The Harper backlash has already begun in some corners of the internet, but I’m going to be oh so bold and stick with him as the top draft prospect heading into 2010. Keep in mind this is coming from the same guy who totally called Stephen Strasburg as the top pick last year. Amazing prediction, am I right? Now you see why I have to disappear for months at a time during the draft offseason – I’m working hard coming up with such bold, innovative predictions that allow me to stand out amongst the crowd of all the other amateur draft prognosticators. I should really start charging for my brilliant insight…

RHP Jameson Taillon
3B Nick Castellanos
RHP AJ Cole
OF Austin Wilson

Picking Harper for the top spot was a piece of cake. Picking Taillon right behind him is almost as easy. A piece of pie, if you will. Taillon’s extensive arsenal of quality pitches (heavy FB, nasty low-80s SL, near-plus high-70s CB, occasional splitters and CUs) and high level of high school competition put him above the rest of this year’s impressive crop of teenage righthanded pitching. After last year’s lackluster prep position player class, I’m admittedly a little bit desperate for some exciting high school bats to emerge this spring. To that end, I throw my full support behind both Castellanos and Wilson as legit high first round caliber talents. By the way, I hate pie. I don’t mean I hate Taillon – I’m through with that lame metaphor. I mean actual pie. Apple is alright, I guess. Lemon meringue is probably my favorite. The rest? No, thank you. Makes Thanksgiving dessert a bit of a downer for me, but, on the bright side, it allows me more freedom to eat as much of the dinner portion of the meal as I can possibly stuff down my throat.

RHP Anthony Ranaudo
RHP Karsten Whitson
LHP Drew Pomeranz
RHP Brandon Workman
RHP Stetson Allie

Ranaudo is lower here than even I expected, but the upside of the five names in front of him partially explains his low standing. I also have personal reservations about big guys that don’t throw nearly as hard as expected. There is plenty of tape on him floating around, so I’ll need to take a closer look and break him down in the near future. Workman has been a fascination of mine since the Phillies failed to sign him coming out of high school, so I feel confident in his placement based on his outstanding raw stuff and physical build. Allie is ahead of Whitson on talent alone at this point, but the up and down results that Allie puts up make him a very difficult player to accurately access.

INF/OF/RHP Yordy Cabrera
RHP Deck McGuire
3B Zack Cox

Something about those draft eligible sophomores always intrigues me. I haven’t talked to many people who think Cabrera will stick at shortstop professionally, but he’s so darn talented across the board that I’d be willing to gamble on him being productive wherever he winds up on the diamond.

RHP Jesse Hahn
LHP Chris Sale

The two big names from the Cape are still a mystery to me as far as their prospect standing goes. They are both very good prospects, of course, but the question of how good remains to be answered. Yes, I realize I could write that exact same blurb about every player on this list, especially the college guys. I may have worked too hard to cover up my high school blindspots. Time to get back to studying the college game for a bit, starting with the high upside, high flameout possibilities listed above.

RHP Cameron Bedrosian
RHP Kyle Blair
RHP Matt Harvey

Undersized righthander with a hot fastball and an excellent curve with big league bloodlines? If it hasn’t been made before, I’m happy to be the first to throw out the Kyle Drabek/Cameron Bedrosian comparison. Blair and Harvey have seen their respective stocks drop a ton in the past calendar year. I’m a believer in the rule that once you show a skill, you own that skill. Neither Blair nor Harvey has been seriously injured. Neither Blair nor Harvey has forgotten how to throw a baseball with nasty stuff.

RHP Dylan Covey
RHP Kaleb Cowart
MIF Anthony Wolters
C/OF Stefan Sabol
OF Bryce Brentz
LHP James Paxton

Wolters and Sabol could both be impact players at up the middle defensive positions as professionals, with Wolters having a chance to be a truly special defender at second base in time. Brentz and Paxton might have cases as having the highest upsides of any position player and pitcher in the collegiate ranks, respectively.

RHP Zach Lee
RHP Peter Tago
RHP Jesus Valdez
RHP AJ Vanegas
RHP Justin Grimm
OF Angelo Gumbs
OF Brian Ragira
C Rob Brantly

Valdez doesn’t have quite the velocity of some pitchers in his class, but the movement he gets on his fastball makes it a legit plus pitch going forward. Vanegas may be a quick riser as a professional; prep pitchers that can throw four pitches for consistent strikes tend to move fast. I think I have Ragira too low in this spot. He is a legit CF prospect with an above-average big league quality arm, in addition to a mature beyond his years approach at the plate. Brantly is another draft-eligible sophomore with tremendous upside; in a pretty good year for college catching, he’s the top four-year college backstop on my board.

OF Levon Washington
SS Rick Hague
SS Christian Colon

Let’s talk Christian Colon for a minute, shall we? I guess my lack of love for his game comes from me severely underrating the value of a league average big league shortstop (a rookie mistake on my part, I admit) and also being less than impressed when seemingly every scouting report about Colon begins and ends with talk about his personality, leadership, and the way he makes the most of his average at best tools. No doubt Colon’s makeup is totally off the charts and his defensive chops make him a slam dunk to stick at short professionally, but I tend to focus more on the “average at best tools” part of that discussion than the “personality” and “leadership.” I’m both ready and willing to convinced I’m totally wrong on Colon, but that’s where things stand now. For what it’s worth, I’ve only seen Colon play once since watching him in person in high school, so maybe I’m judging him unfairly based on my limited and outdated memory of his skills. Also, for what it’s worth, I have a scouting buddy who has seen Colon play a ton from his junior year of high school until this past summer and he absolutely loves everything about Colon’s game.

RHP Kevin Gausman
RHP DeAndre Smelter
RHP Tyrell Jenkins
OF Leon Landry
3B Victor Sanchez

Keyvius Sampson was my guy from day one last year. This year’s version might be Tyrell Jenkins. Jenkins has a lot of nice things going for him on paper – good velocity, sharp breaking ball (slider), very athletic, and a great amount of projection going forward. Sanchez seems like he is getting lost in the shuffle as another formerly highly touted high school prospect who has battled injuries and inconsistency at the college level. Since I love making unfounding comparisons, let’s call Sanchez the hitting equivalent of the previously mentioned Matt Harvey and Kyle Blair combo platter. Landry is a total upside play here, but I trust the LSU coaching staff like few others.

1B Christian Yelich
SS Sean O’Brien
1B/3B Kris Bryant
RHP Aaron Sanchez
RHP Nick Tepesch
INF Zach Alvord

If I had to pick one guy on my list to drop off over the course of the season, I’d probably go with Yelich. That naturally begs the question of why he is on the list in the first place. Yelich is like the hitting version of Stetson Allie, an up and down prospect that can look like a late first rounder one day and a fifth round lottery ticket on the next. It gets repeated every year, but it’s important: prep players limited to first base need to be able to hit, hit, and hit some more to be taken seriously as a draft prospect. I realize I have O’Brien lower than Colon on this list, but I’m not quite sure why. I’m a man who loves upside, and O’Brien’s ceiling is higher than just about any other shortstop in this year’s class. Of course, I’m also a realistic enough fellow who can readily admit that Colon is a much more certain bet to reach his upside than O’Brien. In one of the most spot-on comps of the year, scouts have compared Kris Bryant to a young Troy Glaus on more than one occasion. It’s only been 24 hours since I posted this list, but I think I’m already ready to knock Alvord off…

RHP Robbie Aviles
C Micah Gibbs
SS/RHP Justin O’Conner
LHP Jessie Biddle

I think Justin O’Conner could wind up as this year’s Casey Kelly, a ridiculously talented two-way player picked late in the first round by a team willing to pony up the big bucks for his services. In the end, however, I think O’Conner will deviate from the Kelly plan by proving himself to be a better hitter than pitcher. Biddle is the token prep lefthanded pitcher on the list. I felt bad about not including any young lefties on the 2010 list after the totally stacked 2009 class, so I threw lefties everywhere a bone with Biddle’s inclusion.