Cubs Prospects

Here's the latest Cubs prospects list from John Sickels.

Baseball America has listed their top 10 Cubs prospects....drumroll please...

For the third year running, I go through the various prospect lists. I've also started compiling them at Wiklifield.

Five-Star Prospects
1. Josh Vitters, 3B
Four-Star Prospects
2. Jeff Samardzjia,RHP
3. Jose Ceda, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
4. Hak-Ju Lee, SS
5. Andrew Cashner, RHP
6. Tyler Colvin, OF
7. Dae-Eun Rhee, RHP
8. Ryan Flaherty, SS
Two-Star Prospects
9. Welington Castilo, C
10. Donald Veal, LHP
11. Micah Hoffpauir, 1B

Just Missing: Matt Cerda, INF; Jay Jackson, RHP; Logan Watkins, INF

Sleeper: Kyler Burke

What They Say: The Cubs are a very tough team to rank. That said, the top three prospects on my initial snapshot never moved, and you see them exactly where they started. Everything after that is a bit of a mess however, as one could jumble up the players ranked fourth through eleventh in any order and make some kind of reasonable argument for all.

The BA Top 10 came out yesterday...and surprise! Josh Vitters is #1.

1. Josh Vitters
2. Jeff Samardzija
3. Andrew Cashner
4. Dae-Eun Rhee
5. Welington Castillo
6. Kevin Hart
7. Starlin Castro
8. Ryan Flaherty
9. Jay Jackson
10. Hak-Ju Lee 

UPDATE: Arizona Phil's much anticipated top 15 list was kind of lost in the shuffle yesterday with the Kevin Gregg trade, so I'm putting it up top for the weekend. Obviously it was done before Ceda got traded, so Phil will have to drop by with #16 and you can move everyone else up one.

I also wanted to add, and sorry if it's a repeat, that the Cubs 6th round pick of 2006 Joshua Lansford has moved from third base to the pitcher's mound as of Instructionals last month. Word comes from friend of TCR, Steve Holley at Inside the Ivy. (Rob G.)

Using the criteria Baseball America uses to rate their Top Ten prospects (50 MLB IP and 130 MLB AB limit, but not concerned with MLB service time), here are my Top 15 Cubs prospects pre-2009. It's just my opinion,and I'm sure many of you have your own idea of who should be where. I probably tend to place greater weight on players at the higher levels, although I do consider players further down the pipeline as well...    

Last year we did 19 questions with Inside the Ivy's Steve Holley. Due to budget cuts and the recession, we paired it down to 10 this year. You can find a list of their top 20 Cubs prospects either here or here.

1. Let's start right at the top, you named Tyler Colvin as the Cubs top prospect. What position do you think he'll end up playing in the majors and how worried should I be about that Ryan Harvey-esque 4:875:1 K/BB ratio

There has always been a good deal of emphasis placed on the strikeouts totals of low to mid-level minor league players. But if you want a player to develop into the type of hitter that Colvin projects as (lets say 20-25 HR potential), you are more often than not going to have to accept that strikeouts come with the territory. That doesn’t mean that Colvin is content with striking out. Working to lower them has always been at the top of his priority list, and toward the end of last season, he made a few adjustments in his approach that seemed to help him see more pitches and get into some good counts.

I believe he’s capable of playing any of the three outfield positions (though center is most ideal), but where he ends up may depend a lot on what Felix Pie does, or perhaps what the organization decides to do with Pie. On an unrelated note, Colvin got a little behind the eight-ball in spring training with a nagging elbow problem toward the end of his stint in big league camp. That could explain his slow start this season.

Just like I did last year, a rundown of the various prospect lists out there.

Five-Star Prospects
1. Geovany Soto, C
2. Josh Vitters, 3B
Four-Star Prospects
None
Three-Star Prospects
3. Donald Veal, LHP
4. Jose Ceda, RHP
5. Josh Donaldson, C
6. Sean Gallagher, RHP
7. Tyler Colvin, OF
8. Eric Patterson, 2B/OF
9. Welington Castillo, C
10. Tony Thomas, 2B
Two-Star Prospects
11. Jeff Samardzija, RHP

Just Missing: Kevin Hart, RHP; Chris Huseby, RHP; Larry Suarez, RHP

Sleeper: Kyler Burke

What They Say: Colvin is a below-average center fielder range-wise, and many feel he'll need to move to a corner in short order. That leaves him as a bit of a tweener--his swing-at-anything approach led to just five walks in 62 Double-A games, which is not enough of an offensive force to play in a corner everyday. Lefties give him significant troubles, and he adjusts by shortening his swing, which costs him any chance at power against them.

Baseball America released their top 10 prospects from the Chicago Cubs farm system which sort of culminates the prospect ranking season. Most lists exclude players who played enough to qualify for Rookie of the Year honors, thus the Cubs system becomes a bit difficult to analyze since players like Angel Guzman, Sean Marshall, Carlos Marmol and Juan Mateo would all probably get top 10 mentions (or close to it) but are disregarded although they'll most certainly start their seasons in the minors. Each list has their way own of weighing the players and if known, I'll give it a brief mention. To the lists:

Baseball America Top 30 (The Top 30 are published in their prospect handbook)

Criteria: Stress tools and ceiling over stats, speak to a lot of scouts, can be guilty of relying on reputation over substance on occassion.

1. Felix Pie
2. Donald Veal
3. Tyler Colvin
4. Jeff Samardzija
5. Sean Gallagher
6. Eric Patterson
7. Scott Moore
8. Ryan Harvey
9. Chris Huseby
10. Mark Pawelek
11. Juan Mateo
12. Brian Dopirak
13. Jae-kuk Ryu
14. Mark Reed
15. Drew Rundle
16. Rocky Cherry
17. Geovany Soto
18. Billy Petrick
19. Dylan Johnston
20. Josh Lansford
21. Sammy Baez
22. Chris Robinson
23. Mark Holliman
24. Jake Fox
25. Larry Suarez
26. Rocky Roquet
27. Sam Fuld
28. Scott Taylor
29. Mitch Atkins
30. Mike Fontentot What They Say: Not much, I guess you have to pay to join the chat to get analysis. What I Say: Mark Reed, Geovany Soto and Mike Fontentot make appearances which are all very odd. I want Fontenot to succeed as much as the next guy but his own team won't even put him on their 40-man roster, he wasn't selected in the Rule V draft by any other team and he didn't even get a spring training invite. They also seem rather low on Pawelek.