Grant's Top Prospects circa 2003

I was bored so I wondered over to the old WFB site and stumbled across this.  I thought it would make for a decent discussion since the G-men are off until Friday. Imagine if just one or two(other than lowry) had panned out.  We might not be dealing with SITUATION Morris for the next 2 and a half years.  Although they did help bring us Hawkins, Winn, AJ, and Ponson(if that is something to be proud of).

Top Ten Prospects List (Actually Grant, you skipped number 7 so it is your top 9, we'll just pretend that was Liriano's spot)

I'm no scout, and I'm not an expert with stats. What I'm great at, however, is consuming information and regurgitating it as if I discovered it. This isn't a top ten list, really, as much as it is a list of the prospects I'm most interested in for 2003.

1. Jesse Foppert, RHP
He reached AAA with about 300 lifetime innings of pitching under his belt. That's counting the minors and college, and he still looked like Nolan Ryan pitching in a tee-ball tournament.

2. Jerome Williams, RHP
I'm still wondering what kind of car he's going to get when he turns 16.

3. Kurt Ainsworth, RHP
He might not be Curt Schilling, but I can see him being Chan Ho Park in Park's "on" years. I'll take that.

4. Todd Linden, RF
He stands to be the first above-average outfielder produced by the Giants since "The Empire Strikes Back" came out. Think about that for a while. If you put together an outfield of the best prospects developed by the Giants in the past twenty years, you'd have Rob Deer in left, Marvin Benard in center, and Chili Davis in right. We're all rooting for you, Todd.

5. Boof Bonser, RHP
If he is a star for the Giants, it would be mighty cool to hear a crowd of 42,000 sing, "Booooooooof!" in unison. Of course, he could be terrible, and never know he was being booed. Jeff Brantley might have received a ten-year deal if his name was "Boof", with management thinking he was some sort of cult hero.

6. Ryan Hannaman, LHP
Young, throws gas, and struggles with his control. Welcome to the Giants, and here's your commemorative William VanLandingham, Joe Nathan, and Shawn Estes bobblehead set!

8. Jesse English, LHP
I know two things about him. One is that he was drafted far lower than Baseball America ranked him. The other is that he tore up the Arizona League right out of high school.

9. Noah Lowry, LHP
Injuries stole most of his year last year, but he still did well. He's supposed to be close to the majors, and is described as Kirk Reuter with a better fastball.

10. Tony Torcato, OF
I'm not ready to give up on him yet. He's still young, and I think he's the type of player who makes contact whenever he swings, driving down his walks. He could be Randall Simon, or he could be Ichiro without the speed. His swing is beautiful, though, and gives me a little hope.

The Giants' minor league organization has the balance of a hobo with an inner-ear infection and a bottle of Thunderbird. But even if the lack of position players is depressing, the pitching prospects they have are legitimate. The only pitcher on that list who didn't average one strikeout for every inning pitched was Jerome Williams. It's hard to find another team with that kind of depth.