With the trading deadline, real and fantasy, fast approaching, one way for competing teams to get moves done is to deal minor league draft picks in next season's draft - just fantasy.
I admit to being a minor league prospect junkie albeit one whose frame of reference is fantasy baseball. This means I do not particularly care for minor league pitchers.
Why? The can be ratio-harmful (4.75 ERA and 1.40+ WHIP) and be doing well for the real life club. And as long as the real life club thinks that, these ratio-hurting rookie continue to get the ball every 5th day.
So it was with great anticipation that I read Baseball America's Top 100 Mid-Season update (subscription required.)
And it was with great disappointment that I saw only 6 of the Top 25 were undrafted in either of my AL- and NL-only leagues - and all six were pitchers!
This validated my intuitive belief that there just aren't any Brando Wood-type hitting studs in the minors this season.
Every week, this intuitive feeling incrementally turns into a more fact-based one as I read through Baseball America's Prospect Hot Sheet (no subscription required.)
The list doesn't remain very consistent as it is focused more on hot weeks than one hot seasons, but if there were a Brandon Wood circa 2005 in the minors, he'd be on the list every week.
FWIW: Jason Hirsch is at the top of this week's list and the top hitter is the Met's Fernando Martinez, a stud low A 17-year-old who may never see a Mets uniform as long as the Mets remain in the play-off hunt.