Keith Law has just published his top 50 prospects at the midway point of the 2013 season. The Cubs have a number of players in that list.
15. Kris Bryant
20. Jorge Soler
25. Albert Almora
27. Javier Baez
One of the honorable mentions is Arismendy Alcantara
That's a lot of talent in the minor leagues. Too bad Mark Appel wasn't available as he's the number 9 prospect in baseball. Not a whole lot of difference between 9 and 15, but Appel's path the big leagues is much clearer.
The Cubs MLB team has sucked for awhile now, but the farm system has definitely improved. Unfortunately, there remains a lack of starting pitching talent in the system that the Cubs will need to address one way or another.
For what it's worth, it sounds like Baseball America agrees that Kris Bryant is now the Cubs top prospect so Law isn't alone.
UPDATE: Law's Top 50 is below
1. Byron Buxton, Twins
2. Oscar Taveras, Cardinals
3. Xander Bogaerts, Red Sox
4. Miguel Sano, Twins
5. Francisco Lindor, Indians
6. Addison Russsell, A's
7. Carlos Correa, Astros
8. Archie Bradley, Dbacks
9. Mark Appel, Astros
10. Taijuan Walker, M's
11. Dylan Bundy, O's
12. Christian Yelich, Marlins
13. Jameson Taillon, Pirates
14. Kyle Zimmer, Royals
15. Kris Bryant, Cubs
16. Corey Seager, Dodgers
17. Gregory Polanco, Pirates
18. Aaron Sanchez, Blue Jays
19. Kevin Gausman, O's
20. Jorge Soler, Cubs
20. Garin Cecchini, Red Sox
22. Nick Castellanos, Tigers
23, Jonathon Gray, Rockies
24. Jackie Bradley, Jr., Red Sox
25. Albert Almora, Cubs
26. Robert Stephenson, Reds
27. Javier Baez, Cubs
28. Eddie Butler, Rockies
29. George Springer, Astros
30. Kohl Stewart, Twins
31. Henry Owens, Red Sox
32. Michael Wacha, Cards
33. Jonathan Singleton, Astros
34. Noah Syndergaard, Mets
35. Taylor Guerrieri, Rays
36. Alen Hanson, Pirates
37. Kyle Crick, Giants
38. Alex Meyer, Twins
39. Jake Marisnick, Marlins
40. Raul Mondesi, Jr. Royals
41. Eddie Rosario, Twins
42. Jessie Biddle, Phillies
43. Luc Giolito, Nats
44. Eduardo Rodriguez, O's
45. Austin Hedges, Padres
46. Mike Foltynecwicz, Astros
47. Andrew Heaney, Marlins
48. Max Fried, Padres
49. Gary Sanchez, Yankees
50. Lucas Sims, Braves
Comments
The Astros have 2 in Law’s top 10: Carlos Correa at 7th, Appel at 9th.
NL Central:
Cardinals have 2: Oscar Tavares (2), MIchael Wacha (32)
Reds: Robert Stephenson (26)
Pirates: Jameson Taillon (13), Gregory Polanco (17), Alex Hanson (36)
Brewers: none
dmick89Quote Reply
Suburban kid wrote:
There should be. PIP (pussies in play), S/F% (suck to fuck ratio), etc.
MuckerQuote Reply
I know I’m a Javy apologist, but I hate him as the lowest ranked of the Cubs’ Big 4. Furthest along in the system, highest ceiling, and has shown legitimate adjustments since coming out of his slow start this season.
sitrick2Quote Reply
@ Myles:
All DBs should go to Texas. LBs should go to Florida. DL should go to Alabama or UNC.
If I’m an OL, I’m going to Wisconsin.
RynoQuote Reply
post updated with top 50
dmick89Quote Reply
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9488348/michael-weiner-mlbpa-head-says-union-protect-ped-users
Interesting quote towards the bottom:
So basically the union is viewing MLB’s attempt to unilaterally suspend PED users as a generic suspension of bad behavior, akin to a DUI or a racist tweet. Well, not a DUI, we know those aren’t frowned upon, but you get the idea.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ sitrick2:
Here’s what he said about Baez:
He obviously thinks the talent is there, but he also sees a big hole in his game, which I think I’ve pointed out 500 times too many. Great potential, probably the highest in the system all things considered, but super super risky. Learns to walk and he’s got a legit chance to be a superstar. Doesn’t walk more than he has and a legit chance he’s a backup.
If I was to do a ratings thingy again, pretty sure Baez comes out on top because he is at AA already. However, I can easily see him being 4th considering how high a lot of people are on Almora.
dmick89Quote Reply
Another Top 50 without Trevor Bauer. He really has taken a huge hit.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
not sure about law, but some of them aren’t including guys who have played in the majors this year
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
evidently not the case for law, as jbj cracks the top 50
GWQuote Reply
sickels has his list up today, as well.
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Absolutely agree with all of those things, and expected Javy’s stock to drop. But Bryant hasn’t played a professional game yet, Soler’s been out for a month and had been slumping for another month or so before then, and Almora’s still at Kane County. Just seems weird to rank Baez at the bottom of the pile, especially when his approach has absolutely gotten a lot better since coming out of early slump this season.
But like I said, I’m a Baez apologist. I like the at-bats he’s putting together, even since getting to Tennessee, and I think his play will clear all this up by the end of the season.
sitrick2Quote Reply
Agreed with Sitrick2
bubblesdachimpQuote Reply
@ sitrick2:
Law had Baez at 31 prior to the season so he has moved him up. He had Almora at 33 and Soler at 42. Considering that, I am surprised he’s below the other two now. I guess I’d guess Bryant-Baez, but not sure how he’s going from Baez at the top before the season to below the other two now.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GW:
His doesn’t include 2013 draftees so I’m curious where Sickels would put Bryant.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GW:
He’s got Jackie Bradley, Wacha, and Gausman (“How the hell do they know I got gas?”) on his list.
GBTSQuote Reply
Besides, we could argue all day about the order of the prospects. Some analysts (and scouts) will like certain players over other ones. It doesn’t really matter. There’s not a whole hell of a lot of difference between being ranked 15th and 27th. Truthfully, there’s not a lot of difference once you get outside the top 5 to 10 most years. Anyone in the 11 to 30ish range could really be in any order depending on your mood. And really, there’s not a whole hell of a lot of difference between the top 5 or so either. I’d say they’ve separated themselves a bit from the next group, but the differences between them are probably small most years. Here’s what you need to to know.
Baez: great bat speed, huge power, better glove than expected, poor plate discipline
Soler: fantastic arm, above average power, good athlete, plate discipline is OK.
Almora: good power for his age and level, great athlete, good hitter, poor plate discipline
Bryant: tons and tons of power, mixed reviews on his defense and ability to hit, above average discipline in college
Here’s another quote from Law that makes you wonder how much has really changed.
dmick89Quote Reply
aside: http://obstructedview.net/aside/john-sickels-2013-midseason-top-75-prospects.html
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Totally forgot he had him ranked that low at pre-season. Makes things make a little more sense for me. The order is still strange to me, but meh.
sitrick2Quote Reply
@ sitrick2:
I agree it’s a little strange considering his pre-season rankings. Like I said though, there’s really no point in arguing about who is ranked higher than who. The Cubs have 4 prospects who are really fucking good and another one in Alcantara who is a top 75 prospect. Maybe they even have another guy in the top 100. Pretty good. Also, it’s fairly clear the top 4 have separated themselves from the rest.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
He’s being awful disingenuous with that quote, I think. There’s still a lot of Hendry left in this farm system, and for the most part I think the guys they’ve acquired have been more patient. We knew Almora wouldn’t walk much when he was drafted, if I recall it was just that his makeup and instincts were so good they didn’t feel like they could pass on him.
Would be shocked if Bryant all of the sudden becomes a giant hacker, but I guess these things happen.
sitrick2Quote Reply
I wouldn’t mind seeing Alcantara bumped to AAA. He’s hit very well in AA and I don’t expect him to continue the kind of power he’s show this year, I’m not sure he really has much else to prove in AA.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ sitrick2:
I agree in a way. Baez was drafted by the previous front office, but their first pick (Almora) is just as bad at taking pitches.
As for Bryant’s patience, I don’t think we have the foggiest clue what it’s like based on this past season. We know for sure that teams were just pitching around him non-stop and that they finally moved him to the leadoff spot so he could get pitches once per game.
dmick89Quote Reply
sitrick2 wrote:
We did? High school prospects are notoriously hard to judge on plate discipline. IIRC, Keith Law doesn’t even try anymore, it’s just too difficult.
As to the rest, yeah, it’s definitely holdovers for the most part. Soler has been fine in that regard.
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
Mostly I just remember on the draft night coverage before the pick was made hearing a lot of people discuss his lack of plate discipline and that it was going to be something he would have to work on in pro ball. Callis at least definitely mentioned this, maybe more, my memory’s a bit foggy.
(I remember all this mostly because I remember asking myself the same questions about why a sabermetric oriented front office was going after a guy with patience issues.)
sitrick2Quote Reply
Here was BA’s scouting report on Almora prior to the draft.
dmick89Quote Reply
Man, if I was a Brewers fan, I’d be pretty suicidal right about now. Clearly the worst team in the NL Central with clearly the worst farm system in the NL Central and close to the smallest payroll in the NL Central. Woof.
MylesQuote Reply
I actually don’t remember much about Almora’s patience at the time of the draft. I’d be curious to know if BA actually talks about that for high school players.
dmick89Quote Reply
Baez at draft time:
dmick89Quote Reply
I searched for the word “patience” on BA’s 2011 draft 1st round and it was only mentioned once (juco 2nd baseman). “Discipline” had 2 players, both of which were 4-year college players.
That skill can be mentioned in other ways, but those are probably the most common.
dmick89Quote Reply
GBTS wrote:
RynoQuote Reply
BA did mention patience for Carlos Correa this year, but no other players in 2012 in the 1st round (or discipline).
Interesting. I would assume this is because of what @ GW said.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
RynoQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
RynoQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I wasn’t a BA reader at the time; this would have been in the draft night MLB Network coverage.
sitrick2Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
There’s no way for an outsider to know any of this stuff, but I’d be interested to know what changes the current front office has made in terms of player development policy. I think that MLB teams in general have gotten better about thinking through how to best develop players, but I think that could be an area where you could get an edge if you wanted to. (I suspect that the Cardinals are doing something differently than other teams and that’s one of the main reasons why they’ve been able to produce their conga line of young hitters coming up from Memphis over the last few years.)
Every once in a while, you hear about the way minor league players are handled and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You’re talking about signing a guy with a $6 million bonus, and then stashing him in Boise with $10 a day for meal money and a virtually nonexistent training staff? That seems like a poorly considered decision. I’d think that a forward-thinking club would want to treat its young players like assets and give them top-flight facilities and access to advanced training and nutrition facilities from the day they are signed.
As usual, I have no data to back this up, but it does seem like the Cubs are being more restrained with respect to player movement in the minors this year. I wonder if that’s an intentional thing, where they’re weighing the developmental cost of keeping a guy at the wrong level against that of the adjustment that comes from moving across the country, getting a new set of teammates and coaches, and so on. These are basically kids, after all, and many of them are still adjusting to living away from home, or even in the United States. I think that off-field issues have more of an effect on performance than most have previously considered. (Especially Baseball Men, many of whom are proud knuckle-draggers when it comes to this type of thing.)
All of this is conjecture and it may just be the case that the club can’t be fucked to move Alcantara to Iowa. I’m hoping that the Cubs are using their resources to figure stuff like this out, though.
uncle daveQuote Reply
Honestly though, how much time does Keith Law spend watching a prospect? Also, what’s the point of picking out walks in Almora’s game when he gets on base already at a .371 clip?
A player who hits .331 and his OBP is .371 is a better offensive player than one that hits .270 with a .371 OBP (all other things being equal).
JonKneeVQuote Reply
uncle dave wrote:
RynoQuote Reply
So, I guess Tim Lincecum is a free agent after this season. Should the Cubs pursue?
EdwinQuote Reply
uncle dave wrote:
that reminds me of the article where it was revealed that logan watkins had never tried, among other things, milk, guacamole, oatmeal, yogurt, apple pie, blueberry pie, or oranges. he said that he just at PB&J sandwiches every day at the clubhouse. my first reaction was surprise because i had just kind of assumed that the team had a professional chef/caterer who would be providing all sorts of super healthy options for the team. seems really odd to let a kid eat nothing but PB&J when you just shelled out a $3.2m signing bonus (i think that’s what watkins got).
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
@ JonKneeV:
To be fair to Law, here’s what he said about Almora: Anyway, Almora doesn’t walk much, but he’s got great feel for the bat, making a lot of hard contact, and plays plus defense in center.
The rest of what he said seemed to be about the Cubs system, or at least the upper echelon of the team’s prospects. He does say he doesn’t walk much, but it’s true. Almora has not walked much at all. Is it a big concern? No, not yet, which is why Law thinks so highly of him.
dmick89Quote Reply
Edwin wrote:
As with anything, depends on price. There are worse dice-rolls at 10 million in a single year, but if he wants anything over a pair of years to rebuild his value there’s almost no way you can say yes to that.
MylesQuote Reply
GWQuote Reply
A tweet so nice you posted it twice
MylesQuote Reply
GW, just wanted to say, your coverage of the draft/IFA has been pretty excellent. Really, really great stuff.
MylesQuote Reply
@ EnricoPallazzo:
Seriously, how the fuck do you get through life without ever drinking milk?
There seems to be at least some sort of modest effort being made to help international players get acclimated, but I’d have to think that the difference between kids drafted straight out of high school and ones who went to college would be pretty stark as well. If you go to a major university on a baseball scholarship, you have access to nutritional support and all sorts of other resources to get you used to adult life and the rigors of high-level athletics. Most high school kids don’t get any of that, and most guys who wind up playing in the minors don’t have a ton of cash to find help dealing with stuff like nutrition.
Not that it isn’t possible for any 18-22 year old to completely fuck up the basics of everyday life, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that one of the reasons why college draftees pan out a little more often than high school kids is stuff like that. It also makes me think that makeup is pretty important, too.
uncle daveQuote Reply
Myles wrote:
+ 3.1415926
uncle daveQuote Reply
@ Myles:
Ditto
dmick89Quote Reply
@ uncle dave:
Eyeliner especially.
joshQuote Reply
I’m sure I’ll be wrong, but I just don’t see TEX having interest in Garza.
RynoQuote Reply
uncle dave wrote:
RynoQuote Reply
Ryno wrote:
GBTSQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
Too confident?
RynoQuote Reply
@ Ryno:
I doubt #RangersRepublic will be very happy with a deal if one happens.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Ryno:
THE RUMOR MILL NEVER LIES!
joshQuote Reply
According to Twitter, Junior Lake just got called up… .things could be happening finally.
joshQuote Reply
@ Myles:
Thanks
GWQuote Reply
@ josh:
Is that a basic, though?
uncle daveQuote Reply
@ josh:
This will be interesting.
dmick89Quote Reply
Just checked out twitter. Kind of funny how excited Cubs fans are that Junior Lake may be called up.
dmick89Quote Reply
C’mon Twitter. You’re killing me. It’s almost time to go and you drop potential news. Not cool Zeus.
joshQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
THE TEAM’S ABOUT TO GET SHITTIER WOO!!
joshQuote Reply
josh wrote:
youtube.com/watch?v=8-9JV9mNYAw#t=30s
GBTSQuote Reply
@ josh:
I don’t know if he makes them worse (depending on who they trade). I just don’t think he’s going to be very good. A couple years ago I thought he would be, but he’s fallen quite a bit IMO.
dmick89Quote Reply
BOOOOOO!
joshQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
He doesn’t have the power to play 3rd base and probably doesn’t have the offense overall either. Maybe he could stick in CF, but that’s probably about it.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
I just meant if his callup signalled a Garza or Sori trade. He may not actually be worse than Sori.
joshQuote Reply
@ Ryno:
apparently they are pursuing Bud Norris, as well, per Jeff Passan
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
In general, the trades they make are going to make the team worse. At least for now.
joshQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Basically my thoughts as well. I mean cool, I guess.
MishQuote Reply
josh wrote:
http://youtu.be/-7aIf1YnbbU
uncle daveQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Glad you were able to clarify that for you.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ uncle dave:
I read a book a couple years ago by an economist about this same thing in European soccer. A couple teams started getting relocation specialists for their international signees to help them adjust to life in Europe. This is particularly true for 17yo kids who go form being dirt poor in Brazil or Africa to being millionaires in some European capital. Even though they had a ton of money, they needed help form the team finding apartments, helping their families deal with visas, language, and food. This is bound to be true for baseball players from Latin America – particularly tough given their move to podunk towns like Daytona, Boise, Des Moines, etc.. Not exactly the types of towns you’d expect to have executive relocation services, consulates, or anything easily available for athletes. And then you’ve got the issue of kids who are all-world athletes but have been living at home suddenly being on their own and traveling a lot. The occasional life fuck-up is bound to be just as frequent of a setback for these guys as the inability to take a walk.
26.2cubfanQuote Reply
@ 26.2cubfan:
One thing to keep in mind with Latin American baseball players is that they’re signed when they’re 15 or 16 years old. The organizations work with them until they’re 18 and can come to the US. I don’t know what they do as far as preparing them for the move and I know nothing about soccer, but they do have quite a bit of time to do this prior to even moving them here. Of course there’s still the acclimation of the new home, but preparation can go a long way. They could already be taking care of VISAs for family members and such.
dmick89Quote Reply
Assuming that the Cubs are still pursuing IFA space, I wonder if the Rangers would try to trade away theirs, given that they are going into the penalty regardless.
As far as I can tell, the rules say that you can’t acquire more space once you’ve reached your limit, but I don’t recall anything about trading away space afterwards. I’m sure it would piss Selig off, but it might not be against the rules, given that there are no real connections between slots and players signed.
GWQuote Reply
http://web.usabaseball.com/video/play.jsp?topic_id=37145162&content_id=52465262
live feed of US vs Cuba, in case anyone is interested. potential 2014 #1 overall Carlos Rodon pitching for the US.
GWQuote Reply
New shit http://obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/cubs-and-rangers-getting-closer-to-trading-matt-garza.html
dmick89Quote Reply
This list is pure comedy. Mark Appel at number 9 and the 2nd best pitching prospect in the game? Keith must have been huffing duster before he sat down to bang this list out. Noah Syndergaard at number 34?? That’s the lowest ranking I’ve seen for him in a minute. Dude only started the futures game on Sunday and flat out dominated. He’s dominating AA since his promotion and is honestly good enough to be in the Show RIGHT NOW. But then again Keith is the same dude who in 2011 said Brett Wallace was the 9th best prospect in the game. http://www.faketeams.com/2011/7/15/2277118/keith-laws-updated-top-50-prospect-list
ZachQuote Reply
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