Sorry for being late, but when I tried to post today at 10am (noon your time) the website was down. To be fair to the next round of voting, I will leave voting for Prospect #31 open until Noon, CST, Tuesday, January 18th.
Nikko Goodrum collected 53 of the 161 votes cast (32%) to close out our Top 30. Tom Stuifbergen was second with 33 votes with several players bunched in the 15-17 vote range. Logan Darnell collected only one vote in his second round of voting and won't return for the next round. Daniel Osterbrock (3 votes) will continue by virtue of rounding.
I will bring back a player who was dropped from the voting in the twenty-second round, Daniel Ortiz. Ortiz is a young man who our friend Seth Stoh's is very high on as he recently ranked him as his nineteenth best prospect. A former fourth round pick out of Puerto Rico in 2008, Ortiz missed all of 2009 with an injury. He returned to hit .259/.299/.498 with eleven home runs in the Appalachian League as a 20 year old. I decided to bring him back so those of you who agree with Seth can vote for him.
The other new name in this round is Pedro Guerra. Guerra is a 20 year old starter who was the 2009 Dominican Summer League Pitcher of the Year when he had a 7-0 record with a 0.38 ERA, 0.78 WHIP and 75 strikeouts in 71.0 innings for the runner-up Twins. He began last season in the GCL where he ws 2-2 with a 2.84 ERA before jumping past Elizabethton and joining the Class A Beloit Snappers in mid-season. Guerra made five starts for the Snappers, pitching 28.0 innings with a 2-0 record, 3.54 ERA, 20 strikeouts and 23 walks.
The last five selections were: 26) Scott Diamond; 27) B. J. Hermsen; 28) Pat Dean; 29) Brian Dozier; and 30) Nikko Goodrum.