His era is sick, i will definetly be following this kid. There are some people that say we have the best system in baseball, i sure as hell hope so, it looks like it on paper.

I wouldn't say that at all. We surely have a top 10 system, but top 5 seems like a stretch.

Either way it's way better than what it has been for the past 15 years. Hopefully it gets better

It's certainly better than the Luis De Los Santos can't miss superstar days.

Kevin Goldstein from Baseball Prospectus said two weeks ago that the Royals have the top system in baseball. John Sickels has five Royals in his top 30 prospects (Moose, Hosmer, Myers, Montgomery and Lamb). They're easily top 5, and may be the best.

He broke his elbow in a car accident and missed his senior year in high school. Royals drafted him the 5th round, and he was clearly worth the risk.

They're top-loaded, sure. I don't see how we're better than Tampa. I might just be a pessimist, though.

I thought they said on ESPN while the futures game was on, that we had one of the best farm systems in the game

This is why all these "trade Soria/Greinke/Butler/DeJesus for prospects" articles are hilariously stupid. They are probably not paying much attention and used to the idea that the Royals have a barren wasteland in the minors and no hope.

We are far enough along that it is probably time to start counting our chickens even though they haven't all hatched and figure out what missing pieces we might need. If everything breaks our way, we could have a winning record next year, be competitive in 2012 with a chance at postseason (so some guys re-sign) and be really good in 2013.

What do you guys think about B.J. Upton? He's having a bad year for Tampa, a team that is loaded in the minors and contending now. Do you think he can be had? Do you want to have him? I'm seriously just throwing poop but curious. Maybe a change of scenery would benefit him. Or his brother, for that matter.

Gotcha, glad to see the kid doing well.

actually we are pretty deep. We have more B- and C-level prospects in just AA than we had in the whole organization in most of the 2000's. After the front-line studs we have a whole lot of possible league-average players and lottery tickets.

If we had a problem, it might be that we have too many left-handed pitching prospects, both starting and relievers. (Montgomery, Dwyer, Duffy, Arguelles, Lamb, Baumann, Sisk, Hardy, etc) Left-handed lineups might hate us in a few years, but we might need more RHP. If a lot of those guys pan out, we'll need to think about trading some of them to teams with no LHP.

legit B and C-level prospects, most wont pan out, but some will.

David Lough, OF (disappointing year though, might be a bench player)
Jordan Parraz, OF
Blaine Hardy, RP
Aaron Crow, SP (very disappointing year, but still a prospect)
Derrick Robinson, OF
Johnny Giavotella, 2B
Manuel Pina, C
Clint Robinson, 1B
Edgar Osuna, SP
Patrick Keating, RP
Paulo Orlando, OF
Brandon Sisk, RP
Louis Coleman, RP
Christian Colon, SS (2010 1st-rounder, hopefully an A-grade SS of the future)
Chris Dwyer, SP
Buddy Baumann, SP/RP

Not even close to a stretch for top 5...

Please name five teams that can:
1) Match the top five guys (Lamb, Montgomery, Moose, Hosmer, Myers)
2) Match the depth (Dwyer, Crow, Colon, Sample, Osuna, Robinson, Robinson, Lough, Parraz)

It's easily a top five system.

The lefties (Monty, Lamb, Dywer, Duffy, Arguelles) just overshadow the righties a bit. You mentioned Crow, but Mehlville, and Tyler Sample all are quality prospects.

Crow's stuff is there, according to every scout who has seen him. He's just struggling to command it at times (wonder if he thinks sitting out a year and half was such a great idea now)

Melville to the injured list per gschaum. Hosmer batting 5th and playing 1st base in his debut in AA