The start of baseball season is not official for me until I purchase the Baseball America Prospect Handbook: 2011 and the Baseball Prospectus 2011 guides for the new season. I pour over both ot the guides and being a diehard Los Angeles Dodgers fan, I look at every one of their prospects and follow them as the season progresses.
The Prospect Handbook is my favorite because it has the top 30 prospects for every major league team listed with detailed analysis, strengths and weaknesses, and complete with stats. Some of the prospects have never swung a bat or thrown a pitch at the minor league level but they still make the list.
Evaluating baseball prospects has never been an exact science and when evaluating a player, their value is based on pure potential, and that is what the minor leagues is all about. A young player who was tearing up Spring Training or at one level of the minor league levels used to be called a "phenom" in the 1970's and '80's. Before that if a young player was paid a large bonus he was called a "bonus baby" and I believe he had to stay with the parent team a certain amount of time but with the millions the high draft picks are paid now, I do not know what they are called now outside of millionaires.
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