Baseball America has its Top 20 up for Hawaii Winter Baseball, with Brown coming in at #4, Drabek coming in at #5 and Taylor coming in at #9.

Lithe and athletic, Brown flashed all five tools, including a plus arm. Scouts are divided over how much power he’ll have in the long run, which will determine his ultimate ceiling. One called his high-elbow setup at the plate “funky”, and he’s a long-strider, which could lead to timing issues. But his buggy-whip swing produces the bat speed to produce power when married to his excellent pitch recognition.

His stuff remains plus-plus, with a fastball sitting at 93-95 mph and a hammer breaking ball, a hard-breaking power curve with late movement. Drabek also is making progress with a changeup and competed well in Hawaii. Maturity has been an issue, and Drabek took his lone defeat—he gave up a game-winning homer to Marquez Smith in the season’s final game—hard. But managers and scouts said he comported himself as a professional in Hawaii.

….scouts agree he was better than his numbers in Hawaii. He showed off his light-tower power with a homer off an actual light tower at Les Murakami Stadium, controlled the strike zone and made hard contact all fall.

You can read the full blurbs on all three guys here.

Ok, so I’ve taken some time to digest the trade. My initial reaction? Good trade for the Phillies. Just glancing at the comments of the previous posting, I’m kind of shocked that so many people don’t like the deal. But I have my reasons for liking it, so lets go through them one at a time. Click below for more..

Continue reading Thoughts on the Golson/Mayberry trade →

Wow.

(Update, 5:52 p.m.): Ordinarily, I’d do a separate entry about this, but I don’t want to distract from the Utley conversation. So, here goes: In a swap of former first-round picks, the Phillies have dealt outfield prospect Greg Golson to the Rangers for outfield prospect John Mayberry. Mayberry, 24, split the 2008 season between double-A Frisco and triple-A Oklahoma and hit a combined .264 with 38 doubles, 20 home runs, 71 RBIs and 10 steals in 135 games. Golson, 23, batted .282 with 13 home runs, 60 RBIs and 23 steals at double-A Reading, but there was a feeling that he wasn’t progressing offensively.

Scott Lauber broke the story, thanks to our own codyrhoads for pointing it out.

Ill have more on this later.

[Update 1] For you Rangers fans who stumble on over looking for Golson info, click here. That should be a start.

In the article talking about Chase Utley’s injury, its mentioned that Donald won the AFL’s Darrell Stenson Award, given to the player who displays hard work, leadership, and unselfishness. A nice way to cap off his 2008. He better rest up, because I think he’s going to end up playing a big role in 2009.

I figured this would be an interesting topic of discussion, just to get an idea what others are thinking. Taylor came out of nowhere this season, after a very mediocre debut in 2007. So, who is the 2009 version, if we have one? Who will come off of a very pedestrian 2008 season to really jump up the rankings in 2009?

Edit > The Phillies have finalized their 40 man roster heading into the Rule 5 draft. Joel Naughton, Carlos Carrasco, Sergio Escalona, and Drew Naylor were added. Jeremy Slayden and Pat Overholt were not. There’s a very good chance Slayden will be selected.