The theme that the Cubs did not produce a decent position player after Grace is a much discussed topic. There's nothing weird about this thread and the karma concept is just silly. Corey Patterson was a flash in the pen whose career ended before it began no thanks to playing for exactly the wrong type of manager when he showed up. Felix Pie and Ronny Cedeno are jokes. They did nothing in the majors and may even have negative WAR. Sam Fuld is also in the middle of another trademark 0 WAR season. Theriot had a handful of acceptable seasons, whereas Soto probably had the same number, but multiple better seasons. As a catcher, whose careers tend to start late and can end early, I think he's a good enough end point where the Cubs developed their own quality position player. And it was that lack of position player developmental success that made it impossible for the Cubs to succeed consistently in the MacPhail (and pre-MacPhail) era despite a huge influx of spending and a renewed investment in the system (pitching). There's nothing weird about this concept.