Pirates Prospects' new Prospect Guide still a great resource

I'm very much enjoying the Pirates Prospects 2013 Prospect Guide, which Tim Williams was kind enough to send to me. Like previous editions of the book, this one is built around page-long writeups of each minor-leaguer in PP's list of the top 50 Pirates prospects, along with shorter writeups of other players in the system. As usual, the prospect writeups contain plenty of information that isn't being reported elsewhere, especially in a time period when many of the folks who are supposed to care about this stuff would rather rehash Hoka Hey for the 90th time than talk about prospects in any detail.

I found very little to disagree with in the order of the top 50 prospects. The top six are obvoius (although what order they go in might not be), but there's a considerable drop from Josh Bell to whoever the seventh guy is, and PP has done a great job navigating those lower tiers of players. PP ranks high-upside but unproven prospects like Barrett Barnes, Tyler Glasnow, Dilson Herrera, and Max Moroff very aggressively, but in spots that make sense. This is, as always, a great book to take to Pirate City, particularly in a year like this, where the system isn't very deep beyond the top six. It's also great for those of you who obsessively follow minor-league box scores. When Jin-De Jhang or Elvis Escobar suddenly start putting up big numbers next year (or, well, even if they don't), you'll already know who they are.