The Futility Infielder

Written and delivered less than 24 hours after "The Claussen Pickle Revisited", this week's Prospectus Hit List is up at BP. This week's edition features lots of stuff about rookies, for some reason; this late in the year, some pretty good ones, such as Oakland's Dan Johnson and the White Sox's Tadahito Iguchi, are playing big roles for contenders, while some teams such as the Pirates are simply more interesting now that they've abandoned their Tike Redmans and Kip Wellses in favor of the Chris Duffys and Zach Dukes.

There's been precious little movement on the list, so little that I didn't even award the Golden Anvil or Platinum Pole Vault awards, for teams that move up and down the most. The Orioles dropped down three, so consider them the winners of the former. It would take too close an examination to determine the latter, as several teams went up or down two spots. The Cardinals are still first, followed by the White Sox, with the A's having shot up to third and nipping at the Sox's heels. The Yanks are eighth, the Dodgers 24th, and I was probably as harsh on the latter for Jim Tracy's handling of Hee Seop Choi as I was on any team on the list.

Finally, I want to thank everybody for the positive response to the Claussen piece; it generated more email than just about any BP article I've written, and while a good number of those emails came from people who told me I forgot Odalis Perez or Jason Marquis without reading the qualifications for the study (both had too many innings to qualify), there were some intelligent responses mixed in there as well.

Off to tonight's White Sox-Yanks tilt, and thank the good Lord I never have to root for Jose Contreras again. I promise not to leave early this time.