I think a few things:
- The Cubs' farm currently is very top-heavy heavy, so Conrad not becoming their new top prospect (and I'd argue not even in the top 5) doesn't do him as many favors with the fans as adding the same exact guy to a much crappier farm
- Also, more broadly, picking 17th you're likely done with all the Wow guys in a draft unless you accept a healthy dose of risk (the health of Gage Wood's shoulder for instance)
- The team's Top 30 prospects is going to likely have 5 or 6 new names on it. For a system that has become pretty thin (and will probably get thinner over the next few weeks) there was some need to go quantity over quality
- The Cubs are *HEAVY* into using Statcast data in their draft model. The problem is for amateurs that's only out there in pockets, not in some nice central database like BaseballSavant. So it's been kind of inevitable the last two drafts for some random Twitter account with 600 followers obsessed with Tennesee Baseball or whatever to chime in that such and such guy has 98th percentile contact and 85th percentile power to help explain the "Why" behind a 6th round pick. It often takes the Twitter sleuths like Greg Z time to find these nuggets of info (and the state of Twitter certainly isn't helping here)