Hunter Pence was an easy call for last year’s top #1, and he made us look much smarter than we really are.  You all know how big an impact Pence made at the major league level in his rookie year.  That was preceded by a month of tearing up the Pacific Coast League.  However, we would never have guessed that our numbers’ 2 -5 would not be in the organization for the 2008 season.  But that’s what happened.  Our #2 Patton and #3 Albers helped secure Miguel Tejada in trade.  And our #4 Juan Gutierrez helped get closer Jose Valverde from Arizona.  Our #5 Jimmy Barthmaier had a forgettable year, was released, and subsequently picked up by Pittsburgh.  Our #6 Paul Estrada flopped in his first taste of AAA.  Our #7 Felipe Paulino made good with his best minor league season and earned a major league call-up in September.  #8 Sergio Perez was good but not dominant.  #9 Chad Reineke had a fine year at Round Rock.  And our #10 Eli Iorg started the season in fine fashion, but an injury put him on the shelf for most of the year.

Thanks to the work of new Astros General Manager Ed Wade this year’s top 10 features 7 new faces and quite a bit of movement for nearly all the prospects.  There continues to be a severe lack of high end talent in the Astros system.  Last year’s draft debacle did not help matters.  So, new this year we provide you with our top 20 as there really are not enough higher quality players to make ranking each position in the system worthwhile.  Surprisingly we did not have a difficult time selecting the top 20 though we did so while holding our noses.  As you will see, we profile the top 10 as always, but numbers 11 – 20 feature only brief comments.  We remind you now that we only consider prospects from the full season leagues for the top 10 and this year the top 20.  Our top 10 features 5 pitchers (all right handed), 3 outfielders, 1 infielder, and 1 catcher.  And now, on with the show.
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