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They'll start coming out in a few weeks. I shared a link to THE BOARD rankings on Fangraphs in the minor league musings thread. They have a prospect ranking for the Cubs system. The other places like BA will start coming out with their rankings over the coming weeks/months. SD has the top farm system in MLB. Cubs system is pretty bad right now. Probably a bottom 10 system, but has the potential to rise with good depth at the lowest levels. Excellent, thanks. Will go check it out in the musings thread... Here you go: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/?type=&pos=&team=chc This will make it easier for you.

They'll start coming out in a few weeks. I shared a link to THE BOARD rankings on Fangraphs in the minor league musings thread. They have a prospect ranking for the Cubs system. The other places like BA will start coming out with their rankings over the coming weeks/months. SD has the top farm system in MLB. Cubs system is pretty bad right now. Probably a bottom 10 system, but has the potential to rise with good depth at the lowest levels.

Apology accepted :D

I don't think I bragged about anything in the minor league forum... I talked about Baez, but that wasn't in the minor league forum. I do remember making fun of you for liking Jen-Ho Tseng and how he wouldn't amount to much. Well, I won't be "bragging" about some claim or prediction (even when I'm right) I made anymore. I'm afraid of someone wanting to choke me out and/or accuse me of tooting my own in horn in a sexually explicit way. Not worth the trouble. PS -- I'm going to be totally right about Nico next year lol. you had said something one time about "i was talking up player X it in a minor league thread a year ago. look it up". then mojo or someone said "no thanks". Okay well, Player X is David Bote and I wasn't bragging or boasting when talking about him. I was defending Bote because someone earlier said "He's probably nothing" after he came up. He has real trade value and is definitely something. I said posters here (including me) noticed him last year and think he's a legit prospect. Of course, I don't actually expect someone to go back and look it up lol. I have no idea when we started talking about him/started noticing him. Trent Giambrone might be Bote v2.0 and if he comes up and plays well next year then we can say we knew about him as well. I said what I said because some people think Bote is some kind of non-prospect scrub (he isn't). He could be a starting 2B for some teams. Get your facts straight man.

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I don't think I bragged about anything in the minor league forum... I talked about Baez, but that wasn't in the minor league forum. I do remember making fun of you for liking Jen-Ho Tseng and how he wouldn't amount to much. Well, I won't be "bragging" about some claim or prediction (even when I'm right) I made anymore. I'm afraid of a certain someone wanting to choke me out and/or accuse me of tooting my own in horn in a sexually explicit way. Not worth the trouble. PS -- I'm going to be totally right about Nico next year lol.

admit it. you made a note of the day, time and location where you made this post, didn't you? Nope. I mean it's pretty easy to remember I said this. Not a big claim or something. If I said Jeremy Estrada will be our top prospect by the end of 2019 then that's a pretty damn bold statement lol. It's pretty easy to imagine Nico will be our top prospect next year. Easy call honestly.

Definitely will take that, even if there isn't much separating the 75th prospect from the 125th. So I just discovered some MLB teams make a composite of different prospect rankings (BA, MLB.com, Fangraphs, etc.) they place alongside their own evaluations/rankings. So this always helps when someone gets ranked on these lists.

I think we should lock this thread now and pretend like it never happened.

So Chatwood is screwed then huh?

It does indeed. I believe in 5 days or so. I'm curious about reports on Steele, Hoerner and Pereda. ---- I've been watching a lot of Hoerner and he's got great hands/strong wrists. He's very "handsy" as a hitter as scouts say. Problem with that approach is you might not hit for power that way... I think that's partially why he didn't hit for a lot of power in college. Not sure. Maybe it's his approach as well? I don't want the Cubs to mess with his swing until it's necessary. Maybe do the same thing with him as they did with Bote. Higher launch angle and that stuff, but it's too early to know if that's needed. I really like him and think he'll finish as our top prospect by the end of the 2019 season. EDIT: The AFL starts next week.

Yes, I know. And if we sign Harper I’m still going to be excited about it. I’m not vehemently opposed. So if you're against signing Harper then you're basically against any large contract for a significant FA. The Darvish deal can still work out and be a successful signing if he comes back healthy. Heyward was a bust. Lester has been awesome. So it's like 1 bust, 1 success and 1 incomplete right now.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/drawawalk/status/1047500740564987905[/tweet] Good drawing.

[tweet] [/tweet] [tweet]https://twitter.com/iamHectorDiaz/status/1047336796063854592[/tweet] lol

The last few years of Dexter got so fun-bad. I stopped at season 5. All reports indicate I did the right thing. I stopped after season 3. I asked friends to just give me the details on later seasons lol. I'm pretty sure I wasn't missing much.

You're right, that does sound crazy. I really want Heyward gone and it's going to be hard to get a team to bite without paying a good portion of his contract. We'll have to include a decent player/pitcher to do that. Again, not-so-fun-fact: Jose Quintana on the Cubs: 258 2/3 IP, 113 ER, 3.93 ERA overall.* John Lackey on the Cubs: 359 IP, 157 ER, 3.94 ERA overall. *I didn't include his FIP or xFIP numbers, but Quintana's FIP was 4.43 and xFIP was 4.18 for 2018. His ERA was 4.03.

who plays cf? Good question. I'm fine with Happ, but we'll need to sign a decent defensive backup outfielder as well. Someone like Leonys Martin.

Wow... just wow. Dodgers are going to get hit hard by MLB when this investigation is over.

I say sign Harper and Jed Lowrie and spend the rest on good relievers. Bring back Jesse Chavez and Cole Hamels. Send these players away in trades: Heyward Morrow Almora Caratini Duensing Chatwood Russell Kintzler (if he picks up his option) I think Morrow has good value if fully healthy (will have to take a physical to determine that). I don't care how you get rid of those guys: salary dump, bad contract swap, include an okay prospect or two, etc. I don't mind non-tendering Russell if no team is interested in him. horsefeathers him and cut him loose if that's the case.

Agreed but whats he going to say, "I hate money, I really hope the Cubs dont pick up my $20m option" :) Hamels has made plenty of money already. I think he cares more about competing for another ring and being on the right team at this point in his career. If that means taking less money to stay on the Cubs I definitely think he does exactly that. I'm pretty sure he's coming back on a 1+1 or a 2-year deal. Honestly, this might sound crazy to some, but I'd rather have Hamels over Quintana for the next two seasons. I'd totally be down with including Quintana as a sweetner to try to get a team to take Heyward in a trade package.

[tweet] [/tweet] Good. We need to bring him back.

Absolutely. So many free agents want to come here now because of the culture he's built. The camaraderie and how close the players are in this clubhouse is special. I'm glad Jesse Chavez feels that way.

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keep hiring red sox hitting coaches until one of them turns out to be good. fallback plan, skip the red sox hitting coaches and just steal their hitters instead. Savethe money on Bryce and pick up Mookie in 2 years, I'd be down for hiring Manny You think they're letting Mookie get away lol? Save the money we should spend on Bryce this offseason for the very slim chance we might be able to sign Mookie in a couple years? WTH???