Flattered to Death in 2005
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we should be positively blushing.

Boca Raton, FLA -Our competitors may be few, but they're loyal readers.

Last year MiLB.com's Jon Mayo took a crack at our FAB50 with his own mid-season ranking. He polled the farm directors, told America how hard it was to come up with a list, and produced these little gems on one page:

That was Felix Hernandez' whole bio. Ours, which rolled out a couple of weeks later, was a bit more modest...

We gave our FAB50 players full page photo spreads, as you'll see this year, along with 712 more interesting words on our top pick, and full bio pieces for every player. What can we say? We like our readers. We don't assume that you know these guys, and we want you to learn more about them.

It went beyond just being prettier than our competitors, who added mid-season me-too rankings to their publications.

Mayo and others followed Baseball America's lead, going with Delmon Young as their number one pick. After all, BA has become the final word on all things player in modern baseball, right?

Maybe. We chose the Seattle Mariners phenom hurler Felix Hernandez as No. 1 instead.

Six months later, Felix was a full-fleged Mariner, featured on the cover of ESPN: The Magazine, and Delmon was, well... arguing balls and strikes rather forcefully in Pawtucket (See: Devil Ray, April 27. 2006 issue ).

MiLB.com has since moved its 50 to Spring as a pre-season ranking that now butts heads with the deep Baseball America beauty fest (See: Top Fifty Hold the Mayo , MAJOR BLOGS, 03.29.06). BA runs its own mid-season rankings. We invite you to compare, and to log in again next August to see how our picks panned out.

[Back to Article] .