In his Friday Baseball America chat, Allan Simpson cited Jake Gautreau as the fifth best second base prospect in the game. I’m currently working on my Padres Top 30 for 2003, and right now Gautreau looks to be somewhere in the back half of the Top 10. Wouldn’t surprise me to see him duplicate last year’s #7 ranking. More on that in the weeks to come…

The Red Sox are signing some interesting people. A couple of six-year minor-leaguers that I wouldn’t have minded seeing in San Diego: 1B Julio Zuleta and RHP Steve Woodard. They also grabbed former Padre RHP Tom Davey.

The Devil Rays released RHP Ryan Rupe. Not that the Padres are short of right-handed options for the rotation, but Rupe is a guy with some upside. He’s been plagued by the long ball, injuries, and toiling for an organization that has no clue. Wouldn’t surprise me to see him pull a Rodrigo Lopez and be a productive member of someone’s rotation next season.

Re-reading some stuff I wrote a while back. Keep myself accountable (although you guys generally do a pretty good job of that). Thinking of my lack of enthusiasm over the selection of Khalil Greene in the first round of the 2002 draft. At one point I compared him to Kevin Nicholson.

Of course, I’d never actually seen Greene play when I wrote that. And I suppose as a Pad fan I’ve just grown accustomed to shortstops that aren’t worth squat. But I’d like to go on the record as saying I couldn’t have been more wrong about Greene. Defensively he doesn’t have the artistry of an Omar Vizquel (or, IMHO, even a Ramon Vazquez). But after seeing him a handful of times this past summer and looking at the numbers he put up at Elsinore (and the progress he made during his stint there), I’m pretty satisfied this kid will hit at the big league level.

Kevin Towers has compared Greene to Rich Aurilia, and if you throw out Aurilia’s monster 2001 campaign, I don’t think that’s at all unreasonable. Greene, to me, looks like a guy who should flirt with .300 and hit 15-20 homers a year, possibly more. I’ll end the suspense right now and say that he is the Padres’ best prospect going into 2003. Xavier Nady is close and will contribute sooner, but Greene has a chance to be the Pads’ first impact shortstop since, well, I guess since Garry Templeton.

Finally I leave you with some sites that have caught my eye of late:

• The Diamond Angle — A reader alerted me to this one, and it delivers on its claim to being an "eclectic baseball magazine." Based out of Maui (go Sting Rays!), this site features a nice mix of historical rememberances and statistical analysis. Check it out when you’re done here.
• WolvesGeek — I have to admit, I’m not a huge basketball fan, but TwinsGeek’s sister site features some good writing and an interesting attempt to bring sabermetric-type analysis to James Naismith’s game.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day — This site contains some incredible pictures of stars, comets, and a variety of other celestial bodies. I like looking at these when things aren’t going my way; gives me a good sense of perspective.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow, we’ll revisit Sickels and win shares (and to those of you who have requested the data set, no I have not forgotten about you; I hope to have everything finished by the end of January, if not sooner). It’ll be more fun than you can shake a stick at. Ponder that one…