craig

I think good relievers are undervalued. If you get six years of good relief work from a guy, there won't be many prospects in the 2nd-ten of a list who outperform that. For Rivero, Vizcaino, and Black, if we really believe that they'll be GOOD relievers, I don't think they should get pushed back much on that account, at this point in the ranking. The real question is whether they should be good or not, I think. I had Rivero #11 on the list I made in October. I'll have him a little lower now; at that time I had all three 3B's Villaneuva/Candelario/Olt behind him, and Zastrysny as well. Bit Rivero clearly has the power arm to be very effective, pending his control, his consistency, and his splitter. If he does work out well, though, I don't think we'll look back and wonder who we missed him. It will be easy to understand. At this point, he'd had only 30 innings to go off of, followed by a forgettable AFL. Within those innings he'd been somewhat inconsistent, seemingly dominant at times but wild in others. As a small-sample reliever, we also haven't gotten a bucket of scouting glorification about him. And after a splashy first AFL inning, he was 5BB/6K/14H in the subsequent tend. If he turns out stellar, it will be easy to look back and say "we were really interested/hopeful, but how were we to know; we had nothing much to go on to justify ranking him higher."

Heh heh, good point! Well said. Actually, as funny and to-the-point as that is, I don't fully buy that. I think the eye thing has been used as an explain-everything excuse. I'm sure it was a real factor. But I think it's well possible that his eyes may be fine now, but he'll still be a fringy guy who wouldn't belong top 8 or 10 in this system even if healthy. It's been suggested that we'll know with him right away, and McLeod suggested that within his first BP we'll know. But I think it's also well possible that six weeks into the season he'll be at Iowa hitting .245 with 5 homers, some walks, a lot of K's, and a .750 OPS. The assumption is that either he'll be totally bad ala Brett Jackson, or else is eyes are clean that he'll be minor-league dominant or big-league solid. More likely he'll be somewhere well in between the extremes.

I took Vizcaino, Villanueva, and Hendricks, perhaps in that order. That's what I had when I made my list 3 months ago, so I decided not to change it. I'm optimistic but not at all confident on Olt. I've been pretty happy with the positive Candelario reports this winter from the people who talk to scouts, so I'm pretty hopeful on him, but I'm a doubter that he'll ever play 3B defensively at a level we'll want. Hope I'm wrong there. If Vizcaino gets healthy, I think he can be really good. So the comment that he isn't quite 100% yet, but will be ready by spring, doesn't really push him off of #9 for me. Villanueva doesn't get the scouting for power, and his K/BB/OBP are lousy, and a .770's OPS in a hitter's park isn't that great. But the defense and the actual HR's/doubles is enough to sneak into top 11 for me. I know I'll be way out of the norm with Hendricks. 1. I value pitching a lot, and teams need five (plus) starters. A position can't afford many holes in his game, but a 5th starter can be far from perfect. 2. According to Theo and Johnson, Hendricks can get significantly better than he's been. He was already very effective, but he's not necessarily beyond getting better yet. A number of other sources, while all noting that he's not TOR and that he's not as good as his stats, seem to project him as a capable #4-5 starter. 3. I know his stuff doesn't scout great, but a career K/BB of 5:1, with an 0.4 HR rate, those are some beautiful ratios. Maybe they aren't all mirage. 4. Reading some of Maddux's ideas, particularly the Boswell article, made me think optimistically about Hendricks.

Lots of good posts. Vogelbach seems like he may just be a true-blue hitter who happens to have serious power as well, and in a game where scoring is getting more difficult that could be a very valuable guy. Whether as DH for us (I hope), in trade, or as a Rizzo replacement, he may give us some good value. . But, as has been noted he really wasn't that great offensively last year. Didn't hit for great average, most of the hits he got were singles, and he didn't reach 20 HR's. Obviously the development of his defense, whether it's awful or acceptably anti-awful, will matter a lot. But I think it really comes down to the power. Does he really have awesome power? Or as a short guy with short levers, is he a strong guy but without natural lift and without exceptional game HR power? The same defense/BABIP/BB/K guy looks a whole lot different with 30HR norm than with 18HR norm.

Blackburn and Stryz are kind of popular as pitchers who could elevate a lot. Malave is a more interesting and surprising name. 80K/0 HR in 342 AB over 2 pro summers. Moved him from C to 3B, even though the system is desperate for catchers. He must have showed something in fall instrux.

I'd love to see that from Olt, absolutely. I wonder if we don't overrate Olt's defense a little bit, though. At the Down on the Farm session yesterday, McLeod said that Villanueva was "hands down" the best defensive 3B in the system. So if Olt is "hands down" not the best 3B in the system, I'm not sure he'll be consistently best in the league. Or maybe he will be. Maybe Olt and Villanueva are both better than anybody in the majors, and Olt will win gold gloves so long as Villanueva isn't in the league.

I single voted for Johnson, since the early voting looks close. Good pitcher, good results, good stuff, good control, seems to have a very good head, and I think he's very close. I assume he starts in AA, and if he has a very good year he'll be more or less ready by end of the year. Doesn't have "great ceiling" overpowering stuff, but I think has enough velocity and enough diversity of pitches to work with to become a good big-league starter. Easy vote for me. Next one will be easy too. At #9 is when we'll start to see much more variance.

I didn't have Dunston on my top 40. But I made that some time ago, with Mateo at 36. So maybe with Mateo Rule 5 picked, I could slip Dunston in at 40.

We're doing a whole lot of projection with all of these kinds of guys. Obviously this is an opinion board, so if you and wekim don't like Hannemann, you don't like him, that's fine. For me, I'm going to have Dunston well behind Hannemann. Probably because I'm not a big Dunston guy. He was 20 years old and slugged only .358 in a hitters league. 1 HR for a corner outfielder doesn't seem that promising. Sure, hannemann's future depends entirely on projection, since he hasn't played effective pro-ball yet. But Dunston's future also depends entirely on projection; no power, no future. I'm still hopeful, but a lot of guys who end up with good LF power were already beyond 1-HR at age 20. Who knows with Hanneman, and I'm hopeful there too. I guess I just trust Theo/McLeod enough to think they knew Hannemann's age, but still liked him enough to draft him knowing he'd require a major superslot. He'll probably fail, of course, as is true for all 3rd rounders and later, and for all prospects who are showing up outside of the top-25 on a team list. But I can't imagine the Cub scouts are so dumb that they'd waste a million superslot and a high 3rd-round pick on a guy whose potential is grossly sub-3rd-round.

I'm sure there will be a lot of variance in how different posters place them. I've got Jiminez at 22 for now. Probably says more about the uselessness of rankings than about how good he is or will become that we don't know where to place him. I'd be fine to leave guys like that off. But, it's fun, too. With Soler-like physique coming, he just has so much power potential. I value him ahead of guys who will show up in the 24-30 range.

I voted for 3, but am completely conventional with the AA-Johnson-Vogelbach sequence which seems pretty obvious for the 6-7-8. I was behind the curve on Alcantara in past. (I recall writing that he might be best off to start at Daytona this past spring in order to show that his hitting emergence in 2012 wasn't a fluke….) And his errors, K's, and bad splits versus LHP remain issues. But he looks to be an easy #6 here. Whether it's at 2B, 3B, utility, or perhaps as a platoon player versus RHP, he's got a chance to be a really nice all-around player. Lots of competition in the infield with Castro, Baez, and Bryant, so he'll need to have another productive year to stay in the mix as a potential every-day starter. He's not that good hitting RH, but on a roster where most of the good prospects are RH (Castro, Almora, Soler, Baez, Castillo, Olt…), his LH-hitting might be a very welcome factor. Will be nice to see if he can reduce his errors and emerge as a premium defensive 2B this season.

Rodgers is going off of what Olt said, and players are neither doctors nor always very honest with or objective about themselves. So, we'll see. But certainly the article seems to reflect that Rodgers thinks that Olt is saying he's fine. "now that vision problems that plagued him are in the past…" "The body feels good." ""It was a freak accident," Olt said. "It happens in baseball." "now he believes the struggles are behind him" "I did have some problems with that," he said. "I think it's definitely in the past." Seems that Olt thinks the eye issues are in the past. "Freak" and "definitely in the past" certainly communicates that from Olt, and "now that vision problems that plagued him are in the past" certainly communicates that Rodgers understood him to be saying it's all good and is not going to be an ongoing issue. We'll see. Personally I'm not sure that just "getting back to" 2012 is either sure or sufficient. Yes, he hit a bunch of HR's and was projected as a good prospect, and was highly regarded. But lots of highly regarded prospects don't work out if they don't improve; I think he needed to improve, and his prolific K-rate marked him as an uncertain prospect well before the eye issue. I think it's also possible that the eye business was a factor, but may have been too convenient an explain-everything excuse for his problems last year. He's a very interesting prospect for sure, and it would be awesome if he'd emerge as a quality major leaguer. But I'm cautious about his chances even if his eyes really are fine.

I voted Edwards, but it's a coin flip for me. (Soler was #1 on my list last winter, ahead of Baez.) The fun thing is to have one of these two prospects coming out #5 on our list. I'm not sure you need to be a big guy to be a good pitcher. So I think there's a chance that Edwards will end up doing fine physically as a starter. His value may depend less on his body configuration than on his pitching ability, which may be quite good. Excellent control goes a long way. I also think he's pretty close; when a very good pitcher with good control starts at AA, (not sure but Edwards might), he's not far from the majors. I also justify ranking him high in that I value good relievers a lot, such that his value doesn't vanish if the decision is that he is not durable enough for rotation. Soler seems to have the power potential and the hitting/discipline profile to perhaps become a great all-around offensive player. But that's still pretty much projection, at this point. So I'm going with the close-to-ready-great-performance Edwards a slight bit ahead of not-very-close-yet-with-no-great-performance-shown-yet Soler. An .810 OPS at age 21 in A-ball isn't really that great. It's not bad, so it doesn't undermine the projection, but it's not like he's actually shown the great offense or power that his ranking is based upon. My question with him, I think, is whether or not he'll have the knack, or learn it, for getting enough lift on the ball to hit HR's. He may just be something of a ground ball guy? Last year was small sample size, and we don't know how much was healthy. Would be fun to see him healthy, hustling, and hitting HR's consistently this season.

That's how I see it too. When he was a big kid who was projected to throw heavy fastball in the mid-90's, with decent control, he was a good projection prospect. But after the arm injury as a soft-tosser, I don't see the interest.

I think the cubs went in strong because they didn't project a strong class this upcoming summer.

I was thinking more where the bus cone drives the deal. He "arranges" for four of his guys to sign with the Cubs, each at $250. Nobody is actually paid $750, so it doesn't exceed the limit. Essentially one guy is badly underpaid and three are overpaid, but the bus cone ends up with a good deal overall. (Heh; how do I make my entry box not automatically insert a space into bus cone?) That might make it easier for the bus cone to get good players in future. ("I've got a strong history of getting good players $250K deals. That other bus cone might gamble to get a million, but it's pretty unlikely; but I can pretty much promise you'll get $250K…")

"The Cubs have the No. 4 international bonus pool, which was $3.9 million this year, but won't be able to sign a player for more than $250K." Signing twelve $250K guys would get to 3 million. That might not be a bad way to go. A dozen $250K guys, Ten $250K Ten $100K Eight $50K I suspect this will exceptionally challenging for scouts. You scout and find guys you like; but how much time can you really invest in the guys you like? Spend months scouting guy and making connections with him and his family, and just as you realize he really is a very good prospect it's all for nothing, because now he's good enough to get $300-$400K from somebody else and all your work was for nothing. Kind of a conundrum. The whole purpose of scouting is to identify guys that project well. But the better they project, the less likely that you'll be in any position to sign them. Hard to decide where to spend your time. Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe you do some package deals with some bus cone and it works out somehow?

Theo's only had two drafts, and the admin's policy/philosophy clearly operates AGAINST this kind of pickup. If I define mid-rounds as 2-15, which is probably generous on both ends, they've only selected 4 college position players in those rounds over the two drafts. The strategy has been position round one, then prioritize pitching volume after that, which works against getting guys like the Cardinals have. The four college position guys: 12 draft: Bruno (7) and Krist (9) 13 draft: Hanneman (3) and Hankins (11) Bruno obviusly fits the Cardinals-success profile. Krist doesn't really fit; he was a $10K sub-slot picked there because he'd free up $140 for Almora/Underwood. Hankins also fits as a not super toolsy, but smart, sound, fairly polished baseball player with a fairly mature approach as a hitter, etc.. A patient one-step-at-a-time prove-it guy, if he's going to make it. But 11th round, that's getting pretty late. Not sure the Cardinals have hit on many college players that late as $100K guys? I believe when drafted the Cubs listed him as a catcher; so if he ever does make it, it will surely be a patient-development schedule that takes till 25 or beyond. Hanneman is college, and he's very much going to need considerable patience. But he certainly has the potential to be a second-day pick who may take till age 25-27, but who could end up being a productive big-leaguer. Very unlike the targeted graduation schedule that we're accustomed to. He's still kind of different than the limited-tools-but-polished-and-fundamentally-sound-and-capable-all-around-hitter guy the Cardinals have produced. Hanneman's very unpolished and very inexperienced. And with a $1M bonus, he's not quite a 4th-8th round slot type, either. I think the new regime will be an improvement for both patience and development. But for now the draft approach just isn't very oriented towards college-hitter 2nd-day picks.

Hanneman?

Yeah, the "who's to say he can't" logic is not that inspiring. I'm interested in Hendricks, but I'd like to see him open with Iowa. If he's ready to be a capable big-league guy, he should do very well at Iowa; and if he doesn't sustain excellence at Iowa then we know he's not qualified. I think I'd prefer to see him start with Iowa. If we have another summer trade, or an injury, then if he's excelling at Iowa he can get called up and get his shot then.

Baez (and Bryant) can drive call ups if they have great seasons in the minors. But I agree with Kyle, there's a fair chance that one or both won't accumulate a full service year between 2014 and 2015. I hope they hit so well, and in both cases improve enough defensively, so that they play themselves into the majors before September, and make it obvious that they should be opening-day starters in 15. As I mentioned earlier, I'm actually not so sure that the Baez/Bryant timeline differs greatly from Edwards/Johnson. Both players have defense to worry about, and contact to worry about. Pitchers sometimes advance more quickly. Both guys throw strikes, so I'm not sure exactly what they need to resolve. It may be that more-or-less what they throw now will carry up, and they may not need a lot of minor-league work if in fact they are going to end up being good. The flip side, I think, is that Johnson comes with durability questions given his past and his delivery, and Edwards comes with durability questions based on his size, and his history of limited pitch counts and limited innings thrown. So in their cases, they may be pitching very well and be big-league ready ability-wise, but the Cubs may not want them up adding September innings to their workloads. So, probably not likely that they'll really see many big-league innings (or service days) this season either.

How many of your sources think Candelario will be able to play solid 3B defense (even if not in Chicago)? And does he project enough power to be a good starter at 1B or OF?

I'll be very surprised if Javy has not used up his rookie eligibility by then. KB is 50/50 for me as well. Good point, Dave. This may be a high point for our prospect rankings, in terms of "official" BA type lists. 1. For Baez, either his star will have dimmed somewhat by November, or he'll have graduated. If Baez is killing the minors like he did in AA, he won't last; and if not his status will settle some. 2. Bryant starts in Daytona, so he's got a better chance to be very productive without having expired eligibility. But if he's great enough, it's at least possible that he'll be expired. And of course there's a chance that his star will dim some, between the K's and the defense. 3. I think edwards and Johnson are both close enough that they might be in a gone-or-down situation. If Edwards is kicking high minors like he did A, given his age and starting in high minors, might he not get called up and expire? Johnson too, when a pitcher starts in the high minors, if he has a great season he can be earning a call up. But if they don't pitch well enough for call ups, they may not look quite as shiny.

Thanks for these updates, cal. Great to hear that Vizcaino is up to 45 pitches already, and looked good. Paniagua, Arias, fun to get positive stuff on all of them. Torres doesn't appear to have gotten anything out of the infield in any of the box scores I've noticed him in.

Agree with cal, Almora will start at Daytona and can be moved up from there when the time is right. Also, I don't think the Daytona weather is a problem in the spring, is it? On Almora, I was pleased to see the comment that he's filled out some. That had been my superficial impression just from the hugging-Bryant picture. Whether a guy hits 25 or 12 HR's makes kind of a lot of difference.