Cubs Top Prospects

 

Recently I saw an article from Baseball Prospectus that has been commented on in other places.  It lists the top twenty minor league prospects in the organization and discusses the top ten in some detail.  All I can say is that if this is the best, we really don’t know the half of what a mess Jim Hendry and company have made of the minor league system.

I want to state right off that, as readers of this blog know, I am an advocate of the Bill James/sabermetric method of evaluating talent.  There are many variants of this school of thought, but one thing they all have in common – and one thing the new leadership of the organization undoubtedly seconds – is that there is nothing more important than not making outs and showing patience and discipline at the plate.  A corollary to this judgment is that it is very hard to teach this skill, especially at the major league level.

Having said that, it is astonishing how many of the higher-rated hitters seem to be entirely lacking in this respect.  Kevin Goldstein, the author, rates only one player, Brett Jackson, as a five-star prospect.  Jackson ought to be playing CF or RF next year, hopefully right out of spring training.

Of the rest, there are seven hitters among them.  Only a few do not have the knock of being overly aggressive, strikes out a lot, swings at everything, out of control, etc., attached to the commentary.  These include Javier Baez (“rarely took pitches—even bad ones—in high school”), Wellington Castillo, Matt Szczur (“has a very poor approach at the plate”), Josh Vitters (“sabotages himself at the plate by swinging at far too many bad pitches”), Jaimer Candelario, Marco Hernandez, and Junior Lake (“a complete mess at the plate with very little discipline”).

This list doesn’t even include former hot prospect Tyler Colvin, whose shortcomings were all too obvious at all levels last season.  The problem with plate discipline is that it is very difficult to teach the higher a player advances in the system and the older he gets.

I’d have to say right now that Castillo, Candelario, and Hernandez are the most likely of this group to have a major league future with the Cubs, as well as, of course, Brett Jackson.  The rest are very unlikely to make the grade here, though Baez may be young enough to be turned around if he is teachable.  Look for many of these names, including Colvin, to turn up as throw-ins or overrated minor leaguers in future deals.

Just as an aside, you have to wonder why the Cubs have retained the highly compensated and highly regarded hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo.  Since their banner year of 2008, when the team scored 855 runs and had an OBP of .354, they have seen a steady decline in performance.

707 runs, .332 OBP in 2009; 685 runs, .320 OBP in 2010; 654 runs, .314 OBP in 2011.  2010 and 2011 were Rudy’s stats.  Not too good, even accounting for the decline in talent and player skills during those years.