With all of the talk about Sox prospects right around the trade deadline – and how much each young player is valued by the Red Sox organization – here are some thoughts from Sox Player Development Director Mike Hazen on some of the risers within the Sox organization.

In this case, it’s the players (one pitcher and one position player) that have made the biggest jumps this summer from the end of last season until the traditional mid-point of the minor league season in 2008 – the kind of guys that will be replenishing/replacing prospects like Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss as they are moved in deals.

These are the kinds of guys that should start seeing their names mentioned more and more as they move up the ranks. Hazen gave the nod to 20-year-old Felix Doubront, a crafty left-hander that Soxprospects.com has compared to Ted Lilly in style and big league potential. He’s not a guy that will light up the radar guns like Daniel Bard with the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs, but he’s starting to ascend in Boston’s organizational ranks.

Mike Hazen: Doubront, from what he did in the GCL the year before and then what he did last year [in Lowell and Single-A Greenville] when he got beat up a little bit. I know there were some things in the off-season like hernia surgery and things like that, but the adjustments just weren’t being made very quickly.

This year, he’s taken that approach from Day One and he’s really been more consistent in all but a couple of his outings. And at 20 years-old he’s still one of the youngest pitchers in the South Atlantic League this season, and he’s left-handed. I wouldn’t say he’s been the biggest surprise, but he’s taken the biggest leap as far as where he was viewed at in the organization since the end of last season.

From an offensive standpoint, players like Josh Reddick, Jeff Corsaletti, and Lars Anderson have all made discernible leaps up the organizational ladder this season, but Taiwanese import Che-Hsuan Lin has opened eyes wide with his all-around performance at Single-A Greenville along with garnering the MVP honors at the All-Star Futures Game at Yankee Stadium last month. Here’s Hazen on Lin and his considerable athletic skills. Lin has left Single-A Greenville in the last week to train and play for Chinese Taipei in the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Mike Hazen: Probably Lin. He did well and it probably comes from just not knowing him that well. He went to the GCL and did well and then struggled a little bit in Lowell [last season] but it was a very short season from when we signed him and he had some medical stuff we needed to take care of when he came in.

To do what he’s done [this season], the guys that come out of Greenville – and you can obviously point to his great speed – but the defense, the instincts, the tools that have been shown have guys that come out of there saying ‘wow, this kid can play.’ He would be one for me only because we didn’t see what he was a player last year. Hopefully you can see what he does on the big stage of the Olympics as a player because he played in the World Championships during spring training I think, and he was awesome.

He’s got plus arm, good speed, good defensive instincts, he can play a really good centerfield and he can hit with some gap power.  

Along with the farm report, here's a couple more trade deadline tidbits culled from a number of baseball people I talked to following the deadline. There was a great deal of movement and rumors -- both true and untrue -- leading up to the climactic July 31 trade of Manny Ramirez, who is predictably doing unfair things to the baseball out in Los Angeles as a member of the Dodgers:

*The Jed Lowrie/Jack Wilson swap within the three team trade was a rumor that never had any factual basis. Lowrie was never mentioned in trade talks with anyone at the deadline, and seems to be a guy the Sox are getting comfortable watching play shortstop for the time being.

*The Brandon Moss for Ron Mahay deal wasn’t quite as cut and dry as had been previously reported. The Sox weren’t a slam dunk to pull the trigger on the trade because the Royals were also asking for Single-A shortstop prospect Oscar Tejeda in addition to Moss, and that was a sticking point for the Sox – even if Moss wasn’t involved in the Manny Ramirez trade.

*The Daniel Bard for Will Ohman rumor wasn’t ever going to happen. The Braves asked, and the Sox quickly hung up the phone and had themselves a good laugh. Unless teams drop their prices for setup relievers, it’s just as likely that the Sox won’t be making any waiver trade deals on any bullpen guys that somehow clear waivers.