2/5/2008

Top Prospects: Arizona Diamondbacks

Strategically Depleted, But Gems Remain

You know that person on your shopping list who is impossible to buy for because she already has two of everything? That's the Arizona Diamondbacks.

When the Diamondbacks rocked the winter meetings in 2007 by trading not two or three but SIX of their best prospects for ace Dan Haren, the conventional wisdom was that they were mortgaging their future by selling most of their best young players.

Even after the coffers emptied to bring Haren to the desert, Max Scherzer is one of the best prospects remaining in Arizona.

The problem with that theory is that with the possible exception of Carlos Gonzalez, none of the the Diamondback's best young players were on the farm to begin with: they were already on the major league team.

Two years ago, the Diamondbacks had the deepest farm system in all of baseball. After filling every positional need they had with star youngsters, what else was there to do but trade the leftovers for the ace they've been missing since Randy Johnson went all brittle?

Today's Diamondbacks club is young, young, young, with under-26 year old starters at almost every position. (Old men Eric Byrnes and Orlando Hudson are only 31, and even their obvious replacements are waiting in the wings.) And while Randy Johnson might still draw attention on the sidewalks of New York and Phoenix alike, the real aces of the Arizona staff, Brandon Webb and the newly-signed Dan Haren, are only 27 and 28.

One big trade aside, the Diamondbacks have done most of their building in-house: all five of their last five first round draft picks are on their 40-man roster, and at least three of them will open next season in the majors. This is a team that is primed to be very good for the next six or seven years.

The few standout prospects that Arizona kept from Oakland make for a shallower farm, to be sure, but at least four of the remaining baby 'Backs are special enough to deserve mention, including two pitchers that hover inside our top-50 here in February.

RHP Jarrod Parker >
RHP Max Scherzer >
OF Gerardo Parra >
IF Emilio Bonifacio >

This spring, a fresh round of recruits will be pushed up the Arizona system, and the scouts will be hard at work preparing for what will no doubt be another exceptional draft for this talent-driven franchise. If the quality of the next batch even approaches the traditional Diamondback standard, their names will be also be showing up on our site soon.

Bookmark this link for an always-updated list of The Top Arizona Diamondbacks Prospects for 2008 and beyond.