The Royals have kind of an interesting set of about 6 pitching prospects, none of whom have gotten a ton of attention, but all of whom have a fairly solid chance of being very good pitchers. John gave Dan Cortes, Carlos Rosa, Dan Duffy, Michael Montgomery, Tim Melville and Dan Gutierrez all B-s or Bs (and only the last was a B-), describing two of them as "solid," a third as having a "solid" debut, and a 4th as a sleeper. Baseball America put them almost in the same order with the exception of Rosa being at the bottom, and Duffy down one or two spots. In their book, however, they said the if Gutierrez could improve his changeup, he might have a "special" ceiling, meaning they might be more positive than their ranking suggests.

I have a few questions. First of all, I was a little surprised that both John and BA put Melville below Montgomery. Melville seems to have lost a bit of his luster, partially due to his unexceptional senior year perfomance in high school and partially due to his last of professional experience. How much do you guys downgrade him because of those factors? Could he still be an ace? How would you rank all of these Royals prospects? Who do you think has the highest upside? Who will fulfil their potential?