Building around a new Correa? (Signed with the Twins for 3/$105m)

[Backtobanks]

 

I have to admit I'm pretty downtrodden about this team from ownership to the state of the farm but it would take something like we seen in 2001 but there's no Sosa or Lieber as far as a sub-par talented team pretending to contend.

You're disillusioned about the state of the farm?

Is it not a very deep farm with very few high end pieces? This isn't some top 5 system or anything, and if you are a rich team that sucks you better have a high end farm system. Maybe disillusioned is a strong word, but when you have to hang your hat on the farm part of your organization, it should be better that what the Cubs have.

 

We can also hang our hat on the Reds selling off players and hoping that some key players for the Brewers and Cardinals get injured.

[Sammy Sofa]

pretty much everyone thinks the farm will be very strong in another year.

 

Which = at least 2 more seasons of the actual team being meh. Grand.

[squally1313]

Also, there were choices made to target a bunch of 13 year olds in trades and in the draft. The major league team has been treading water, at best, for two years now, and people are pumped because maybe next year the professional prospect ranking people will finally see all these teenagers as actual baseball players and give us the honor of having a top 10 farm system, which, as we all know, actually does nothing in terms of what goes on at Wrigley.

[fromthestretch]

 

We can also hang our hat on the Reds selling off players and hoping that some key players for the Brewers and Cardinals get injured.

 

I understand being worried about the Brewers. That pitching staff is damn good.

 

Not saying the Cubs are necessarily better, but what is so special about the Cardinals? Offensively, I see home runs but their ability to get on base is garbage. On the mound, they have Flaherty, who when healthy is very good. Following him they have a 40-year old Wainwright, the inconsistent Matz, a mediocre Mikolas, and what else? Hudson could be good if he can stay healthy, but he's pitched a grand total of 10 games the past two seasons combined. I'm not seeing anything particularly great about them.

 

Edit to add: Just realized this will be Hudson's first full season back from Tommy John surgery, so it's tough to know what to expect.

[squally1313]

Now do our rotation.

[Derwood]

pretty much everyone thinks the farm will be very strong in another year.

 

Which = at least 2 more seasons of the actual team being meh. Grand.

 

Waves and waves

[Transmogrified Tiger]

 

We can also hang our hat on the Reds selling off players and hoping that some key players for the Brewers and Cardinals get injured.

 

I understand being worried about the Brewers. That pitching staff is damn good.

 

Not saying the Cubs are necessarily better, but what is so special about the Cardinals? Offensively, I see home runs but their ability to get on base is garbage. On the mound, they have Flaherty, who when healthy is very good. Following him they have a 40-year old Wainwright, the inconsistent Matz, a mediocre Mikolas, and what else? Hudson could be good if he can stay healthy, but he's pitched a grand total of 10 games the past two seasons combined. I'm not seeing anything particularly great about them.

 

Edit to add: Just realized this will be Hudson's first full season back from Tommy John surgery, so it's tough to know what to expect.

 

On the pitching side of things, especially with their injury concerns I agree I don't see a great difference between them.

 

Offensively, ZiPS projects them to have 3 guys with 4+ wins and 5 at 3+, that's a depth of high quality that we can't expect(though it's not impossible) from our position player group. There's room to be pessimistic about their guys, a couple are post-prime and a couple others don't have long track records of that caliber, but from a projection perspective it's still a sizable gap even if it's not impossible.

 

Weirdly enough, the Brewers are the reverse where you can see that position player group being very underwhelming without needing to squint a ton, so they could be one unfortunate pitching injury from being dragged back to the mean.

 

Overall, just from eyeballing ZiPS, It seems it's something like 79 wins for the Cubs, 84 for the Cards and 86-87 for the Brewers. That's a meaningful gap but also one that regularly turns out to be wrong(in one direction or another) as the realities of the season arrive.

[Sammy Sofa]

pretty much everyone thinks the farm will be very strong in another year.

 

Which = at least 2 more seasons of the actual team being meh. Grand.

 

Waves and waves

 

Of tears.

[Outshined_One]

pretty much everyone thinks the farm will be very strong in another year.

 

Which = at least 2 more seasons of the actual team being meh. Grand.

 

Waves and waves

 

What's disheartening is it's unclear if the system is comparable to where it was in the early 2000s, where a number of high profile players didn't pan out despite significant hype (Harvey, Pawelek, C-Patt/E-Patt, Pie, Cruz, etc.), or if it's comparable to the system in the early/mid-2010s, where it seemed like the Cubs hit on every high level position player draft pick and trade target.

 

I mean, it sucks that this system really hasn't done a whole lot since the Happ callup, but that's where we are now. You can see the possibilities, for better and for worse.

[fromthestretch]

Now do our rotation.

 

As I stated in my post, I'm not saying the Cubs are better. There are definitely reasons for concern with this roster.

 

But I just don't see the Cardinals being a team that really scares you. They have some power, but I don't see anything else great about their offense. TT's breakdown is a good one.

[UMFan83]

pretty much everyone thinks the farm will be very strong in another year.

 

Which = at least 2 more seasons of the actual team being meh. Grand.

 

Waves and waves

 

I think they were talking about payroll fluctuations

[UMFan83]

 

Which = at least 2 more seasons of the actual team being meh. Grand.

 

Waves and waves

 

What's disheartening is it's unclear if the system is comparable to where it was in the early 2000s, where a number of high profile players didn't pan out despite significant hype (Harvey, Pawelek, C-Patt/E-Patt, Pie, Cruz, etc.), or if it's comparable to the system in the early/mid-2010s, where it seemed like the Cubs hit on every high level position player draft pick and trade target.

 

I mean, it sucks that this system really hasn't done a whole lot since the Happ callup, but that's where we are now. You can see the possibilities, for better and for worse.

 

Its a good point, we really have no idea. We've made a lot of changes to scouting and development recently but no guarantee that's going to make things better. When the best player you drafted outside of the first round for over a decade is David Bote, you tend to lose faith in these things.

 

27 Cubs draft picks outside of the 1st round since 2012 have made it to the majors. 13 of them have negative WAR. Of the 14 that have positive WAR, only 2 of them have been worth 1+ wins in the majors: Bote (3.4) and Cease (3.0). Yikes.

[Backtobanks]

 

Waves and waves

 

What's disheartening is it's unclear if the system is comparable to where it was in the early 2000s, where a number of high profile players didn't pan out despite significant hype (Harvey, Pawelek, C-Patt/E-Patt, Pie, Cruz, etc.), or if it's comparable to the system in the early/mid-2010s, where it seemed like the Cubs hit on every high level position player draft pick and trade target.

 

I mean, it sucks that this system really hasn't done a whole lot since the Happ callup, but that's where we are now. You can see the possibilities, for better and for worse.

 

Its a good point, we really have no idea. We've made a lot of changes to scouting and development recently but no guarantee that's going to make things better. When the best player you drafted outside of the first round for over a decade is David Bote, you tend to lose faith in these things.

 

27 Cubs draft picks outside of the 1st round since 2012 have made it to the majors. 13 of them have negative WAR. Of the 14 that have positive WAR, only 2 of them have been worth 1+ wins in the majors: Bote (3.4) and Cease (3.0). Yikes.

 

At least we can always look back at our record of developing pitching from our minor league system.

[Tryptamine]

 

I have to admit I'm pretty downtrodden about this team from ownership to the state of the farm but it would take something like we seen in 2001 but there's no Sosa or Lieber as far as a sub-par talented team pretending to contend.

You're disillusioned about the state of the farm?

Is it not a very deep farm with very few high end pieces? This isn't some top 5 system or anything, and if you are a rich team that sucks you better have a high end farm system. Maybe disillusioned is a strong word, but when you have to hang your hat on the farm part of your organization, it should be better that what the Cubs have.

 

The farm isn't currently rated very high, but I'd definitely disagree with lack of upside pieces. The issue is that the vast majority of the really good pieces are either very far away or have very little time in the farm. There's a very real chance that the Cubs could have 5 or 6 top 100 guys come the midseason reports.

[sneakypower]

there is absolutely not a very real chance of that, come on

 

probably are 5-6 guys that could have a chance to make the jump, sure, but very remote odds that they'll all explode on the scene in concert

[squally1313]

there is absolutely not a very real chance of that, come on

 

probably are 5-6 guys that could have a chance to make the jump, sure, but very remote odds that they'll all explode on the scene in concert

 

To echo, isn't this built in to the rankings all those websites do? People are acting like everyone just ignores the lower levels, when in reality they're just (correctly) discounting the potential down there because baseball is hard and most prospects fail, and the further away you are from the majors, the more chance you have to fail.

[Cubswin11]

I’d be pretty surprised if we don’t have a top 10 system post draft when they do the mid season rankings. Between whatever we add there along with the guys we currently have growing. Yes, some (most) guys will fail or stall out but there’s enough there that some guys really pop.

[Tim]

In many (most?) of the rankings, they already have two guys. Brennen probably won't lose eligibility by mid-season, so we would need 3-4 guys to make the jump. There's a legit 7-8 guys in position to make that leap and be recognized. Odds aren't great that half of them do so. But they're not awful, either.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

there is absolutely not a very real chance of that, come on

 

probably are 5-6 guys that could have a chance to make the jump, sure, but very remote odds that they'll all explode on the scene in concert

 

I'll use Fangraphs grades/rankings since it goes very deep in a sortable way. In their updated 2022 rankings, there are 114 players with a FV of 50 or better and 5 are Cubs. Drop down to 45 grade(which includes 45 and their "45+" designation), and there are 213 players and 16 are Cubs, most of any org. It doesn't strike as particularly far-fetched that 3 of those top 5 play well(or hold steady and others fall off/graduate) and 2-3 of the subsequent 11 take a big leap, or some combination therein.

[UK]

I mean if the answer to some of those is yes, which is very much a non zero thing, you don't have to squint too hard to see a surprise high 80s or so winner, which could win this division. Also, the Reds.

 

I have to admit I'm pretty downtrodden about this team from ownership to the state of the farm but it would take something like we seen in 2001 but there's no Sosa or Lieber as far as a sub-par talented team pretending to contend.

You're disillusioned about the state of the farm?

 

It's a middle of the road farm system right now. It can be a blessing or a curse at the bulk of the talent is at A and lower.

 

The farm system is of a lesser concern than the lack of talent at the majors.

 

If you're going to be rebuild, need a top farm system and a willingness to spend for elite players in their prime. Right now, they don't appear to have either.

[Bertz]

there is absolutely not a very real chance of that, come on

 

probably are 5-6 guys that could have a chance to make the jump, sure, but very remote odds that they'll all explode on the scene in concert

 

To echo, isn't this built in to the rankings all those websites do? People are acting like everyone just ignores the lower levels, when in reality they're just (correctly) discounting the potential down there because baseball is hard and most prospects fail, and the further away you are from the majors, the more chance you have to fail.

 

I don't think anyone's ignoring that? That's basically the basis for the "wait til next year's rankings" comments that are getting dunked on. Like just to zoom in on the meat of the Cubs farm, this is the expected lineup at MB next year

 

 

That's 8 guys with serious pedigree plus whoever the hell Felix Stevens is. Even after you lose ~3 of them to attrition this year, having ~5 of them jump a level or two is still a net win for the farm. A Kevin Alcantara type in Rookie Ball is a borderline top 100 type. A Kevin Alcantara type at AA is top 20/30. And it's those anchor guys who really drive the rankings.

[squally1313]

Other teams have young/raw prospects too, guys. "Well yeah, it's average now, but a couple of these young players will hopefully get better at baseball, and meanwhile the other 29 teams will just...pass on developing their young talent? and voila, top 5 system!"

[Cubswin11]

 

I have to admit I'm pretty downtrodden about this team from ownership to the state of the farm but it would take something like we seen in 2001 but there's no Sosa or Lieber as far as a sub-par talented team pretending to contend.

You're disillusioned about the state of the farm?

 

It's a middle of the road farm system right now. It can be a blessing or a curse at the bulk of the talent is at A and lower.

 

The farm system is of a lesser concern than the lack of talent at the majors.

 

If you're going to be rebuild, need a top farm system and a willingness to spend for elite players in their prime. Right now, they don't appear to have either.

Stroman and Hendricks have been top 25 pitchers for like the last 5-6 years. Stroman, Hendricks and Miley project for over 9 WAR combined, Suzuki could be a star and there’s a lot of favorable projections, Madrigal might be the best contact hitter in baseball, the catching duo is probably top 3-5 in MLB, Frank/Wisdom/Ortega/etc might be real things, Nico is an elite defender and may be a good hitter/overall valuable player, Happ is still young enough for a breakout. There is talent on the major league roster. They still might suck, likely will, but there’s talent.

[sneakypower]

there is absolutely not a very real chance of that, come on

 

probably are 5-6 guys that could have a chance to make the jump, sure, but very remote odds that they'll all explode on the scene in concert

 

I'll use Fangraphs grades/rankings since it goes very deep in a sortable way. In their updated 2022 rankings, there are 114 players with a FV of 50 or better and 5 are Cubs. Drop down to 45 grade(which includes 45 and their "45+" designation), and there are 213 players and 16 are Cubs, most of any org. It doesn't strike as particularly far-fetched that 3 of those top 5 play well(or hold steady and others fall off/graduate) and 2-3 of the subsequent 11 take a big leap, or some combination therein.

ok only focusing on the one service that's anomalously higher than the rest and assuming positive outcomes throughout paints a bright picture

 

in our rose colored daydreams last year at this time Amaya's and Marquez's and Franklin's arms stayed intact and Howard learned how to hit a baseball so who knows maybe the opposite is likely to happen this year with everybody's development, i just know i really wouldn't bet much on it

[David]

What is being said here about the likelihood of moving up the rankings quickly and multiple guys jumping into the top 100 is nothing that hasn't been said by pretty much every prospect guy who has written about them this offseason.

 

Take it up with them.

 

It's more of a quirk of all of the subjectivity involved and how different outlets/observers value proximity/upside/floor/whatever else.