Rank em': Young Guns

Anytime you can make a reference to the movie Young Guns, you better do it. Young Guns II was good, but couldn’t quite recapture the magic of the initial motion picture. That said, this has nothing to do with what we’re going to do. In our newest feature, we’ll rank em’, the 15 top young pitchers in the game of baseball today. Without further speculation, here’s Diamond Hoggers top 15 young pitchers (age 27 or under) in the game today. These are the gentleman that are going to take the torch and carry us into the next generation as men like Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, Nolan Ryan, and others did.

15. Chad Gaudin, Oakland, age: 24
14. Homer Bailey, Cincinnati, age: 21
13. Jeremy Bonderman, Detroit, age: 24
12. Dan Haren, Oakland, age: 27
11. Jared Weaver, Anaheim, age: 24
10. Dontrelle Willis, Florida, age: 25
9. Fausto Carmona, Cleveland, age: 23
8. Cole Hamels, Philadelphia, age: 23
7. Chris Young, San Diego, age: 27
6. John Maine, New York Mets, age: 26

The top 5

5. C.C. Sabathia, Cleveland, age: 26
4. Josh Beckett, Boston, age: 27
3. Justin Verlander, Detroit, age: 24
2. Phil Hughes, New York Yankees, age: 21
1. Jake Peavy, San Diego, age: 26

Honorable Mention (receiving consideration but not a ranking, for one reason or another):
Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Rich Harden, Chien-Ming Wang, Rich Hill, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Joe Blanton, James Shields, Scott Kazmir, Dice-K Matsuzaka, Felix Hernandez