Monday Update

Happy New Year everyone and Happy Monday! Everything finally starts to get back to normal this week as we get back to our regular weekly routines with work, school, etc. I know I am glad to be settling in back here in (snowy) Northeast Ohio after spending the better part of the past five weeks out of town or engulfed in holiday activity. It's a new year, and it is nice to get back in the saddle after some time away.

With that, there will be some increased activity with the site in the coming days and weeks. Sometime later this week or early next week I should get word on who is participating in the Indians Winter Development Program this month at Progressive Field. Also, I have a few final player articles to post before we shift full bore into "2010" mode with prospect rankings and scouting reports.

Speaking of 2010 prospect rankings and scouting reports, for those wondering there will certainly be another IPI Prospect Book this year and it should be available sometime in early February. I will provide more updates on it once things progress further along with it and it is nearing completion.

Along with the book, I will also begin posting my 2010 rankings with a daily prospect countdown. This year I decided to scale back my "ranking" from 100 to 50, though I will still be writing and providing somewhere between 150-200 scouting reports or profiles for the book. I will be posting the Top 50 here on the site, and will begin counting down from 50 hopefully sometime next week.

Also, this is a quick reminder that Baseball America's 2010 Indians Top 10 ranking will be coming out on Wednesday this week. Be sure to check that out. Baseball America is high on the Indians system this year, as noted by these two comments from some recent chat transcripts:

Avery (Walnut Creek, CA): When creating the Prospect Handbook (ordered and anxiously awaited), which organization was the most difficult to scrape 30 "prospects" together and which was the most difficult to limit to 30? I guess 31 if you pre-order...

Ben Badler (2:40 PM): The Indians were a challenge to limit to 30. There isn't a team out there with 30 future big leaguers in their farm system, but they have players who aren't in their top 30 who I think have a chance at big league careers. Finding 30 guys for the Cardinals, Astros and Blue Jays was a bit more challenging.

joseph (sf): your top 5 farm systems?

Jim Callis (3:04 PM): Rangers, Rays, Indians, Giants, Marlins (in that order).

Finally, tomorrow or Wednesday I will be providing the first ever "fan" ranking where 10-15 fans of the IPI put together their Top 30 and we averaged all the rankings to come up with a comprehensive listing based on the average rankings. Thanks to Mike B. for the assistance with this and for coming up with the idea.

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