Baseball America's Prospect Hot Sheet has some very interesting names on it this week. There are several less-heralded minor leaguers on this week's Hot Sheet, and I recommend clicking through to read the whole thing.
Coming in at No. 1 is a Giants starting pitcher Henry Sosa. He is a 21-year-old tearing apart the Low A South Atlantic League. His 0.76 ERA in 59 innings overshadows the 57 strikouts and 24 walks. But not by much.
With the NCAA college baseball tournament in progress, the presence of one of last season's stars, Tyler Colvin is noteworthy. The Cubs selected him 13th overall and most analysis had that as a huge overreach. In his first season in the High A Florida State League, he has some good slash stats of 311/342/500. His walks total (9) is a concern, but the controversy surrounding his selection has faded with his successful full-season debut.
Cardinal's OF Rick Ankiel breaks on to the list on the strength of his bat. A .589 SLG with 15 HRs in 190 AAA ABs goes a very long way towards covering-up the 289/329 AVG/OBP component of the slash stats. There is no reason not to see Ankiel this season, and NL-only teams in need of the marginal HRs should be ready to grab him.
The final player I want to mention is one that I only saw on Dave Luciani's prospect list - Isaiah Kaaihue. He is a 1B with the High A Myrtle Beach Pelicans in the Atlanta Braves organization. Check out these slash stats in the hitter-hostile confines of Coastal Federal Field - 286/392/571!
From Baseball Notebook's list:
This Kaaihue was originally drafted by Boston late in the 2003 draft only to end up as a free agent after he had to have elbow surgery. He also ended up missing the latter part of 2006 with an injured wrist but he sets off all the flags in our age model that say he's worthy of being ranked extremely high. He's got superb power, already developed, and a batting eye quite rare for players so young. I don't expect him to end up as a big time hitter for average but his future projects him among the better power hitters in the game and with his walk ability, he should be able to have a long career in the majors. He's still a very much unfinished product, though.
All the players mention are slightly older than I would prefer, but all of them are doing well and could be permanent off-season conversation pieces building-up to next season's Top Prospect Lists.