Prospects Heading to Portland

According to the Portland Press Herald, in addition to Charlie Zink (Boston's #4 pitching prospect, according to soxprospects.com) and Jerome Gamble (#9), it now looks like Abe Alvarez (#3) and Chris Smith (not in the top 12) will be here as well. I'm looking forward to watching Zink, the knuckleballer on the fast track to the show, and I'm really looking forward watching the junkballing Alvarez. Abe is a flaky lefty (just look at his picture in his soxprospects.com profile) who had a 23-5, 2.52 record in two seasons at Long Beach State. He saw very limited action at Lowell last season (19 IP, after 122 during his college season), but posted an insane 0.55 WHIP, 19/2 K/BB ratio, and allowed only two unearned runs.

On the position-player side, two highly anticipated prospects look to start the season in Sarasota. SS Hanley Ramirez (#3 position-player prospect) and OF David Murphy, (#5, top pick for the Sox last season) might be on track to reach Portland by mid summer. Ramirez' progression would appear to be especially important if the Sox fail to resign Nomar. Ramirez has had some discipline issues (reportedly due to immaturity - he just turned 20), but he posted a 730 OPS in Augusta with good speed and good pop. A little more plate discipline would serve him well. Murphy was a star at Baylor, and posted a .453 OBP for Lowell for 21 games before struggling a bit in Sarasota (636 OPS). Murphy showed none of the power he had in college, but hopefully that will return when he becomes more familiar with wooden bats and professional pitching.