief innings by White Sox pitchers in 2011, the pitchers throwing 212 of those innings will no longer be in the bullpen. The bulk of those innings were from Sergio Santos and Chris Sale, meaning the White Sox will need to replace a significant amount of high leverage innings.

Of the 2011 stalwarts, Jesse Crain, Matt Thornton and Will Ohman all appear to be returning. Addison Reed was considered a near sure bet to be in the 2012 opening day bullpen and Jason Frasor's departure only bolsters his chances. That leaves an open competition for as many as three spots (assuming a seven man bullpen).

And that competition has already begun. A number of the primary candidates, as well as the dark horses, have been pitching in various Winter Leagues. And while Spring Training performance will likely be the primary driver of roster decisions, past performance usually dictates the opportunities a player gets in Arizona. So how have the bullpen hopefuls done in their most recent past performances?

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This was difficult. Painfully difficult. As has been noted by numerous commentators, the White Sox farm system is the worst in baseball. And it's not a close question. Colin argued this morning that the White Sox can't compete in 2012 without some significant luck. Another pillar to his argument could be that the they don't have any near-ready prospects that project to be of the impact variety. The farm system pretty much graduated anyone who could help - four of my top five prospects from last year's list are included in Colin's analysis, as well as Alejandra De Aza (who was not eligible for the list). Only Addison Reed is ready to play a prominent role in 2012. And that's as a reliever. It will be unlikely that the White Sox can absorb injury to a key contributor (or ineffectiveness), particularly on the position player side.

But the thinness of the system across all levels is the reason this list was difficult to write (and may be a further argument for trading away major leaguers in a rebuild). After Reed, who is near sure bet for an above average major league reliever, and the newly acquired Nestor Molina, it really becomes a toss-up. I had to whittle down from more than 20 names on my initial list - and that's because it's hard to tell the difference between such marginal prospects. In the upper minors, there's some maybe bench players, a couple maybe middle relievers and a couple maybe starters. In the lower minors, even if you squint real hard, it's difficult to find much more than a few lottery tickets and a guy whose upside is an average player. So if you don't see your favorite Marginal White Sox Prospect on this list, it's probably because I couldn't fit all the guys that I grade essentially the same into this numerically finite list

Before we dive into this morass, I'd like to briefly consider what the farm system has produced in the last few years. While consistently ranked near the bottom, the club can point to some recent successes. In 2012, we will likely see pre-arbitration White Sox products starting at three positions: outfield (Dayan Viciedo), second base (Gordon Beckham) and third base (Brent Morel). De Aza spent most of his career with the Marlins but one could arguably add him to that list. Likely to be in supporting roles are Tyler Flowers and Brent Lillibridge (like De Aza, the White Sox finished the product but didn't develop him). On the pitching side, Chris Sale is moving to the rotation. Reed will be in the bullpen.

This is different than in recent years (I will let you decide whether it's better), particularly on the position player side where it was not unusual for there to be just one starter. Now on to the list.

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The Minnesota Twins selected RHP Terry Doyle from the White Sox in this morning's Rule 5 Draft. While people like to talk about Johan Santana or Joakim Soria as examples of how "hidden gems" can be found in the draft, that was under the old rules. Starting with the 2007 draft, teams were given another year of team control over players before they are eligible to be selected.

Adam Foster at Project Prospect further quantifies why you shouldn't care:

• Not a single No. 1 overall Rule 5 Draft pick has provided the team that selected him above-replacement-level MLB value in more than a decade.

• The average Rule 5 Draft pick since 2007 has yielded the following career WAR value: Median: 0.0 WAR. Mode: 0.0 WAR. Mean: 0.2 WAR.

• Nealy half of the players selected in the Rule 5 Draft since 2007 have spent 0 days in the big leagues.
• Over a third of the players selected have yielded below-replacement-level career WAR values.
• The cumulative WAR value of every player selected since 2007 is 14.0.

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This month:

• RHP Terry Doyle will be the lone White Sox representative at the Arizona Fall League's Rising Stars Game (live tonight on MLB Network at 7:10pm central).  This game is essentially a showcase for the top talents in the AFL, as well the league's standout performers.  Doyle, who just turned 26, is certainly more of the latter.  Until his most recent start, he'd been pretty much unhitttable over 19.2 IP.  He got beat up on Wednesday but his overall numbers remain impressive: 21.1 IP, 10 H, 4 BB, 16 K.  In the very hitter friendly AFL, a 0.66 WHIP is pretty extraordinary even in that small sample size.  Baseball America sums Doyle up about as well as I could: "Righthander has dominated AFL with average stuff and good pitchability." 
  
• There are only two AFL stadiums equipped with Pitch F/X and, fortunately, one of Doyle's recent starts was at one of them. (Link to data).  There wasn't much in the data that I hadn't been able to guess at from watching him a few times but it's always nice to get corroboration. His fastball was 90-93 MPH.  Since he knows he will be throwing fewer pitches in his starts in the AFL as opposed to the regular season, he may be getting a tick or two more than usual on it.  In any event, it's not a particularly good pitch, obviously lacking velocity and it doesn't have much movement.  He does, however, appear to utilize a two-seamer on occasion that did show some nice movement.  In an email exchange, Colin pointed out that he wasn't throwing it to righties, even though it looks like it would be effective against them.  Both the data and Colin also confirmed what I had heard and observed about Doyle: he does have a good curveball when he's on and he can effectively throw it against righties and lefties.  His changeup and slider were not impressive.  I thought I'd previously seen him throw a cutter that was mid to upper 80s but I'm not seeing it in this start.  Colin suggested that he may also be throwing a splitter or circle change and it shows promise.  The repertoire doesn't suggest more than a back-end starter or swingman, though his solid command is a plus in his favor.  He will hopefully get an inning of work tonight, which will let us refine the analysis.
• I'll quickly go over the other White Sox players in the AFL after the jump.

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