BA, BP, etc. Cubs Top Prospects List

[Guest]

Those are pretty aggressive ETA's on Baez and Almora, I'd probably bump them back a year each before they are full time guys and that's still close to best case scenario. Unless a cup of coffee in September counts in ETA (but then I'd expect Soler/Vizcaino to be moved up a year each for their ETA's).

In my experience, BA's ETAs for guys below AA are generally too aggressive/optimistic.

[Radar3454]

Those are pretty aggressive ETA's on Baez and Almora, I'd probably bump them back a year each before they are full time guys and that's still close to best case scenario. Unless a cup of coffee in September counts in ETA (but then I'd expect Soler/Vizcaino to be moved up a year each for their ETA's).

 

I think Soler's should be 2014 sometime along with Baez.

[Smack]

Parks released his Top 101 this morning:

 

#18 Almora

#20 Baez

#36 Soler

#54 Vizcaino

[Guest]

Wow, White Sox don't have a single player on that list...although he does sort of give Hawkins honorable mention at the end.

[Guest]

I like Parks but Hawkins should definitely be a top 100 prospect, no matter how raw he is.

[davell]

I saw it listed in alphabetical order, not by actual rank, but Daury Torrez made Badler's top 20 list for the DSL/VSL.

[Cubswin11]

Law just tweeted a bit ago that he's updating his top 25 in 2 weeks (I'm guessing that's two weeks from tomorrow as Thursday seems to be the day he comes out with a lot of his articles). Doubt any of our guys are on it, maybe Soler sneaks into the 20's as Law seems to really like him and he's performed well but I doubt it. He had him at 42 in his pre-season.

[Guest]

Law just tweeted a bit ago that he's updating his top 25 in 2 weeks (I'm guessing that's two weeks from tomorrow as Thursday seems to be the day he comes out with a lot of his articles). Doubt any of our guys are on it, maybe Soler sneaks into the 20's as Law seems to really like him and he's performed well but I doubt it. He had him at 42 in his pre-season.

 

Soler should be in the top 25.

[sneakypower]

yeah, i was actually thinking Soler might be top-20 by next year's release with Baez dropping out of the top-50

[davell]

yeah, i was actually thinking Soler might be top-20 by next year's release with Baez dropping out of the top-50

Still early enough in season for Baez to turn it around, but I doubt he leaves many top 50 lists just because of the talent and he's still young. Most top guys are given at LEAST one mulligan, sometimes more than that. Its disappointing, no doubt, but I think it'll take more than this(at this stage) to drop him that far.

[Hawk4Hall]

Is Rock Shoulders becoming a "prospect"? He seems like a perfect fit for a DH spot if that ever becomes a part of the NL.

 

The guy is just crushing the ball for Kane County.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Is Rock Shoulders becoming a "prospect"?

 

There's no clear line between "prospect" and "roster fill," but he's definitely in the vicinity of that line. You could call him a really fringey prospect.

[Guest]

Shoulders has always been a "prospect" to me. He was given a near 300k bonus, so he's a bit different from the random 1B that hit for a while at low levels like Bour, Rohan, etc. His status took a hit when he didn't hit much last year, but killing the ball at a higher level this year has eased that concern for me. His lack of defensive value and K's are reason he may not make it of course, but if we wrote off flawed prospects as non-prospects then we'd have no reason to follow anyone except for like 3-5 players.

[jersey cubs fan]

Shoulders has always been a "prospect" to me. He was given a near 300k bonus, so he's a bit different from the random 1B that hit for a while at low levels like Bour, Rohan, etc. His status took a hit when he didn't hit much last year, but killing the ball at a higher level this year has eased that concern for me. His lack of defensive value and K's are reason he may not make it of course, but if we wrote off flawed prospects as non-prospects then we'd have no reason to follow anyone except for like 3-5 players.

 

There are different levels of flawed though. He didn't even make that list on this site that went to 50, and the guys at the back end aren't going anywhere. He wasn't even getting voted on. He got some money, but that was from the previous management group during a period when they were just throwing money at people to make up for lost opportunities. If a guy can't crack a top 50 list for his organization, as a 21-year old after 2 years as a pro, then he's well off the radar of having a meaningful prospect status on him. It's a stretch to compare ignoring him to ignoring everybody past the top 3-5 actual prospects.

[Guest]

Man... it really sucks that we didn't at least get ONE freaking Theo draft during the old CBA. Would've been nice to have him for that 2011 spree.

[Guest]

Shoulders has always been a "prospect" to me. He was given a near 300k bonus, so he's a bit different from the random 1B that hit for a while at low levels like Bour, Rohan, etc. His status took a hit when he didn't hit much last year, but killing the ball at a higher level this year has eased that concern for me. His lack of defensive value and K's are reason he may not make it of course, but if we wrote off flawed prospects as non-prospects then we'd have no reason to follow anyone except for like 3-5 players.

 

There are different levels of flawed though. He didn't even make that list on this site that went to 50, and the guys at the back end aren't going anywhere. He wasn't even getting voted on. He got some money, but that was from the previous management group during a period when they were just throwing money at people to make up for lost opportunities. If a guy can't crack a top 50 list for his organization, as a 21-year old after 2 years as a pro, then he's well off the radar of having a meaningful prospect status on him. It's a stretch to compare ignoring him to ignoring everybody past the top 3-5 actual prospects.

 

I stopped really paying attention to our voting beyond the first dozen, but I'd suggest that the community missed pretty big in excluding Shoulders from the top 50. At the very least he would pretty easily make the cut if voting was done again now.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Honestly, a whole lot of that top-50 list looks super weird now. We should start another one midseason.

[jersey cubs fan]

Honestly, a whole lot of that top-50 list looks super weird now. We should start another one midseason.

 

The weirdest part is that it goes to 50.

[Warpticon]

Honestly, a whole lot of that top-50 list looks super weird now. We should start another one midseason.

 

The weirdest part is that it goes to 50.

 

It's like people were so bored they just had to vote on something.

[Guest]

Honestly, a whole lot of that top-50 list looks super weird now. We should start another one midseason.

I was planning on doing that. I'm going to handle it differently this time around, though.

[Guest]

Shoulders has always been a "prospect" to me. He was given a near 300k bonus, so he's a bit different from the random 1B that hit for a while at low levels like Bour, Rohan, etc. His status took a hit when he didn't hit much last year, but killing the ball at a higher level this year has eased that concern for me. His lack of defensive value and K's are reason he may not make it of course, but if we wrote off flawed prospects as non-prospects then we'd have no reason to follow anyone except for like 3-5 players.

 

There are different levels of flawed though. He didn't even make that list on this site that went to 50, and the guys at the back end aren't going anywhere. He wasn't even getting voted on. He got some money, but that was from the previous management group during a period when they were just throwing money at people to make up for lost opportunities. If a guy can't crack a top 50 list for his organization, as a 21-year old after 2 years as a pro, then he's well off the radar of having a meaningful prospect status on him. It's a stretch to compare ignoring him to ignoring everybody past the top 3-5 actual prospects.

 

To be fair, Theo Epstein drafted Rock Shoulders but couldn't sign him the year before the Cubs got him.

[CubsWin]

Shoulders has always been a "prospect" to me. He was given a near 300k bonus, so he's a bit different from the random 1B that hit for a while at low levels like Bour, Rohan, etc. His status took a hit when he didn't hit much last year, but killing the ball at a higher level this year has eased that concern for me. His lack of defensive value and K's are reason he may not make it of course, but if we wrote off flawed prospects as non-prospects then we'd have no reason to follow anyone except for like 3-5 players.

 

There are different levels of flawed though. He didn't even make that list on this site that went to 50, and the guys at the back end aren't going anywhere. He wasn't even getting voted on. He got some money, but that was from the previous management group during a period when they were just throwing money at people to make up for lost opportunities. If a guy can't crack a top 50 list for his organization, as a 21-year old after 2 years as a pro, then he's well off the radar of having a meaningful prospect status on him. It's a stretch to compare ignoring him to ignoring everybody past the top 3-5 actual prospects.

It's a stretch to say that Shoulders had 2 years as a pro at the time we at NSBB voted on our top 50 prospects. Unless you call 32 ABs a "year". He signed August 12th and got into 8 games in 2011. So what the voters had to go on was one full year of short-season ball in the NWL as a 20-year-old. Are players to be written off as prospects at the age of 20? After just one season?

 

21 is age appropriate for the MWL. If Rock continues to produce like he has so far, I would hazard a guess that he'll be higher in mid-season rankings.

 

Yes, he's limited, and he'll have to beat heavy odds in order to have a successful major league career, but the same could be said for a lot of guys in the minors that are worth monitoring.

[jersey cubs fan]

Shoulders has always been a "prospect" to me. He was given a near 300k bonus, so he's a bit different from the random 1B that hit for a while at low levels like Bour, Rohan, etc. His status took a hit when he didn't hit much last year, but killing the ball at a higher level this year has eased that concern for me. His lack of defensive value and K's are reason he may not make it of course, but if we wrote off flawed prospects as non-prospects then we'd have no reason to follow anyone except for like 3-5 players.

 

There are different levels of flawed though. He didn't even make that list on this site that went to 50, and the guys at the back end aren't going anywhere. He wasn't even getting voted on. He got some money, but that was from the previous management group during a period when they were just throwing money at people to make up for lost opportunities. If a guy can't crack a top 50 list for his organization, as a 21-year old after 2 years as a pro, then he's well off the radar of having a meaningful prospect status on him. It's a stretch to compare ignoring him to ignoring everybody past the top 3-5 actual prospects.

 

To be fair, Theo Epstein drafted Rock Shoulders but couldn't sign him the year before the Cubs got him.

 

Perhaps because they didn't think he was worth the $300k that Hendry/Wilken gave him.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Honestly, a whole lot of that top-50 list looks super weird now. We should start another one midseason.

I was planning on doing that. I'm going to handle it differently this time around, though.

 

In our collective defense, it would be hard for it not to be a bit skewed seeing as 4 of our top 12 have been hurt or missing all season.

[Guest]

My plans this time around are to have everyone submit their own top 50. I'll collect the picks into a DB and play around with some statistical analysis to show not only what the consensus ranking ends up as, but also how much opinions differ on the prospects.