Nice tie Keith.

hey keith get a brain moran

Keith Law is actually a Yankees fan if you didn’t notice

Who is this yahoo?

yeah … Pedro wasnt projected as a frontline starter either when he was younger ….

It’s Chess King. LOL

What is Alan Webster, chopped liver, Keith?

This clown doesn’t know sh@t!!!

I disagree with Keith here.  Just read everyone else’s rankings of the farm systems and you’ll see the Sox  aren’t even close to 17. Rosenbaum of Yahoo Sports has the Sox #10 and it’s only going to get better with the upcoming draft. John Sickels of minorleagueball.com has the Sox at #9 and  MLBProspectGuide.com has them 5th.  See a pattern here?  Law must be on crack, plain and simple.

Keith Law is definitely entitled to his opinion. Just like a lot of these system rankers, essentially it is like throwing darts at a dart board and hypothesizing who might do well based on similar players. Much of his ranking might be due to the lack of talent at the top level that is ready to jump to the big leagues. However, when you look at the team’s top prospects, you can see that they might be ready to make the jump later this season.

Incidentally, other people have the Red Sox ranked differently, just proving how useful such predictions are. These include:

Fangraphs – ranked 11th
Baseball America (Jim Callis) – ranked 5th
Minor league baseball.com (John Sickels) – ranked 9th

So Law just peed on the Red Sox campfire. This time next year nobody will remember who ranked which system where. And who can blame us?

I can’t wait to see all our young stars on the field this long hot Summer digging and scratching at their jocks and spitting their ‘chew’.  It’s a great time to be a Boston Red Sox fan ain’t it???

Pretty sure De Rosa isn’t a prospect anymore anyway because he has enough major league service time…

His column does’nt mean sqwats.Anyone who has been a long time fan of baseball could do the same thing.The so called experts have no clue until it happens.I have been listening to these guys forever and what they say has turned out to be just opinion,much like the rest of us.But it is humorous to read.

Exactly.

Like i said in my comment,just opinion and sometimes biased.We can do the same our opinions are just as good as his.

No WEEI commentor, your opinions aren’t as good as Keith Law’s.  That doesn’t mean he will be right, but all opinions aren’t created equal.  Have you been able to travel across the minor leagues to scout every team’s system?  Do you have a background in scouting and actual professional work with an MLB team?  Do you have the resources of a paid ESPN employee to devout the time to make comparisons of the system?  It’s beyond ignorant to suggest Keith Law’s opinion carries as much weight as the average commentor here, come on.  If Keith said they had three aces and the best farm system people would love it.

Webster’s probably a 2 or 3. Don’t know if he counted DeLaRosa given his MLB experience  (mlb.com didn’t include him despite his soxprospects.com ranking) who is a 1 or 2. Barnes is probably a 2 or 3. Don’t know why Law doesn’t think Henry Owens could be a 1 down the road. The guy has the tools to be an ace. Just needs more polish. With that number 7 pick this season, they could land an ace. Keeping my fingers crossed that Mark Appel from Stanford will still be available.

That’s true. Just don’t understand how the guy could rank the system 17th when fangraphs was ranking it in the top five and mlb.com had six of the prospects in the top 100. No way that’s a latter half system right now, especially with several guys knocking on the door.

In  case you didn’t notice, he said the Sox suck

I enjoyed this article. It’s refreshing to hear a variety of opinions when each is not snide, hysterical, or overblown, but a thoughtful assessment supported by some rationale and / or relevant statistics. Predictions are largely silly, but we all have fun making them anyway and reading about the predicitons others, with access to more information, make. Frequently the professionals, no less than the fans, make predictions that turn out to be fabulously mistaken and embarrassing to look back on: e.g., the Greatest Team Ever predictions about the 2011 Red Sox, predictions that a whole host of well-informed pundits asserted, only to look pretty foolish when the team went right off the rails in September and stayed in that ditch the following year to the point where the team eagerly sold off the two marquee free agent signees (Gonzalez, Crawford) who’d touched off the grand predictions in the first place.

What I hope is that Mr. Law’s assessment of the Sox’ pitching prospects and recent FA signings looks similarly embarrassing down the road. Spring training = license to hope and imagine, and I’m enjoying the thought that this mix of players–including the young pitchers Mr. Law doesn’t think much of and the free agents he disparages here–will go out and surprise him (and a number of other commentators) with a whole lot of very good ball. Everybody could be very mediorcre; I can certainly see a case for that statistically. Then again, the ’88 Dodgers were a pretty mediocre club statistically and they’re all wearing World Series rings; the team they beat was way better on paper. But that particular bunch of Dodgers was scrappy enough to maximize the talent they did have; they put together a great run, and the baseball gods looked down, smiled, and said, “yes.” You can cite dozens of similar examples. That’s why they play the games. Go Sox :-)

The dodgers of 87 were not a last place team. But i could see your point, Ortiz could juice more, Lackey could win 25 games, Victorino could hit 60 homer’s, and pigs could fly. Victorino is a guy the Phillies new better then anybody dumped him on the dodgers, The dodger’s said they loved him, yet they made no attempt to sign him. Its funny to hear all these sox fans spin the stories to feel good about the up and coming season and many seasons in the past, its no wonder Fenway is sold out to watch a last place team, the dumbest fans in sports. Sweet Caroline

When it comes to opinions one persons is as good as anothers. Thats why a team should never be afraid of trading prospects for established players as long as it does not destroy the pool of players. Who succeeds and who fails has a lot to do with makeup and intangible attributes. However, this idea that Barnes is less of a prospect because he relies on fastball control is ridiculous. How many elite arms fail due to lack of command? Pitchers who can command a mid 90′s fastball are as good a shot to become top of the rotation pitchers as any. Also, how can you begin to discuss the Sox farm with no mention of Bradley, Webster and Owens all three of which are top 110 players even in Law’s estimation.

Funny how he speaks of teams with a middle tier free agent strategy don’t have s good history? Hmm wonder what he thinks of Oakland and san fran these past two three seasons…because he basically just described their approach

Of all the blowhards earning a living by knowing nothing, Keith tops the list. He’s not 17th or 5th, he is number 1. I have never seen anyone as prejudiced against the Red Sox, They never are given credit for anything. While clearly the Sox don’t rank in the elite minor league systems, I think they are probably 5-6 notches higher than he ranks them. 18 months ago I would have put the Sox near the bottom, and I think they’ve made pretty good progress rebuilding a forgotten area in that time frame. As for Keith, Faux news should hire him

An HONEST assessment from someone OUTSIDE of Boston with NO bias.

An HONEST assessment from someone OUTSIDE of Boston with NO bias.

For everyone saying keith law hates the sox……he constantly called tito francona one of the the top two managers in the game next to Joe Maddon. He gave his opinion on the sox system. Prospects are prospects for a reason. Nobody actually knows how they’ll do and Law is the first to admit that.

he doesn’t use other rankings to make his own. Why get upset over it? If he’s wrong he’ll admit but until they play in the bigs, no list can disprove anyone else’s list

Keith is right.  We need more “high upside” starting pitching prospects, and a few better positional picks.  Where Law misses it is when he doesn’t understand Cherington going into the mid-market on free agents.  These are “bridge” signings of adequate players.  They are designed to get us to 2015, where we intend to have a team built predominantly out of our farm system.  That said, Cherington overpaid and over-committed in years to these mid-market F/A’s.  His criticisms of the signings should purely be about the years and dollars given; not a lack of understanding as to the “why’s” of the signings.

Law is a blowhard. go write an article on how great the yankees are and how their farm system is stocked with major league ready talent..idiot

No surprise here regarding the criticism  of Law’s appraisal.  Most are just name calling. emotional outburst you would hear at a bar, and plain ignorance. Most, if not all, do not the credentials or experiences to  provide a reasonable critique of his views, which also suggests rather poor analytical skills on their part.

I do not think it is a bad article. He is criticizing the GM, Ben Cherrington, I mean Larry Luchinno for the questionable free agents he picked up. Napoli is okay, not great, Victorino was a rediculous signing, and then they reached with Dempster. Its like they acted like a low budget papuer team with the free agents they picked up. But that fugures because Larry Luchinno is playing the part he always wanted to play GM, and the game has passed this relic behind. Sad what the management if this team has turned into by letting Terry Francona go and them going into the high reward guys / low budget guys. Its going to be a long year guys and gals, real long.

“The premium guys — obviously, the Red Sox have had trouble there — but if you go after the stars, you do fine.:
Has he watched Carl Crawford over the last two season?

But he is right about the Sox prospects – they don’t rank highly in the Baseball America Top 100. Nobody they acquired in the Gonzo-Crawford deal is even remotely close to being considered an elite prospect. If you don’t believe me, look at Baseball America or Baseball Prospectus. 

He pulled one over on Napoli I think but coughed it up with Victorino IMO