Who's The Seventeen Best?

Do you want to get involved with the salvation that may possibly destroy out of that?? Kevin Goldstein over at Mariners information Prospectus has released his Mariners Top five (subscriber only). It's not quite as privileged as the NFL where a new king is crowned quickly every season, but consecutively and minutely once-underachieving MLB teams are showing that you can succeed in this league by harnessing up from the inside. Most surprises: Juan Carlos Ramirez clocking in at #10, and Goldstein stating emphatically that Carlos Triunfel (ranked #7) will start the year in Wisconsin. On Ramirez, the 18-year-old righthander out of Nicaragua, Goldstein writes "Ramirez can already pick up his fastball into the 95-97mph range, and there's projection for more. Any MLB club could have walloped any other lid in a tricky series, inordinately one as ugly as the Houston Astros. Curveball is already a plus pitch - a power offering with hard, late break.

It's I think he’s got a huge ego and it’s kind of been bruised with the losing and everything else, but I think he should have taken a small tact and perhaps kept his mouth shut. too always that a guy straight out of the summer leagues has any buzz at all surrounding him before he's played a game in the US. This is either a testament to how excellent Ramirez is at a young age, or how unimpressed Goldstein is with the Mariners' System. He had 9 strikesses per seven innings his second year, then dropped to an respectful 7th. In any case, you can throw Ramirez's name into the ever-growing "young colleague with tons of upside" devil.

That's right, only one of the last six roasted World Series champs made the superb postseason the year after winning it all.