Your Top Cubs Prospects Lists

[CuseCubFan69]

Out of this list of 15 or so prospects, how many/which ones will actually end up as actual MLB players? I've seen these Cub prospect lists before and it hasn't been pretty when it comes to contributing to the Cubs or any other MLB team.

 

I'd say there's a decent chance we'll see more than half of these guys make it to the majors. This year's list is a bit on the top-heavy side. Of the names mentioned...

 

Guys who've already been in the majors: Geovany Soto, Eric Patterson, Sean Gallagher, Kevin Hart, Billy Petrick, Jose Ascanio, Jake Fox, Juan Mateo, Sam Fuld

Guys who are close to the majors (likely to be in the majors within a year/year & a half): Jeff Samardzija, Mark Holliman, Jose Ceda, Donald Veal, Ed Campusano, Rocky Roquet, Adam Harben, Tyler Colvin

Guys who are likely 2-3 years away from contributing: Josh Vitters, Josh Donaldson, Chris Huseby, Tony Thomas, Robert Hernandez

 

In terms of contributing to the majors in a meaningful way beyond being roster filler, that's a bit more of a tossup. I'd say we'd be lucky to get 5 guys out the above group who will be at least average at their respective positions.

 

Interesting, thanks O_O. I just want a guy to be a good everyday starter every other year and for a starting pitcher and reliever to help the team every year. I've seen a lot of guys fly through in the beginning, like Dope for example and then just seem to hit a wall. Colvin just reminds me of the hype Harvey had and then we watched it dissolve as he went against better competition. Samardzija pitches seem too flat to me for him to have success at the MLB level. Fox is out of position. Hart could be a find as could Ceda if he finally decides to either challenge the hitters or find the strike zone. I'd like to see Gallagher get some starts for the big team to get a read on him. Fuld will be a 270-290/350-390 hitter with 2 HR's type of guy that will give you good D. I think Mateo will be an interesting player in the future and may be able to take one of the righty spots in the pen. I see Veal fading away and Campusano's injury from last year worries me.

[Outshined_One]

1. Geovany Soto
   
2. Geovany Soto
   
3. Geovany Soto
   
4. Geovany Soto
   
5. Geovany Soto
   
6. Geovany Soto
   
7. Geovany Soto
   
8. Geovany Soto
   
9. Geovany Soto
   
10. Geovany Soto

:good:

 

Good man.

[TruffleShuffle]

Who are you? Joe Morgan

that's just an asinine rhetorical question.

 

I can't ask if he's seen these guys play? if he had, I'd be interested in what he saw that caused him to view them more harshly than everyone else. how on Earth can you judge a guy based solely on high school stats?? or a guy who was instructed not to throw his best pitch for much of the year.

 

i'm not judging based on high school stats. i'm assuming that vitters won't pan out because the cubs never develop hitters, especially when they draft the hitter out of high school. samardzija couldn't strike people out and was way too hittable last year. colvin can't draw a walk to save his life; those types of players are not a great bet to succeed at the major league level.

 

aside from soto, i've hardly seen any of these guys play. i suspect that makes me similar to most people who are submitting a list.

[sneakypower]

i'm not judging based on high school stats. i'm assuming that vitters won't pan out because the cubs never develop hitters, especially when they draft the hitter out of high school.

well we might as well not put any hitters on a prospect list, if that's the case. i'd like to hope things are changing for the better with our hitting prospects looking better than in the past. i wasn't really saying I disagreed with you, but I just was curious the reason for such adamant negativity for Vitters, mainly. the others have glaring question marks, but the prospect lists that like these guys have access to that information too, and must see some sign to provide optimism they're able to fix the flaws.

 

you aren't in the 'shoulda drafted snider' crowd, i assume?

[Guest]

I think 95% of the board is in the shoulda-drafted-Snider camp.

 

i'm assuming that vitters won't pan out because the cubs never develop hitters, especially when they draft the hitter out of high school.

 

The problem with that (ignoring that the past won't necessarily repeat itself) is you have Soto at #1 and Geovany is a former HS draftee who was developed by the Cubs.

[sneakypower]

I'm guessing Von Joshua. He seems to be King Midas lately, the only capable instructor in the system.

[Guest]

I'm guessing Von Joshua. He seems to be King Midas lately, the only capable instructor in the system.

 

I like him, he's done well with guys like Theriot, Murton and Pie. But then again, he's at AA and AAA only...gotta get that high up first (looking at you, Harvey).

[Post Count Padder]

I'm guessing Von Joshua. He seems to be King Midas lately, the only capable instructor in the system.

That's why I'm glad he is where he is. I remember people here clamoring for him as the hitting coach for the big league club, but I much rather prefer him teaching and molding the young kids than dealing with major leaguers.

[Outshined_One]

I think 95% of the board is in the shoulda-drafted-Snider camp.

 

*Raises hand*

 

Yo!

[RedFlash]

I think 95% of the board is in the shoulda-drafted-Snider camp.

 

I'm in the camp of players who will eventually help the Cubs win the World Series. I don't necessarily buy into player A is better then player B,C,D, etc, when the realizty is, the chances of player A reaching his potential is the same as players B,C,D....no matter how tanatlizing a talent said player is....

[Rob]

I'm guessing Von Joshua. He seems to be King Midas lately, the only capable instructor in the system.

 

I like him, he's done well with guys like Theriot, Murton and Pie. But then again, he's at AA and AAA only...gotta get that high up first (looking at you, Harvey).

 

Von Joshua is damn good, but I think the only person who can save Harvey at this point is Larry Rothschild. Harvey seems to completely lack the ability to recognize pitches, and to make consistently make contact. That's not exactly the profile of the guys Von Joshua has been successful with (Cedeno, Murton, Soto, Theriot, Fontenot, Hoffpauir, etc... all have pretty good contact skills, and most are fairly patient.)

[TruffleShuffle]

i'm assuming that vitters won't pan out because the cubs never develop hitters, especially when they draft the hitter out of high school.

 

The problem with that (ignoring that the past won't necessarily repeat itself) is you have Soto at #1 and Geovany is a former HS draftee who was developed by the Cubs.

 

yes but soto has plate discipline. the players that i have rated poorly (pie - not pictured, colvin) have questionable plate discipline. vitters, from what i have read, has an aggressive approach at the plate, and will swing at bad pitches because he can hit them. not a good thing in an organization that doesn't seem to teach their players to stop swinging at bad pitches.

[TruffleShuffle]

i'm not judging based on high school stats. i'm assuming that vitters won't pan out because the cubs never develop hitters, especially when they draft the hitter out of high school.

well we might as well not put any hitters on a prospect list, if that's the case. i'd like to hope things are changing for the better with our hitting prospects looking better than in the past. i wasn't really saying I disagreed with you, but I just was curious the reason for such adamant negativity for Vitters, mainly. the others have glaring question marks, but the prospect lists that like these guys have access to that information too, and must see some sign to provide optimism they're able to fix the flaws.

 

you aren't in the 'shoulda drafted snider' crowd, i assume?

 

looking better than in the past? i think our hitting prospects were looking pretty good when we had corey patterson, hee seop choi, david kelton, bobby hill, luis montanez and nic jackson coming through the system. if you take the cubs' top 6 hitting prospects right now - say pie, soto, vitters, colvin, donaldson, thomas - i can guarantee you that those guys are not as highly regarded, as a group, as the six guys i listed from back in 2002. how many of them turned into good major league hitters?

 

i've been in the 'shoulda drafted wieters crowd, by the way'

[craig]

.... vitters, from what i have read, has an aggressive approach at the plate, and will swing at bad pitches because he can hit them. not a good thing in an organization that doesn't seem to teach their players to stop swinging at bad pitches.

 

"(Vitters) strike-zone recogntion is uncanny" February Vineline

 

Vineline obviously is a positive mag, and the authors get their views after soliciting comments from all of the Cub farm coaches. So I understand if your view is that if somebody in Cub management said it so it must be ludicrous and absolutely wrong because all Cub management are idiots. Or that since nobody in Cub management has a clue about pitch recognition, if a Cub source says anything about zone recognition, how would they know?

 

But I can assure you not even Vineline ever approached saying something like this about Harvey or Corey or Pie.

 

And IIRC, there really hasn't been a lot written about Vitters strike-zone recognition. For me, I recall only one or two scouting reports that had comments raising the hackaway red flag. This adds an additional relevant scouting comment.

[UK1679666180]

I think most here will be nicely surprised with Thomas as the year progresses.

[Outshined_One]

The problem with a lot of scouting publications is that they tend to equate "plate discipline" with "plate coverage" when talking about hitters.

 

Granted, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There are plenty of good hitters out there who can effectively foul off a bunch of unfavorable pitches while still drawing a number of walks. However, while it's possible for a player to have both attributes, it is also certainly possible that a player has one attribute, but not the other. What worries me about prospects (especially out of HS) is that they only have good plate coverage skills. As they move up the ladder, those skills will most likely diminish as they face better pitchers, which will effectively result in guys swinging at bad pitches and piling up weak hits and strikeouts.

 

We'll see whether Vitters falls into either category or both. For now, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[Guest]

.... vitters, from what i have read, has an aggressive approach at the plate, and will swing at bad pitches because he can hit them. not a good thing in an organization that doesn't seem to teach their players to stop swinging at bad pitches.

 

Most scouting reports pre-draft raved about him having good plate discipline and patience. He either was considered to have the best or second best plate discipline behind Heyward amongst HS picks.

[RammyFanny]

.... vitters, from what i have read, has an aggressive approach at the plate, and will swing at bad pitches because he can hit them. not a good thing in an organization that doesn't seem to teach their players to stop swinging at bad pitches.

 

Most scouting reports pre-draft raved about him having good plate discipline and patience. He either was considered to have the best or second best plate discipline behind Heyward amongst HS picks.

2nd best plate discpline behind Heyward IIRC, and was named the prep hitter most likely to make it to the majors 1st.

[Guest]

A few publications/writers had him as having better plate discipline than Heyward.

[badnews]

I'm in the camp of players who will eventually help the Cubs win the World Series. I don't necessarily buy into player A is better then player B,C,D, etc, when the realizty is, the chances of player A reaching his potential is the same as players B,C,D....no matter how tanatlizing a talent said player is....

 

In a way it doesn't matter if Snider ever reaches his potential. He'd make fantastic trade bait right now.

[Rob]

My personal list, which is somewhat jumbled...

 

1. Vitters

2. Soto

3. Donaldson

4. Veal

5. Gallagher

6. Colvin

7. Samardzija

8. Thomas

9. Ceda

10. Huseby

 

This list isn't looking too pretty... and this year's draft isn't doing much to replace Soto, Donaldson, and Gallagher... let alone displace some of the junk on the list.

[Donzo1679666396]

I completely disagree

 

 

Vitters & Samardzija are showing about as good as could be expected-- Soto has graduated into an All Star major league player- Murrton & Donaldson were leveraged into an Ace/Playoff starting pitcher- Veal is better than last year- Thomas & Ceda are showing well and as early as it is to even remotely judge the 08 draft, it's doing "much".

 

4th rounder Cerda has been excellent and 9th rounder Jackson has been filthy disgusting- pretty crazy stuff for a 9th round college pitcher.... Cashner is an excellent prospect and Shafer & Carpenter have + arms.

 

Most of Colvin's nubers are down, but considering he's changing is approach at the plate, that's not unexpected... His big red flag was his poor plate discipline & improving that is his goal for the year.

 

I'm much more encouraged about the Cubs farm system than I was at the start of the year.

[sporrer17]

I agree.

 

Next year we'll probably see Vitters, Ceda, Samardzija, Cashner, and Veal as our top 5.

 

Vitters will probably be a top 30 prospect overall, Ceda and Samardzija have a chance at cracking the top 100, IMO.

[Guest]

Despite skipping Peoria and being in a pitcher's league, I really can't say Thomas is showing well.

 

Sickels' midseason Cubs top 20 review: http://www.minorleagueball.com/2008/7/19/574909/chicago-cubs-top-20-in-rev

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

I'm putting Rebel Ridling at the top of my list. :D