Minor Notes: Draft Retrospectives continue; Rankings updated

Here are Monday's minor league notes:

• On July 3, the rankings on SoxProspects.com were updated, with some significant movement for several players. The main piece of the update was the inclusion of the 2020 draft class, but that was far from the only major change. Executive Editor Chris Hatfield outlined the thought process behind the re-rank which helps give readers some more insight to process and help interpret some of the big moves. 

• Chris and Ian talked more about the rankings update on the most recent episode of the SoxProspects.com Podcast, while also covering some other relevant news and answering some interesting mailbag questions. 

• Managing Editor James Dunne kicked off the Draft Retrospective series at the end of June, and the posts have quickly become a fan favorite. Last week Dunne covered two of Boston's most interesting drafts in recent memory, 2005 and 2006. He covered the picks for 2005 and 2006 in separate posts, and then went in-depth on each draft after that. 

• In his post revisiting the 2005 draft, Dunne highlights the players who became a core part of Boston's success in the years to come. 2006 had some high-profile misses at the top of the draft, but the Red Sox were able to find some hidden gems in the later rounds. 

• The other years Dunne has covered so far are 2003 (Picks and Retrospective) and 2004 (Picks and Retrospective). The series will go all the way up through 2019, with other members of the staff contributing as well. 

• With the minor league season officially cancelled, news will be slow to trickle in on a lot of the Red Sox minor leaguers. The exception will be the prospects who are in the 60-man player pool. Sam Dykstra of MILB.com provided some background on the Red Sox prospects who are currently in the player pool, while noting that a few of the system's top prospects may still be added. Right now the Red Sox have assigned 50 players to the pool, with the top 3 prospects of Triston Casas, Jeter Downs, and Bryan Mata currently on the outside looking in. 

• One top prospect who is in the player pool but has yet to be in camp is Bobby Dalbec (pictured, above). Dalbec tested positive for COVID-19, though he was asymptomatic. He has since been cleared to play and was working out at Boston College on Saturday and was at Fenway on Sunday.

Photo Credit: Bobby Dalbec by Kelly O'Connor

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