It was a contrast difficult to overlook. Rays outfielder Wil Myers made his much anticipated big league debut on Tuesday, and the prospect-loving world was watching closely as the 22-year-old went 1-for-7 in the two games of a doubleheader in which his team was swept by the Red Sox. That, of course, was one more day of standing in the hype spotlight than Daniel Nava has experienced in his big league career. "Wil Myers, prospect making his debut -- [Nava] never had that," observed Red Sox teammate Jonny Gomes. "He played independent ball, and now he's hitting homers in the middle of our lineup as one of our key pieces. I think due to him being older of age but younger in his career, I think he'll surprise people in the rest of his career." Even Gomes -- who worked out with Nava this past offseason, and so arrived with the Red Sox in spring training with an understanding of how hard his new teammate worked to maximize his likelihood of success -- has not been immune from

By this point, you've probably heard that Red Sox top prospect Xander Bogaerts has now been promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket. And by this point, you've probably heard that Bogaerts is a potential superstar-in-the-making -- one of the top prospects in all of the minors, if not the top prospect. But what does that mean? Simply put, Bogaerts hits all the checkboxes: tools, makeup, position, performance and, perhaps most importantly, age and aptitude. TOOLS Ever since he was a 16-year-old whom the Sox signed out of Aruba, Bogaerts has produced a different sound when the barrel of the bat meets the ball. He sends baseballs flying out of the park to all fields with a swing so fluid, so natural that it makes Tom Emanski light-headed. "I was joking with [Portland hitting coach Rich Gedman] the other day, after this guy gets done taking batting practice, the scouts go down to the concourse to have a smoke. It's that kind of batting practice," Portland manager Kevin Boles recently said. He

In his first spring training with the Red Sox in 2010, young shortstop Jose Iglesias would sometimes show up unannounced at the house of then-minor league hitting coordinator Victor Rodriguez, He wanted to discuss hitting, to learn, to think about what he needed to do to be successful. Rodriguez has spent more time with and around Iglesias than nearly anyone in the Red Sox system. He saw him time after time from 2010-12 while offering roving instruction throughout the Sox system, and now he is with him in the big leagues as the Red Sox assistant hitting coach. And so, he qualifies as an expert on the hitting approach of the now-23-year-old. Rodriguez has seen Iglesias try to replicate the swings of Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols; he has seen him chase breaking pitches in the dirt for days at a time; seen him go days or weeks without impacting the ball solidly. He has also seen the glimmers of promise, the stretches of a couple of weeks or even a month here and there where the man with

Left-hander Trey Ball entered the season being viewed as the consensus best two-way player in the draft, someone worthy of early-round status as an outfielder or pitcher. But the mystery surrounding his potential career path lasted about as long as his first outing of the year. This was a miserable spring in the Midwest, one filled with brutal weather conditions that became something of a scouting nightmare, with games of top prospects routinely getting rained out and leaving the armadas of GMs and front office evaluators, scouting directors and cross-checkers banging their heads against ... umbrellas, one supposes. Even for those games that weren't rained out, the awful conditions weren't exactly conducive to seeing players at their best. With pitchers fighting through at-times arctic elements, they could be forgiven if their stuff was reduced. "The weather was actually awful this year," suggested Ball. "We had a lot of snow and rain and it was very cold. I remember