I have a confession to make. I grew up in South Jersey and I bleed Phillies burgundy. But over the past few years, I’ve grown more and more fond of the A’s. I’m even staying up past my bedtime to watch them. Maybe it was Moneyball. Maybe it’s exciting players like Chapman. Maybe it’s their fans. Maybe it’s the way they approach personnel. Whatever it is…they’re fun. And this minor league system is fun. It has a bit of everything. Heisman candidate? Check. First-round arm recovering from TJS? Check. Cuban stud muffin? Check. It’s deep, and it was difficult to whittle this list down to ten (pro tip: if you want to sound cool…say the ‘h’ before the ‘w’ in whittle…thank me later). It would have been even harder to put this together if Franklin Barreto, Renato Nunez, Dustin Fowler, and Ramon Laureano hadn’t graduated. But that’s the fun/challenging part of the gig. I have to pick ten guys in a system with more than ten decent specs to talk about. Then I get to defend my choices on the interwebs. #Blessed.
Please, blog, may I have some more?