craig

I think the Cubs have very few guys who have any reasonable shot to become a top-25 prospect. Eloy, obviously. Happ, very little chance. He's not that kind of a prospect, doesn't have the defense or contact or power to be a top-25. Cease obviously has that capacity, he's got exceptional talent. Other than Eloy and Cease, I'd think to get into top 25 it pretty much has to be a pitcher. de la Cruz or Albertos have the kind of stuff and upside to possibly get into a top-25, if they develop right. No clue with the teenagers, of course. It's too early to rule out that perhaps Sierra might evolve into a force. Or that maybe some young pitcher will mature into an extra zillion mph and become a force. (Marquez? Hudson?) Maybe Morel will add on 45 pounds of muscle and be a totally different physiqe, who knows. But as I see it now, I'd say that Eloy, Cease, de la Cruz, and Albertos are really the only visible guys with the upside to even ideally end up in a top-25.

I was intrigued by how many references Manuel made to having a lot of good arms in the low minors. Not sure I totally track what he's thinking, maybe it's Cease/de la Cruz/Clifton/Hatch/Albertos he's thinking about. But my first read was that he wasn't really thinking about them so much, as a depth of other possible-emergence arms, particularly in terms of arms way down below the full-season world. Again, I have no idea, Manuel may be naive or ill-informed, and of course every team has arms that might emerge. But I got the impression Manuel thinks the Cubs have an unusually deep collection, I wouldn't have assumed that myself. "The lower levels of the Cubs system have talent, which is evident in the rosters at short-season Eugene, low Class A South Bend and high Class A Myrtle Beach. The Cubs have more intriguing arms at the lower levels... "With all the Cubs’ lower-level arms " "then the dpeth of arms at lower levels" "pity Jaron Madison, the farm director who has to find innings for all these lower-level pitchers. Good luck with that Jaron!" "South Bend’s rotation is going to be really crowded" "I decided the Cubs had enough young guys with upside that I didn’t have to rank every middle reliever"

Wilson is the odd one to me. His bad-half-good-half layout makes for potential over-rating, I think. The story appears like "he figured it out", but may as well be a case of any hitter who has some random hot-and-cold spells. That he ended up kinda cold doens't support the "figured it out" view, but who knows. I thought his was odd, in that Manuel left Hatch off his list, even though his comments in the chat were really enthusiastic for Hatch. "Hatch was fantastic in college this year and will move quickly after what he showed the Cubs in instructs — advanced FB command and a plus slide piece at its best. Darin Erstad compared his slider to that of Brad Lidge in a story on the BA site earlier this season, and that’s high praise. .....Hatch has it all over Clark in terms of pitchability, command, etc." Manuel projects Hatch at A+, talks pitchability/command, if his slider has Lidge comparisons that's really good, etc.. That seems pretty top-10-ish to me; that Manuel could be so positive on Hatch, but still have him behind wilson, not sure what that says. Heh heh, maybe that Manuel is a dope; maybe that he REALLY likes Wilson; or maybe that his positives on Hatch don't reflect some negatives as well.

Sharma allegedly tweeted out that he has heard that Albertos is the Cubs best pitching prospect. That's interesting, for a kid who's pitched four innings or whatever in his career, and is years away. all of the Albertos stuff is all coming from the Cubs, obviously. It's not like Manuel or many of the other list-makers were attending and scouting his four innings. So, we can be skeptics and figure the Cubs are just hyping for hype's sake. Or perhaps that even if their are Cub sources that honestly believe that, that their opinion is about as dumb as when Fleita glass-is-full hyped many worthless prospects. But, for me as the optimist, I tend to accept the Cubs input at face-value. 1. They have shown pretty good evaluation skills/record to warrant that. So assuming they honestly believe that, I'm fascinated. 2. They've generally seemed to be pretty honest and straightforward. Don't see why they'd be spinning a false story here. 3. I also don't see any strategic advantage in spinning a false story that some of them think Albertos is a better prospect than Cease, de la Cruz, and Clifton. If you're trying to make up trade value by dishonest spin/hype, you'd be better off to spin-up the relative value of Cease, de la Cruz, and Clifton than to down-hype them as not-even-as-good-as-the-4-inning-guy. There were reports of some scouts thinking Albertos might have been the best pitching prospect in the international pool that summer. That was before the account of him having added several mph since, despite not being a real "projection" body. And that was before the accounts of him changeup supposedly now looking like a potential 70, in addition to the strong breaking pitch as amateur. When making these top-10 lists, I think BA doesn't want to "miss" on a potential star. Manuel made some comment to the effect that he was going to make sure he got Albertos into his Top 10 one way or another. If Martinez becomes a functional 4th OFer or OK regular, and BA "missed" and left him off the top 10, o well. But if Albertos becomes a star and a top-20 prospect, Manuel didn't want to have "missed" and left him off when he already knew that possibility was present. But year, he's a teenager who hasn't pitched much. Who knows, perhaps the 2017 Albertos will be about as disappointing as Stinnett turned out to be, after the Cubs were all so gung-ho about his possibilities.

Thanks so much for that huge wall of text! Very, very much appreciated! :)

Good post, Dave. Agree, it's a pivotal question whether Eloy stays, and potentially becomes a middle-order monster; or becomes the #1 in a trade for a significant pitcher; or ends up less. Another pivotal is whether one of our pitchers emerges and becomes effective.... for us. (Rather than as a trade chip.) We don't know how quickly we'll need outside pitchers. Your post, as have others, has some trade-chip focus. And we may well need to be making a major pitching acquisition, all of us are objective enough to realize we've been lucky with the pitching health. But as an optimist, I conceivable that the existing rotation might stay healthy enough and effective enough through July so that no major Eloy-level mid-season trade is required. (I'm not saying it's probable or to be counted on, but I think it's more than a 20% possibility.) So if no major rotation-trade is essential pre-deadline, next offseason might be a whole different assessment. And the priority on trading for outside help might not be that extreme. I'm optimist, I know, but it's not inconceivable that a non-severe solution to the Arrieta+Lackey FA scenario will emerge. Some possibilities: 1. Assumption: Sign one *good* FA. Perhaps Arrieta himself, perhaps somebody else. But I think there's a good chance the Cubs will have the $$, with Arrieta + Lackey + Montero coming off next year, to sign one rotation spot with FA. In face, I think that's not only "possible", I think it's more than likely. 2. That might then leave only one #5 rotation spot to fill. We saw in 2015 that a team with Haren/Wada/Wood/Richard/Beeler as 5th starter can win 97 games. They may not need or insist on acquiring a long-term, multi-year #5 from outside. (3. Maybe they'll sign Ross and he'll be ready?) A year from now, the collection of Zastryzny, Clifton, Hatch, de la Cruz, Cease, and two first-round draft picks might look like a good pool. Will 5-7 of those guys look ready for April 2017 rotation spot, no. (Maybe none will.) But I'm hopeful that **if** 2016 develops well for those guys, that next year the Cubs won't feel they need a long-term external guy. Might be comfortable with a one-year type guy as a replaceable bridge, who doesn't need to be great or expensive. So maybe we'll be keeping our prospect pitchers, and hoping to develop them so that we don't need to trade a big package for an external guy?

Interesting thoughts,Win. Two thoughts: 1. My guess is that they begin each season with a "plan" for each guy, at least anybody they've have for even a fairly small while. My guess is that they do a bunch of review and analysis after the season, develop a plan, present that or discuss that with the pitcher, and begin the season with that plan. How often they revise it during the season, I don't know. 2. When Derek Johnson came over, he believed that throwing too fast was bad for command, for delivery consistency, and for health. He had pitchers throw sets at different velocities, charted the command results, and then assigned them velocity bands within which to throw their fastball. Often less than what their max-velocity could achieve. So, for example, maybe Tseng could throw 91-92-93, but supposedly he might have a velocity-band assigned at 88-90, if that was where he'd charted as being most consistent with best command. I believe some of those constraints were then removed late in the season or entering playoffs. Not sure whether: 1. Johnson kept that up; 2. Whether it only applied to lower-level guys; 3) How often they re-evaluated and revised the band; 4) How it was enforced if a pitcher over-threw his band; or 5) whether Jim Brower does that or anything similar.

Yes, and that moment will almost surely not pass. When Theo came, there was a theory that hitting would become scarce and teams with hitters would have a trade leverage advantage. That theory does not appear to have been fulfilled.

Yeah, where a guy goes and where he'll develop best is probably largely independent of which level. But maybe impacted by the personality and the particular developmental needs, and how the org dictates pitch usage. Cease needs work on the change (and curve). Do they have a plan where manager, pitching coach, Cease, and catcher all have some quota? For example, 3 changes per inning? 15 per game? How do they actually control and dictate that a guy is practicing what he most needs to work on? I have no idea how that goes. I wonder. Because by human nature nobody wants to get killed. Suppose a guy really needs to really improve his curveball, but he's not very consistent yet and he hangs a variable number each game. In A-, maybe there are so few guys strong enough or good enough to hit the hangers out, so he can practice his curve without losing every start. But perhaps at a higher level, those bad curveballs are so often going over the wall so that he never wins. Human nature might say, "I don't want to throw those anymore."

Those are good points, Win. I've just kind of assumed Cease is so wild, and has so much development left, and needs so much more work on his change, that he'd probably take a steady pace. But, that might be dumb. In a sense, I don't think it matters hardly at all where he goes. I don't think his development depends on who he's pitching to, it just depends on him. He's obviously got a good enough fastball and a good enough curve that his stuff will match up well anywhere. The plate is the same size and distance in A+ as in A-. His ability to repeat his delivery, to throw his change and curve for strikes or at least close, is progress in those areas probably doesn't much matter whether he's pitching in South Bend or Myrtle. It would be pretty cool if both Cease and Hatch show well so that they can succeed in A+ this season, whether they start there or not. Two fun guys to watch. Will be really fascinating to see how hatch's stuff shows up, and Cease's control and consistency.

Yeah, I'd be shocked if Cease went straight to Myrtle. Agree with you, Cal, that Hatch is more likely. But I'd think it's more than likely that neither starts at Myrtle. If Hatch does, it will reflect that he's had a good spring and the Cubs are pretty happy with him. I recall thinking guys like Pierce Johnson, Kellogg, and Preston Morrison might skip straight to Myrtle(Daytona), but I think Zastryzny is about the only college guy who's done that. Certainly an interesting pool of names/prospects for SB, Myrtle, and Tennessee. Iowa pretty bad. Phil isn't much of a Hedges fan, but I wonder if he'll start again, after his good season last year.

Yeah, well said. Agree with that. Will be interesting to see what they do and who exactly they bring in. But yes, it's going to change, at least a little.

Next year, losing a pick will cost only a 3rd round pick. Much reduced disincentive then. (Which was obviously the point of that CBA revision.) And we'll only get 2nd round comp picks, rather than first, if we lose Arrieta or Davis. Agree that good chance that next year we'll be signing a FA rotation guy. Whether that's Arrieta or somebody else, time will tell. The Montgomery rotation experiment is going to be really interesting, and impactful long-term. If he were to settle in as a perfectly respectable rotation guy, rotation planning gets a lot simpler. Much can change in a year. None of our prospect pitchers seem compelling or close right now, and most likely that will seem likewise true 12 months from now. But I'm optimistic that Clifton, de la Cruz, and Cease will all progress well this year. And Zastryzny as well. Obviously I'm an eternal optimist, but I totally get that all of these guys will have setbacks, and 12 months from now none will look like future rotation assets, much less 2018-ready guys. And obviously Cease is at best several years away, more on schedule for when Hendricks hits free agency. But, if Montgomery shows solid, and they resign Arrieta or somebody better, all you'll be looking for is depth and 5th starter. AS we saw in 2015, you can kind of wing it at 5th starter (Wood, Wada, Beeler, Richard, Haren....). *IF* Z is going to ever become a rotation guy, a year from now might be the time to give him his shot. *IF* Clifton is ever going to become a rotation asset, good chance he'd be ready by summer 2018, even if not necessarily April. And *IF* de la cruz is ever going to become a rotation asset, he'll probably have a good 2017 and end up in Double AA, looking to be ready by the end of 2018 if not before. So, what I'm rambling to is that *IF* one or more from the Zastryzny, Clifton, and de la Cruz group have good seasons, by next winter they'd look to be ready within one year or less. (By or before the opening of 2019.) In which case, the Cubs might not be looking to pick up a 5-year-FA to replace Lackey. Rather, they might be looking towards a place-holder short-term guy, who won't break the budget in FA or have long-term budget impact. Put differently, it may be that for 2019, the four spots other than Arrieta may all be filled by guys presently within the organization. I'm an optimist, of course.

http://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/burkhart-chicago-cubs-top-15-prospects-2017/2/ Some fairly detailed reports with sometimes interesting scouting observations, or input from his Cubs sources de la Cruz: "The changeup has improved since last year, and he’s recently added a slider" "...The motion is about as low-effort as it gets and features a clean, flowing arm action with extension from his mid-three-quarters release point. .....his arm can drag when pitching out of the windup....." Hatch: "sitting 94-96 mph with life and sink at instructs while flashing a plus slider". (I didn't think Fleita worked for the Cubs anymore...) "Cubs believe that ... if not for the injury in 2015, he may have been a first-round pick"

It interests me how Happ always gets ranked as favorably as he does. The reports are always negative about his future at 2B; the reports are never effusive about his power; and he K's all the time. Yet they still like his hitting to consistently respect him. Hope they are right. If the Yankees resign Chapman, loaning him out for a couple of months while getting him back and getting Gleyber for that temporary loan could look like really brilliant GM'ing.

Sickels still includes Underwood at #9. He also still includes Almora; has Almora, who may very well be the Cubs primary CF next year, at #5, behind Clifton and Happ. I'll be curious to see the comments and discussion as those go forward. He includes Hedges in his top-20: mentions his heavy sinker being as high as 94. Will be interesting to get a little more scouting on some of the less well-reported guys.

Nice post, Win. Helpful (for me at least) to keep some perspective. An amazing thing has been that so many of the graduates have been good. When we had all these top prospects a couple of years ago, I would often tell myself "Yeah, but you know prospects fall off; you know a lot of these guys won't actually work out for whatever reason." But here we are, and almost everybody IS working out variably well, even guys like Vogelbach and Zastryzny; and a Contreras is working out WAY better than I ever imagined. A guy like Hendricks is working out WAY better than any of us thought to dream. The only guy who's kinda disappointed has been Soler. And that's me being disappointed with a .769 OPS and OPS+ 105, with lots of space to do much better in future. Maybe the hit-rate has been pure luck/coincidence. But the astonishing hit-rate with our prospects may speak to the Cubs Way? Perhaps we'll continue to have unexpected success with prospects? Maybe our development process really is that good, and the types of guys that they bring into the system are that coachable and improve-able? Obviously it won't be the same when our top picks are in the 30's versus in the top 2-4-6-10 range. But if they can frequently get the best out of the talent they've got, it could be pretty nice.

Hey, toonster, thanks for the input. Fun to see your optimism and enthusiasm! I expected (and hoped) for more velocity out of Hudson. The nature of a HS projection guy is that he gets faster. I was disappointed that there was no evidence that happened, and instead that the actual guy this past season appeared to be slower than what the draft summer, fall instrux, and spring camp reports had suggested. Hopefully he adds a bunch this season. If you go 2-3 years into your career and no added velocity has come yet, then it's probably not going to.

From both sides of the plate. 4-4. Wow, that's great. Good for him.

Cubs add 4 to 40-man: Leathersich Caratini Hannemann Underwood

..The bold is correct. .... Tom, is this primarily a park thing, as opposed to a league thing? If it's a league thing, shouldn't all pitchers have received those league benefits?

You are correct. Happ is >22% K-rate; Jackson was <24% K-rate through AA. <2% difference through the comparable levels, but maybe even that is significant. It wasn't really till Jackson hit AAA that his K's went nuts.

Not sure I'm tracking the MB logic here. Are you arguing that hitters were league average against him at SB, and that he isn't really much different/better now, his reputation/stats have just gotten deceptively padded by park/league effects? You've got him only #10, behind guys like Pena. I've actually got him higher, I had him 3rd on my list (behind Cease, in front of de la Cruz/Happ). Couple thoughts: 1. You may be right. His numbers are as nice as they are in part because he allowed only 4 HR's, despite having only a 0.68 GO/AO ratio. May have gotten park/League lucky/protected, and it's a lot easier to pitch when you're not scared of HR's. 2. I thought his SB season showed considerable improvement. My recall is that he was wild and wildly inconsistent early, but that during July/August he was much more consistent. So even if his SB season was hitters-league-average, I think his late-season was probably much superior. And I think that continued and further-improved at MB. 3. One of the late scouting reports evaluated him as having 3 solid-to-plus big-league pitches, in the fastball, the curve, and the change. Can't remember, was that an announcer or manager, so perhaps baloney? Or perhaps the BA Top-20 or something? 4. His K-rate is solid. More than K-per-inning. So, good stuff seems to be there. 5. HIs 2016 couldn't have all been park/league. He was league pitcher of the year, and led that league in WHIP, BA-against, ERA, and was 3rd in K's. So, the league saw him as unusually good relative to the league. 6. I think his consistency and control improved as the year progressed. Over his last ten starts, he was 63K/10BB. That is VERY good. His stuff was good enough in SB, but he was too inconsistent. If the good-stuff 3-solid-pitches guy is able to fairly consistently access those pitches, there's potential there. 7. Young. He'll still be only 21 for first quarter of next season. So there's still time to continue to work on consistency and control. Obviously younger than Hatch (who I like very well) and de la Cruz and Kellogg and guys like that. So, young enough that there may still be a little more physical optimization and delivery optimization/consistency-improvement left for him. 8. One advantage as a starter is that he's got some interesting splits, or lack thereof. He was actually better versus lefties. May be coincidence, but doesn't appear that he'll get killed by the higher volume and quality of lefty hitters that big-league teams can stack against RHP. 9. He's had control issues in past. Those seemed to diminish a lot late last season, but that control/consistency is really a key question. Easy to have it when you're in a groove, when everything is going well, and when you're facing crummy Carolina-League hitters where even if you make a mistake they won't hit it over the wall. I think it will be huge question whether his control/command will be good enough going forward, and consistent enough. Easy come, easy go, I think.... That's where your Justin Grimm analogy may prove true. Grimm can look terrific on days when he can locate and throw strikes; but that ability can vanish in an instant, it seems. We'll see with Clifton, whether the strong control he showed 2nd half this year will be the steady thing from now on, or whether he'll be off-and-on. 10. The curve and the change, those are two very hard pitches to control and command. Easy to envision those being hard to consistently throw for strikes. 11. Clifton is now a pretty well built guy. I'm not sure there's any inherent reason why he'll be physically unable to sustain a rotation workload. Plenty of 6-inning starters around. 12. To my knowledge, he's pretty much fastball/curve/change. Don't think he's added the cutter yet. Sometimes when a guy finally adds the cutter, a pitcher can significantly improve his arsenal and effectiveness. So, it's possible that he's still got another positive step to take.

I'm hugely concerned about that. He's K'd a ton at every level, just as he K'd a lot in college. No hint that this is a correctable problem. Huge red flag for me. Statistically, not sure he's got the HR power to justify so many K's. But even more than the K's as a number, I wonder if that isn't just a manifestation of a scouting/tools problem. You don't continuously K that often without there being a reason, or perhaps several reasons. Sometimes the higher you go, the more the reasons get exposed or perhaps taken advantage of. Without either a strong defensive position or a strong HR rate, I'm pretty cautious on his ability to work around the contact problems that cause the high K-rate. I've got some Brett Jackson concerns, honestly. That said, I'm hopeful I'm just paranoid, and that somehow the problem will be somewhat correctable. Scouts and stuff don't seem to view his contact problem as being acute and prohibitive; he still ranked shockingly high in the Southern League BA rankings, for example, and smart Cub fans like you still have him as high as #2. So perhaps my concerns are misplaced in some way.

Zagunis career .836 OPS with .401 OBP. In five minor league stops of >2 games, his worst OPS is Myrtle at .818; the other four have all been .846 or higher. This year he slugged .469 with 10 HR in 101 games. He's 23, so not old for an AAA guy. Don't see why he might not project to potentially have enough bat to be a starter in the majors. I'm still curious how the power will go, up or down. Better pitching in majors, it goes down for lots of guys. (Baez thus far, for example.) But quite a few guys get stronger after age 23.