In the past few days, Keith Law of ESPN.com and Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein, presumably) have both released their Top 100 prospect rankings for the upcoming 2008 season. The Red Sox minor league system was heavily represented in both lists. Here’s a recap (without getting into too much of the details from these subscriber articles):

Clay Buchholz: #4 on the Keith Law list, #2 on the Baseball Prospectus list.
Jacoby Ellsbury: #19 on the KL list, #16 on the BP list.
Lars Anderson: #28 on the KL list, #100 on the BP list.
Jed Lowrie: #55 on the KL list, #57 on the BP list.
Justin Masterson: #78 on the KL list, #53 on the BP list.
Ryan Kalish: #60 on the BP list.
Michael Bowden: #95 on the BP list.

Buchholz, likely the best pitching prospect in the game, isn’t surprising. Ellsbury’s ranking seems high to me, perhaps driven by his impressive late-season performance. At the very least, his ranking is consistent, though I have a feeling Red Sox fans might be in for a slight letdown if they are expecting the next Tris Speaker. I like Ellsbury, but for some reason I can’t shake this bearish feeling whenever I see the enormous expectations on this kid.

There has been some variability in the opinions on Lars Anderson, which tends to be the case with younger prospects who are 4+ years from the majors.

One final note: I have a strong feeling that Michael Bowden will reestablish himself as a bona fide pitching prospect in 2008. He’ll be repeating AA, and I expect him to be one of the better pitchers in the Eastern League, perhaps becoming the 2008 version of Alan Horne.