Rangers #1???

From an ESPN chat session that Baseball America editor in chief John Manuel participated in this afternoon:

Chris (Newport Beach, CA): Jim, great chat as always! I was wondering when you were doing the minor league top 10's, which orginization [sic] did you have the most trouble with in terms of their top three prospects? Marlins, Braves, other??

John Manuel: (2:25 PM ET) Neat question that I'll answer even though I'm not Jim. The Braves was very tough -- we went back and forth between Jason Heyward and Tommy Hanson; Hanson's AFL performance and scouting reports were so loud and outsized, and he's so much closer to the majors than Heyward, that we switched at the last minute. The Rangers top list and the Marlins are also interchangeable, and to me, you could argue Mike Stanton over Cam Maybin easily for the Marlins No. 1, K rate be damned! Those kinds of things tend to happen to strong organizations, and Texas and Florida rank 1-2 in our Org Rankings in the Prospect Handbook, which is at the printers now.

--------------------------->>>>>>>

This is about as close to a guarantee that the Rangers will have the top farm system in baseball. Its always been speculated that it was going to come down to Texas and Oakland. It is very surprising that Oakland is not a top 2 even though the margin of difference could be minimal.

One thought too... Does "Texas and Florida rank 1-2" actually mean in that order? I sure hope it does.