Re: 2010 Cubs Top Prospect Lists

[craig]

Will be interesting to see how Wells goes with stuff and velocity. By report, he was throwing 80's for most of the spring and 80's in instrux. But Cubs saw him hit well into the 90's at end of spring, apparently as high as 95 once.

 

Hopefully with a winter to work on his conditioning and strength, and with a spring to stretch out and for the Cubs to work with him on his delivery, hopefully he'll be a guy who will be able to comfortably and consistently be working in the 90's, and reaching 95 if he wants every game or every inning. But there are often guys who rarely or never work effectively or consistently at the "touched 90-X" max velocity that I read about in a BA report.

 

Hopefully Wells will have the full package.

[Guest]

The Cubs weren't the only ones who saw Wells hit mid 90s based on the pre-draft buzz from BA. Also, Arkansas is a pretty solid SEC school who got on him late.

[JeffH]

Ben Wells is Billy Petrick - a nice pitcher. Let's hope he stays healthy.

[craig]

Some additional thoughts.

 

1. I had Lee 2nd on my list, but he could easily have been 5th or 6th. I think in retrospect I should have put McNutt there; he hasn't manifested any real problems/flaws thus far.

 

But Lee, Jackson, and Vitters all have some flaws and just continuing as they are, not sure how good that will make them.

 

* Lee I think has a chance to have an extended career in the majors as a really good defensive SS with speed and OBP, even if he doesn't improve his profile a lot. But to become seriously good, adding to his slugging power or reducing his K's is needed.

*Vitters needs to learn to play a position, he needs to develop a playable OBP, and he needs to hit actual game HR's. And, he just needs to hit. As we've seen with Kelton, having a nice-looking swing doesn't mean you can actually hit breaking balls.

* Jackson needs to cut down on his K's or raise his HR's or both to become especially good.

 

Jackson is closest. His walks are high enough to neutralize a lot of his K's, and his HR's don't need to jump much to also justify K's. And obviously as a good-defense CFer he's got a much lower bar than Vitters as a 1B/3B. Vitters always gets mention of his age; it's noteworthy that Jackson is only one August older.

 

I constantly flip-flop on Vitters. He had a poor year, IMO, and is off to another bad start in AFL in early action. (In early AFL he's again sub-.300 OBP, as was case in Tenn 2010 and Daytona 2009.) But I understand that scouts still like his bat. If he did put it together, a guy who can hit for average and power, those are invaluable. At the time I was ranking him, I had only the awful defensive reports in mind, most of which seemed to have him going to 1B eventually. Phil and Law have since suggested he's been trying a little harder and might still have a chance to blossom into a mediocre 3B, so that would help his cause a lot. As nice as his swing is, though, that doesn't mean he can read breaking balls. He whiffed 20% this year, pretty high for a guy who's supposed to be a contact hitter and who rarely allows the count to reach 2-strikes. Given his approach, his K-rate was probably a lot worse than Jackson's this year. Still, he hasn't been a consistent K-king before, so hopefully it was just a rough season and this year he'll turn that around. He doesn't need to do anything radical to look a lot better. Add 10 walks, cut 10 K's, add 5 HR's, improve his BABIP, none of those seem remotely implausible; but if he improved a little bit like that in each of his areas, his numbers could look pretty good (if he was getting acceptable 3B reports...)

[craig]

Given my concerns about Lee, Jackson, and Vitters, Archer came in 1st for me pretty easily.

 

I may be crazy, but I think HR-profile is a very real and tremendously important characteristic, and I think it's routinely undervalued.

 

Archer's is terrific. I think that may be a result of the really good movement, and good hard-to-hit movement is also a quality that withstands promotion really well.

 

Obviously his walk-control is a problem, and may prevent him from being very successful. But given the questions that apply to all of our high-end guys, I think his is far less and his talent ceiling seems to be far higher.

 

My ranking may also reflect that I have a high valuation for good relievers. For some posters, they can't rank him 1st if they're not sure he'll be a starter. But even should he end up as a really good reliever, that's not the worst outcome. And since there is a decent chance that he becomes a good starter, easy #1 for me.

 

I also have the perception that his control may not be as bad as his walk-rate suggests. I was often surprised at how low his pitch counts were this year, or how many innings he got in under his pitch counts, despite the number of K's and walks he was throwing. I'm guessing there may be a lot of batters and innings where he is throwing a lot of strikes. Plus, his walk-control did improve a lot from previous year, so he's on a steady control-improvement trajectory.

 

I think how young he is sometimes also gets overlooked. He was only 21 all season, so he's within that Vitters-Jackson age bracket.

 

Scouts also seem to think his stuff is relatively exceptional. When the scouts who watch him say that he's special and different, I take that seriously. Heh, if the biggest criticism is that your stuff has so much movement that you may not be able to command it, that's not too bad.

 

Last, I think the second-half Zambrano is a relevant analogy. Z had an incredible final two months, ERA-wise, but it wasnt because he stopped walking people. He walked as many as ever. But he didn't allow any HR's.

 

If Archer's stuff is so good that he doesn't allow HR's, he can afford to walk some guys.

[Rob]

OK, here's just the list so you can edit easily.

 

You're my new best friend.

 

I'll edit in some comments later:

 

 

1. Brett Jackson, OF

2. Chris Archer, RHP

3. Ken McNutt, RHP

4. Josh Vitters, 3B

5. Junior Lake , UT

6. Hak Ju Lee, SS

7. Jay Jackson, RHP

8. Chris Carpenter, RHP

9. Reggie Golden, OF

10. Brandon Guyer, OF

11. Hayden Simpson, RHP

12. Kim Jin-Yeong, RHP

13. Jae-Hoon Ha, OF

14. Brooks Raley, LHP

15. Robinson Chirinos, C

16. Dae-Eun Rhee, RHP

17. Wellington Castillo, C

18. Ben Wells, RHP

19. Chris Rusin, LHP

20. Darwin Barney, SS

21. Aaron Kurcz, RHP

22. Alberto Cabrera, RHP

23. Ryan Flaherty, UT

24. Robinson Lopez, RHP

25. Brett Wallach, RHP

26. Nick Struck, RHP

27. Austin Kirk, LHP

28. Austin Reed, RHP

29. D.J. LeMahieu, UT

30. David Cales, RHP

31. Marquez Smith, 3B

32. Charles Thomas, RHP

33. Matt Cerda, UT

34. Rafael Dolis, RHP

35. Matt Szczur, OF

[craig]

On Guyer: it seems my ranking him 5th is well higher than most.

 

I may be way off. But my logic is that he's always been scouted as having really excellent tools. Now he combined in terrific performance. If his tools are so good and his performance is so good, I like him.

 

He's a biggish guy and slugged around .600, and was formerly scouted as having strong HR potential. So my rating uses the premise that he may hit a decent amount of HR's. If the premise was that he'd have Reed Johnson HR-production, I'd rank him lower.

 

A stated concern has been that he might be a 4th OFer. Possible, and none of these guys are remotely close to sure things. But if he's toolsy, and he hits a decent amount of HR's, I don't see anything in the scouting why he couldn't be a very capable regular.

 

Last, I love his low-K profile. Vitters K'd a lot, Jackson K's a lot, Lee K's too much for a singles hitter. But Guyer's K-rate was really low, and has been for two straight seasons, so I take it seriously.

 

I'm pretty hopeful for him.

 

Being RH probably hurts some.

 

Also, in my ranking, I'm not really devaluing a guy because might be blocked. I think some may devalue Lee because Castro is already at SS, but I'm trying not to let that influence me. Same for me with Guyer and the LF/RF situation, which is not easy to crack with Soriano locked in forever.

[craig]

If Guyer were LH he'd have a better chance with the Cubs, I think. But with Fukudome expiring, Colvin LH, Colvin not a sure thing long-term, and Soriano often injured, I think Guyer could get a fair bit of opportunity short-term and long as a platoon guy.

 

BA's ranking him 14th in the deep and advanced SL would also seem to support the legitimacy of ranking him reasonably high.

 

One way that I sometimes approach list like this is to see which guys don't have a major flaw, something that will keep them from being productive. And if they do have a current flaw that will keep them from being productive, how likely is it to be corrected?

 

From that standpoint, ARcher has control. Vitters has defense, contact, and IsoD. Jackson has K's.

 

Guyer doesn't really have anything. (Unless being 24 is a fatal and uncorrectable flaw).

 

Neither does McNutt.

 

That approach of course doesn't work real well for new players who haven't had a chance to demonstrate what if any flaws they might have.

 

Simpson? If his flaws are having had mono, having a max velocity of only 95-96, and having only a four-pitch repertoire, that might be not to bad.

[craig]

Tim has mentioned that the list doesn't look real strong, in that most/all of the top guys (except McNutt) do have some major issues to worry about. I very much agree with that. I'd be surprised if we ranked much about middle, if that, on BA's list.

 

That said, having graduated Castro, Cashner, Colvin, and Coleman this year, and even without all of them to still perhaps be somewhere around the middle (or perhaps better), I think that's pretty impressive.

 

Personally even with our questions, and even though I don't expect BA to rank us above average, I feel like the system has improved and I think I would rank it above average now. (I may be totally Koolaid optimist and non-objective.)

 

But even with their questions, I think our high group is still pretty decent, given their youth. (Of my top 8, Guyer is the only one who will be older than 22 until Jackson turns 23 next August.)

 

I also think that behind the front group, that we've got a very interesting pool of pitchers. Kim, Jung, Rhee from Korea; Dolis, Cabrera, Lopez, Liria; Rusin and Raley as the big-college lefties; other lefties Greathouse, Kirk, Antigua, Bellivieu; Struck, Whitenack, Wallach, Kurcz, Beeler; and then the new HS drafts Wells, Reed, Hartman, Richardson; and of course mid-20's Carpenter, and of course Simpson himself.

 

Not sure which or how many of those have star potential. But of those 25 names, Carpenter and Rusin are the only ones older than 22? I think it's not at all uncommon for pitchers to still be filling out and gaining arm strength at 21-22-23. So I think a number of these guys who may not have formerly scouted as having strong arms, by the time they get to Wrigley I think it's possible that they'll throw harder than we expect. And certainly many pitchers improve their breaking pitches and their changeups during the 20-23 years. So I am pretty enthused about the depth of pitching talent. From quantity comes quality, often.

[toonsterwu]

I don't anticipate the Cubs system ranking being anything more than middle of the pack. That said, I do tend to agree that this was a positive year for the system. There were, relatively, few major disappointments. Some arms finished strong (Raley/Whitenack come to mind). We probably still have 3 top 50ish guys.

 

The system is far deeper on the pitching side, particularly as you move down the ladder. A lot of those arms will likely falter, but having some intriguing depth there is nice.

[craig]

Of the pitchers, obviously I rated Simpson higher than most. Some I think I undervalued. (Cabrera). I share the wild hopes for Wells, although I'm a little cautious as to how good his offspeed pitches are or will be, and whether he'll throw hard soon. I expected that when I put Rusin at 18, that I'd have him higher than most. Much to surprise that seems not the case, even though when he's discussed nobody actually seems that enthused about him. I think I have his breaking stuff evaluated much more enthusiastically than do most. If you can consistently throw good breaking pitches for strikes, you can win. I don't know exactly how he does it, but he was effective all through college, and he's been effective in pros, and the Cubs scouted him favorably enough for 4th round. I don't know what exactly; but there may be something to it.

 

But two I like more than most:

 

Raley: I've seen comments to the effect that he's got no stuff and that he's just like Rusin. That may be true, and you guys may know best. But I listed him 12th on my list, and I'm very optimistic that he has both more potential and higher ceiling than he is being given credit for. As a 20-year-old slender draftee, I seem to recall he was being scouted as throwing up to 92, even if he didn't work there often. That's significantly faster than what I'm assuming for Rusin, I think. And given that he was only 20 then and was body-built for CF, Are we sure he hasn't added either a little velocity or perhaps more 89-92 consistency than he had? I guess I'm partly a scout-truster, but given the money the Cubs viewed him as being worth, I assume they projected more than Lilly velocity. I think his breaking stuff is already pretty good, and may also improve. I'm a big command guy, and think he's got a chance to have really good command, which combined with solid/good stuff could make him much better than average. Tim mentioned "Good Brooks/Bad Brooks". He was pretty good pretty often, especially during the second half. That may speak to his potential. He had a 1.87 ERA after the break, with no HR's after July. When the scouts like a guy's projection to the tune of $750K, and when he's showing 1.87 block in A+ as a first year guy, with low walks and a home-stretch where his HR problem was contained, I can't help but be pretty optimistic. Obviously the ability to sustainably keep the HR's under control is at issue, though.

 

Whitenack: He pitched all year at 21, was solidly sub-3 ERA at Daytona and for his last several months at Peoria. He's tall, and a poster who was a pitcher and has a very good eye for pitchers liked him, said he had good pitcher's shoulders. Even though he's already 21, and will never have a Zambrano body, I think there may well be some meaningful physical projection left. I don't think anybody was enthused about his stuff, I think the perception is an unexceptional FB and no notable breaking ball. My take is that he seems to already have a very good fastball. 89-92 maybe, hardly exceptionally fast. But an 89-92 sinker/runner with good control, that projects as a very good fastball, and could be a huge weapon if he projects/grows into more. As I've mentioned, HR-allowed is a huge factor for me, and while Whitenack's control wasn't consistent enough to be a great anti-HR guy early, by June he really shut down the HR-game. I think going forward he projects as perhaps a really good anti-HR guy. If he can pump fastballs with enough command and enough sink that nobody is hitting them out, and he's not walking anybody, he doesn't need lots of K's and he can afford lots of hits allowed. At draft, there was talk of a knuckle-curve. He started off terrible, so my guess is that they've scrapped that. My guess is that at present he's a guy who's living off his fastball, but they're having him work on a slider and change. I think that progress was made on those offspeed pitches during the second half, and that with years to go before he hits the show, that he'll continue to work on those. So in a sense I see him as having a pretty safe floor; when you've got a very useful anti-HR fastball, you can eat innings and be functional. But if his breaking stuff comes along with time, and/or he adds significant arm strength, I think he's got a chance to be pretty good. I'm probably just wishing and imagining what I want to imagine, but I think he's being under-appreciated. To be as effective as he was this past June-September, given his background, I think he could be a pretty significant prospect.

[craig]

Rob, your list is really good.

 

One surprise was having Rhee so high.

 

What was your thinking there?

[CubsWin]

I agree with Craig in that I'm also excited by the quantity of young arms at the lower levels and the fact that so many of the Cubs prospects are 22 or under. The system graduated some decent players last season, so the fact that it is lacking upper level talent isn't surprising. I do find reason to be optimistic about the lower levels. The Cubs have a decent amount of guys 20 or younger that have some talent.

[CubsWin]

Here's a list of the 20 or younger crowd from last year.

 

Trey McNutt, 20 (A-/A+/AA)

Josh Vitters, 20 (A+/AA)

Nick Struck, 20 (A-/A+)

Junior Lake, 20 (A+)

Jeffry Antigua, 20 (A-)

Su-Min Jung, 20 (A-)

Matthew Cerda, 20 (A-)

Austin Kirk, 20 (SS/A-)

Matthew Szczur, 20 (SS/A-)

Robinson Lopez, 19 (A-)

Hak-Ju Lee, 19 (A-)

Jae-Hoon Ha, 19 (A-)

Aaron Kurcz, 19 (SS)

Cam Greathouse, 19 (SS)

Arismendy Alcantara, 18 (SS)

Austin Reed, 18 (RK)

Ryan Hartman, 18 (RK)

Ben Wells, 18 (RK)

Reggie Golden, 18 (RK)

 

With the notion that the Cubs only need a few of these guys to hit, it's going to be a lot of fun watching them progess.

[Rob]

Rob, your list is really good.

 

One surprise was having Rhee so high.

 

What was your thinking there?

 

I'm giving him a freebie this year on account of the TJS. All I was looking for was a healthy first full season back and he delivered on that. His results next year should be much more indicative of his prospect status. It'll be important to see him start throwing that splitter again though...

[craig]

..

I'm giving him a freebie this year on account of the TJS. All I was looking for was a healthy first full season back and he delivered on that. His results next year should be much more indicative of his prospect status. It'll be important to see him start throwing that splitter again though...

 

Makes sense. Agree, first year back hard to know what to make of any of it.

 

My guess is we won't see the splitter again. The Cubs have rarely had guys stay with those, and for the handful who supposedly had it, they either had them stop throwing it or else the guys had surgery or wrecked their arms. (Rhee, Ryu, Sisco..). Although, that may be wrong. Rhee's splitter was sometimes described as such and other times just as a change. So if it's just a matter of having a really good change, I don't see why that should be objectionable.

 

But my guess is that Rhee may end up needing to make it as a fastball/slider/splitter guy.

 

I think the velocity is also a Q. Three seasons ago when he was 19, the assumption was that his 88-92 velocity wasn't great, but that he'd project into more. This year he wasn't even back to that, much less matured beyond it. Hopefully next summer he'll have his fastball all the way back, and perhaps be a little faster than he was before and way faster than this year.

[toonsterwu]

On Raley -

 

Just to be clear, in case it was my comments you were referencing (calling his stuff average), I didn't mean to suggest Raley had "no stuff". I was simply saying that, the reason I have Rusin ahead of Raley, even though I expect Raley to add/improve stuff and/or velo as he gets more accustomed to full-time pitching, is because Rusin performed better and at a higher level, and their stuff is about the same right now. I know others, I think it was O_O, had Raley around 10-13 as well, and I can understand that as sort of a nod to where he's at and the hope that he'll add some more.

[craig]

Here's a list of the 20 or younger crowd from last year.

 

Trey McNutt, 20 (A-/A+/AA)

etc.

 

With the notion that the Cubs only need a few of these guys to hit, it's going to be a lot of fun watching them progess.

 

Thanks, Cubswin. That's a fun and a full list. Around 20 names, most with some pretty interesting potential. Of course some will stall, some will get hurt, and some will be exposed as just not having enough talent. But I think it's a really deep pool of guys, many of whom might have enough talent to become very useful players. Perhaps it's just the bad drafting (Stockstill) and the college drafting (Stockstill and early Wilken), but I can't remember that deep a pool of 20-and-younger prospects for us in a long time. I dont' know, maybe that's not uncommon for teams like Atlanta or Boston or whomever, but it's really fun for me.

[craig]

On Raley -

 

Just to be clear, in case it was my comments you were referencing (calling his stuff average), I didn't mean to suggest Raley had "no stuff". I was simply saying that, the reason I have Rusin ahead of Raley, even though I expect Raley to add/improve stuff and/or velo as he gets more accustomed to full-time pitching, is because Rusin performed better and at a higher level, and their stuff is about the same right now. I know others, I think it was O_O, had Raley around 10-13 as well, and I can understand that as sort of a nod to where he's at and the hope that he'll add some more.

 

Thanks, that's helpful. I guess I'd gotten the impression that while Raley was being sometimes ranked in the top 15 (which is where I have him too...), and is was being normally ranked right around rusin (I have Rusin only about 5 later myself), that both were being viewed in comparable terms: as low-ceiling back-of-rotation-at-best guys. As typical soft-tossing lefties who will need to make it as crafty finessers but who don't have the pure stuff to actually get any of us excited.

 

I think Rusin is obviously inherently limited by inherently sub-average velocity. With sub-average speed, to make average you necessarily need super-average movement, location, etc. I think that's possible for him, but it's going to be hard to be way above average with velocity that is presumably so sub-average.

 

But for Raley, I'm not sure his velocity needs to be sub-average at all, and may end up being above average. So I think he might end up being a plus-fastball guy with a pretty ceiling, enough to get excited about and enough to be a top-5 guy a year from now if he progresses well this year.

[Guest]

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing anyone here.

 

My question is how can any of you rank Reggie Golden or any of the other kids who the Cubs just drafted? They haven't played yet. It's seems pretty silly to me.

[TruffleShuffle]

yeah mark prior should not have been the cubs' #1 prospect in the 2001-02 offseason because he hadn't thrown a pitch for the organization yet. same for strasburg and the nationals last year.

[Wrigley Rat]

Sorry if already posted - Arizona Phil's Top 20:

http://www.thecubreporter.com/2010/10/24/2011-cubs-top-15-prospects

[Outshined_One]

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing anyone here.

 

My question is how can any of you rank Reggie Golden or any of the other kids who the Cubs just drafted? They haven't played yet. It's seems pretty silly to me.

 

The only one who hasn't played yet is Hayden Simpson. Everyone else has logged substantial time with the short season teams and/or in Instructs. We have scouting reports and firsthand accounts from those stints, in addition to their numbers. Furthermore, in most cases, we have extensive reports and accounts of those players from their amateur days, which provide enough of a picture of our draftees that we know what we can reasonably expect from them.

 

Besides, most of these prospects haven't even played in the majors yet. Why the heck should we rank these guys at all if they, too, haven't played yet?

[jersey cubs fan]

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing anyone here.

 

My question is how can any of you rank Reggie Golden or any of the other kids who the Cubs just drafted? They haven't played yet. It's seems pretty silly to me.

 

The only one who hasn't played yet is Hayden Simpson. Everyone else has logged substantial time with the short season teams and/or in Instructs. We have scouting reports and firsthand accounts from those stints, in addition to their numbers. Furthermore, in most cases, we have extensive reports and accounts of those players from their amateur days, which provide enough of a picture of our draftees that we know what we can reasonably expect from them.

 

Besides, most of these prospects haven't even played in the majors yet. Why the heck should we rank these guys at all if they, too, haven't played yet?

 

That's quite the strawman to throw into the discussion. It is pretty silly for people to be ranking a lot of these guys. You can pretend you have extensive first hand reports, but it's all pretty worthless. It makes sense to rank a Mark Prior or Strasburg, but Reggie Golden is an 18 year old who hasn't done anything.

[Outshined_One]

That's quite the strawman to throw into the discussion. It is pretty silly for people to be ranking a lot of these guys. You can pretend you have extensive first hand reports, but it's all pretty worthless. It makes sense to rank a Mark Prior or Strasburg, but Reggie Golden is an 18 year old who hasn't done anything.

 

Why does it make sense to rank a Prior or a Strasburg compared to Golden, especially when those reports are supposedly worthless?