Bryan Smith has posted the first two installments of his Top 75 prospects over at Wait Til Next Year.

He has posted numbers 70-45 and so far, Jon Papelbon and Jon Lester have both appeared. I have made the point I am about to before here but I want to reiterate it because too few have mentioned it in mainstream circles. What this off-season has screamed out to me more than anything else is that Boston’s front office has enormous faith in the health of its farm system. The only justifiable explanation for Jason Varitek’s and Edgar Renteria’s respective contracts, especially when you consider Manny Ramirez’s growing-more-God-awful-by-the-minute deal, is that there will be enough bargain basement home-grown talent on the roster by 2007 or so to allow for continued pursuit of top-echelon talent – even with $40-$50 million tied up in dubious deals.

That Papelbon and Lester have received some recognition from a trusted source like WTNY says to me that this front office may very well have every right to bank a good amount of the fututre on what hitherto had been a barren and even laughable Minor League system.

Comments are closed