Rob

Aren't they going to try and turn Cabrera into a starter this year? Unless the Cubs are in serious contention, and absolutely need an internal bullpen arm, I doubt they circumvent the plans to turn him into a starter to get him into the bullpen this year. I totally forgot about that, but I'll stand by it. What's the fun if these aren't bold statements?

Garza is not traded this season. Edwin Jackson posts the highest strikeout rate of his career. Alberto Cabrera establishes himself as a setup man by the end of the season.

Yeah, I suppose. Piss-poor strikeout rate moreso than whole approach. I was just going off memory.

Concepcion, Devoss, and Golden. Same rationale as before for the first two. Golden I have very little faith in due to his piss-poor approach, but with his tools he presents an interesting challenge for the coaching staff.

38.) Concepcion - Still just because the Cubs saw something they thought was worth the bonus. 39.) Devoss - Tons of walks, good speed. Could have a career in the Luis Castillo "My OBP is higher than my SLG" mold. 40.) Struck - Not much more than a back end or swing guy, but he's likely to contribute. That's enough at this point in the list.

Hopefully they can just install Kelly Pickler as the full-time seventh inning stretch singer.

He's got some value as a high-leverage base runner, but he gives back all of it on offense. And I think you're a bit too quick to label him a plus defender. If I were the GM of an AL team in the playoffs with a healthy and durable pitching staff, I'd love to have Campana for October. But with roster construction what it is these days, there's no use for him the rest of the season.

35. Dunston Jr. - A bit more polished than I expected. 36. McNeil - Moderately interesting. 37. Concepcion - Purely based on the fact the front office saw something they thought was worth a crazy bonus.

The Indians seem pretty committed to rebounding from last year, but I'm still not sure they're anymore than a .500ish club. That's an interesting lineup now, at least. Lots of options for the manager on any given day.

Besides, even if the Cubs aren't bunting often, I'd like them to be at least somewhat proficient at it for the rare occasion it makes sense to.

It seems the big money cable deals may have more an inflationary effect on salaries than I had anticipated. I'm gonna reserve judgment on the Felix deal. I don't particularly like it, but I can't say it's going to be good or bad.

32. Trey Martin - Frankly I'm shocked you guys didn't already put him on. This is about where I had him, but I felt I was probably going to be the lowest on him of anybody. 33. Shawon Dunston Jr. - Still quite raw, but his approach was much better than I expected. I've got him in a dead heat with Martin. Coming up with 34 is tough for me. I want to put an arm there, but everybody at this point has big question marks. I like Scott, but he posted some pretty awful peripherals. Struck doesn't have much of a ceiling. Rosario and Arias are kinda old for their leagues. And of course there's Concepcion, who probably deserves the Hayden Simpson "maybe he'll get over his mono" spot on the list. 34. Ryan McNeil - Mostly because I can pretend he wont have the problems the other guys have.

Yeah, it's an interesting topic. If you give Vitters a full 650 PA projection for that peak, along with his Iowa strikeout and walk rates, you'd be looking at a .308 BABIP to post a .275 average with 20 HR. That's a bit lower BABIP than I tend to think of when looking at "peak", but everything else in the projection is optimistic... so yeah, all in all I'd say that's probably a fair peak projection.

I'm down to keep going if enough other people are. I'd like to see Concepcion and Devoss added before too long if that's the case.

That's a bit of a mischaracterization, but whatever. The simple point of the argument was that Vitters still holds some value even if not at 3B... whether that's a platoon guy, a second-division starter, or just plain trade bait to whomever might think better of his glove. Hairston was 24 before he got a taste of AAA. I don't know enough about PCL park factors from 2004-2006 to make a fair comparison between the two. There was a good deal of applause on this board for the Hairston signing. I was just a bit surprised to see a guy who could easily be on the same career path being completely disregarded by some.

Thank you, Kyle. Scott Hairston has mostly floated between a .330 and .340 wOBA without positive fielding or baserunning value. That bodes well for my suggestion that an optimistic, but still reasonable projection can still see him fall somewhere in the range of good bench guy or league average-ish starter, even at a position other than 3B.

Josh Vitters last year in the PCL: 6.6 BB%, 17.0 K%, .210 ISO. The walk rate was a best for him, but he kept it up even during his struggles in the majors. It seems like a focus he had last year. His strikeout rate in the minors has actually fluctuated between about 18% and 11% in the minors (the 11% came in 2011 at AA.) The strikeout rate was over 30% during his cup of coffee. Just for the sake of argument let's call the walk rate real improvement and chalk the strikeout rate in MLB up to small sample size and nerves. Let's pretend he can get that back down close to his higher minor league figure. But given the nature of the PCL, you should probably write off some of that power. Here's a few guys last season who were posting comparable ratios. There weren't any perfect comps -- at least not in people who played full seasons. But this is the best I could get. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2012&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3433,1908,3086,1737,3473,9205 I don't think it's unreasonable to project Vitters might be able to put up something like Morneau did last year. Yeah, he'd be a below average starter at that, but it's not bad. And given his hit tool and supposed propensity for line drives, I don't think I'd be all that shocked to see him score a couple .330 BABIP seasons in his prime. I don't want all this to sound like I'm in love with Vitters as a prospect. I'm definitely not. But I just don't understand the sentiment that he can be completely written off if he's not playing 3B. It seems like anywhere he can be a -5 fielder he has a shot to carve out a career as a second division starter.

Exactly. What kind of offense do you really think a decent 1B/LF/RF puts up in this offensive era? Vitters might not have great potential outside of 3B, but it's not like it's 3B or bust for him as a valuable piece. If he can get the K's back down to his minor league rate, he's somewhere between a good bench player or a league average starter at any of the other corner spots, depending on his fielding.

Sosa, Prior, Wood are higher than everyone there except Grace (Sosa is higher than Grace). Just looking at hitters. Sorry, I thought that was obvious. And Sosa wasn't a homegrown guy. And yeah, whether Murton qualifies or not is an interesting question too. But I found it interesting that a guy that was run out of town for productivity reasons after just about two full seasons worth of at bats was the 8th best position player produced in the last quarter-century.

I had Mark Grace on the brain today after seeing he's going to jail for a few months. And whenever somebody mentions his name, the second thing to pop into my head (after the slumpbusters) is how we haven't had any good hometown players since him. Just out of curiosity, I decided to compile the fWAR list. Numbers are just from their time on the Cubs. Mark Grace - 46.1 Geovany Soto - 12.4 Rick Wilkins - 11.8 Starlin Castro - 9.1 That's your top 4 since 1988. Castro is poised to take over the "best since Grace" title pretty soon. But the interesting/disturbing part is the next four on the list. It's not been a great 25 years.

Instead of basing their opinion strictly on the .275/20 projection, don't you think it is just as others have said? That BA is weighing his brief time in MLB last year a little too heavily and that's why he is ranked so low? To me, that's the most likely explanation at least. I think you're right. I just hoped Callis was better than that. Ranking Vitters that low isn't just a bad ranking... it's a lazy one.

Nick Struck is only a year older than Jensen and just put up very similar numbers in AAA. I like Jensen a bit better than Struck on account of the scouting reports, but I have a hard time arguing to take him over guys with decent scouting reports like Rondon/Zych/McNutt. Age relative to league is a big factor working against Jensen right now.

What odd comps. Vitters walked more often last year than Johnson or Hillenbrand ever did in the majors (or minors, far as I can tell). Johnson strikes out 25% of the time and Hillenbrand had very little power for the offensive era he played in. Just looking at last year... mid-to-high teens on the strikeout rate. Low walk rate. Moderate power... Best comp I can come up with is Kyle Seager with a bit less speed and defense. The 2013 version of Brett Lawrie is pretty similar too (though I expect more of Lawrie going forward). That's an optimistic projection perhaps. It's assuming his walk rate improvement sticks, his strikeout rate drops back down to the levels he had in the minors in 2010 and 2012, and he's capable of playing merely below-average defense. But if he can he's a league average or slightly better starting 3B. But is that his best case scenario? Hardly. He's shown an ability to limit K's down to around 11-13.5% (2009 and 2011). And at just 23 there's still a chance the power scouts projected finally becomes a reality. He did ISO .210 last year -- it was the PCL, but he was young for the league. This feels like that Junior Lake ceiling argument all over again.

Yeah, there's no real way to justify that ranking. I'm thinking Callis is paying way too much attention to that cup of coffee. I'm much more comfortable with trusting NSBB's top 30 list than I am BA at this point.

Mayo has Baez 16, Almora 39, and Soler 42.