Ravech: Doesnt expect to see Hendry next year

[KaiserCesar]

I have to credit him for having money to spend and an open 1B position the year Albert Pujols/Prince Fielder hit the FA market.

 

Are you kidding me? He gets credit for the Cubs having needs?

 

It's not been a Gar Forman level of excellence in clearing salary, but the concurrence in salary coming off the books shows at least some sort of plan in the spending binge of 07-08 (the main exception being Soriano)

[Hawk4Hall]

btw - in his opening press conference and several times since then, Ricketts has called out Boston as the example he wants to use for building the franchise.

Too bad the Cubs minor league system has been broke for some time.

 

The prospects to choose from are pretty bleak. They have a LONG way to go to get to the Red Sox level.

 

Oh...and some good talent was shipped for Garza (who's been pretty average so far).

 

Hendry gone may help but I am not a fan of how Ricketts wants to improve this team. They need free agents at this point. Not rookies.

 

Not a single word of this post is accurate

Sorry you were wrong.

 

Only because you went through and dissected each point I made that you YOU asked me to provide...I have no choice but to concede this argument.

So you honestly think this Cubs have top talent in the minors?

[Little Slide Rooter]

The farm system may not have any top talent, but that doesnt make it "broke". What the Cubs have is several players that can be productive everyday players, probably not superstars with the possible exception of Szczur, and its too early to tell there (Cashner, Jackson, Vitters, Flaherty, LeMahieu, Gonzalez, McNutt, Ridling, Whitenack, Struck, Beeler, Belevieu, Dolis, Rhoderick, Castillo, Ha, etc.)If the Cubs can go out and aquire the stars through FA or trades, especially if Castro keeps getting better then they can put together a team that can be competitve for many years.

[Brett]

The farm system may not have any top talent, but that doesnt make it "broke". What the Cubs have is several players that can be productive everyday players, probably not superstars with the possible exception of Szczur, and its too early to tell there (Cashner, Jackson, Vitters, Flaherty, LeMahieu, Gonzalez, McNutt, Ridling, Whitenack, Struck, Beeler, Belevieu, Dolis, Rhoderick, Castillo, Ha, etc.)If the Cubs can go out and aquire the stars through FA or trades, especially if Castro keeps getting better then they can put together a team that can be competitve for many years.

 

And, given the Cubs' theoretical financial advantage, trading away these B+ prospects in packages for ML players is probably the model they should follow. The star prospects can come up and shine, but there's no reason the Cubs should be counting on all of them to contribute on the field for the Cubs.

[XZero771679666304]

The system hasn't produced any superstars (though Castro may prove to be), but it has consistently produced decent-very good MLB players over the past several years. Soto, Wells, Castro, Marmol, Marshall, etc. have all contributed positively to various degrees. And while there aren't any budding superstars coming up right now, there are a number of potentially (even probable) solid major leaguers in the system.

 

Now with Ricketts putting more emphasis on the draft, we may see more star caliber players coming through (at least more high ceiling draftees, as we saw this year).

 

The system isn't in ideal shape, but calling it "broken" is just ignorant at best.

[dew1679666265]

So you honestly think this Cubs have top talent in the minors?

 

The minor league gurus can correct me if I'm wrong but I think we had 4 players (Lee, Jackson, Vitters, McNutt) in the top 100 before the Garza trade. We gave up Lee, so that would leave us with 3 top 100 prospects. No we don't have elite prospects, but we have very good prospects and many more encouraging ones coming up.

[SouthSideRyan]

So you honestly think this Cubs have top talent in the minors?

 

The minor league gurus can correct me if I'm wrong but I think we had 4 players (Lee, Jackson, Vitters, McNutt) in the top 100 before the Garza trade. We gave up Lee, so that would leave us with 3 top 100 prospects. No we don't have elite prospects, but we have very good prospects and many more encouraging ones coming up.

 

Vitters fell out of the top 100. I'd be stunned if Jackson, McNutt and Szczur weren't there next year. I expect at least 2 of them to be top 50. (Jackson and McNutt were this past season)

[javy knows my name]

So you honestly think this Cubs have top talent in the minors?

 

Well, you didn't say that before, so I never disagreed with that. You said it was "broke" [sic] and I showed why it wasn't. So did everyone else on here with a brain.

[dew1679666265]

So you honestly think this Cubs have top talent in the minors?

 

The minor league gurus can correct me if I'm wrong but I think we had 4 players (Lee, Jackson, Vitters, McNutt) in the top 100 before the Garza trade. We gave up Lee, so that would leave us with 3 top 100 prospects. No we don't have elite prospects, but we have very good prospects and many more encouraging ones coming up.

 

Vitters fell out of the top 100. I'd be stunned if Jackson, McNutt and Szczur weren't there next year. I expect at least 2 of them to be top 50. (Jackson and McNutt were this past season)

 

Ok, thanks. Vitters is the one I wasn't sure about.

[Guest]

So you honestly think this Cubs have top talent in the minors?

 

The minor league gurus can correct me if I'm wrong but I think we had 4 players (Lee, Jackson, Vitters, McNutt) in the top 100 before the Garza trade. We gave up Lee, so that would leave us with 3 top 100 prospects. No we don't have elite prospects, but we have very good prospects and many more encouraging ones coming up.

 

Vitters fell out of the top 100. I'd be stunned if Jackson, McNutt and Szczur weren't there next year. I expect at least 2 of them to be top 50. (Jackson and McNutt were this past season)

 

With McNutt, it depends on how he rebounds from the rib injury. And don't forget Baez - he should be in the top 100.

[Guest]

3) I agree that the offense is more than one player away. But we'll get continued growth from Castro, a likely upgrade at 2B, even if it is just incremental growth from within, 3B is likely to be better whether it is Aramis or a replacement and something other than a black hole in CF. All of those upgrades are pretty easy because the production from those spots this year has been so bad.

 

I don't think you can list 3B as a likely upgrade, nor expect it to be easy to upgrade it.

So you don't think they can find something better than a .750 OPS out of third base next year? Whether Aramis stays or goes, I expect better performance than that. Heck, I expect a much better performance than that out of 3B by the end of this year.

 

3B is not an easy position to find a great or even good offensive player at. It wasn't easy even 4-5 years ago and it's gotten much harder now. The Cubs best chance for one who's better next year is probably Aramis but that's far from from a guarantee.

I fully expect Aramis to finish this season around .810 - .820, even after his poor start. If we keep him, I'd expect him to be easily better than .750 again.

 

I know 3B production is way down this year, but I don't believe it would be THAT hard to find someone to post a .775 OPS there next year, which would be a significant upgrade over the current production of .745 from 2011 Aramis.

btw - Aramis' OPS is up to .790 already.