I come from a family of English teachers. When I was in high school, I used to grade papers for my Mom’s junior college composition classes. I myself received a B.A. in English. For several years I worked as a proofreader and copy editor for a large publishing house and then on my own as a freelancer. I still have trouble reading books without editing them in my head. Heck, I can’t even look at billboards without an overly critical eye. It’s a curse.

With that in mind, this article in The Onion is one of the funniest things I’ve come across in a long time. What makes The Onion so great is that it really is hard to distinguish their stories from the "real" news.

Back to baseball. Here’s a little something I’m playing with right now: John Sickels’ grades for prospects and Bill James’ win shares. Without getting into a lengthy discussion of the relative merits of James’ system, and acknowledging that it is far from a perfect tool, it should suffice for our purposes. And before I go any further, I should warn you that I’m only about halfway through the data, so what follows is what is known in the business as a teaser. Proceed at your own risk. No warranty is implied, etc.

Basically, I’m looking at Sickels’ 1996 Minor League Scouting Notebook and determining the number of win shares for each player in the book. I’ve broken everything down by age, position, and grade, and recorded the number of win shares earned from 1996-2001. So far I’m through players whose last names begin with "K".

Top 10 hitters

Name            Grade    WS
---------------------------
Jeter,De          A     150
Jones,An          A     122
Guerrero,Vl       A-    119
Garciaparra,No    A-    119
Giles,Br          B     116
Abreu,Bo          A     107
Kendall,Ja        A-    106
Damon,Jo          A      98
Aurilia,Ri        B-     94
Cameron,Mi        C+     90

Top 10 pitchers

Name            Grade    WS
---------------------------
Colon,Ba          B+     63
Foulke,Ke         C      58
Helling,Ri        C-     58
Graves,Da         B+     55
Hermanson,Du      B+     52
Baldwin,Ja        C      50
Estes,Sh          C      46
Adams,Te          C+     42
Carpenter,Ch      C+     40
Alfonseca,An      C+     33

Those pitchers sure are an unpredictable lot, no? Anyway, I’ll be working on this over the next several weeks, so this is just a little something to whet your appetite until I’m done.

Finally, a real quick look at last night’s games: Portland Burroughs 2-5, 1 2B, 0 E; Nady 0-0, 1 BB; Bynum 7 IP, 1 ER. Mobile Faison 2-5, 1 BB; Bozied 2-4, 2 BB; Johnson 3-5, 1 BB. Lake Elsinore Nettles 1-5, 1 BB, 3 SB; Greene 4-5, 1 2B.