Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus came out with their Top 100 Prospects lists today. No real surprises. The Cubs have four prospects on the BA list: Brett Jackson at #32, Anthony Rizzo at #47, Javier Baez at #51, and Matt Szczur at #64. BP has the same players as BA, but the rankings are lower and Szczur is not on it.
That's about average performance for a big league franchise. There are 32 teams, so having three ranked prospects would be average. Two things are disturbing for Cubs fans if these ratings carry any weight in the real world. One is that they have no one in the top ten or top twenty. The other is there are no pitchers among their ranked players.
The Cubs used to be famous for developing pitchers and little else from their farm system and this was regarded as a strength. One sure and cheap way to build from within is to develop top notch pitchers from your farm system. The Cubs have not been doing this lately and it has shown on the field. Conception might make this list down the road, but there isn't a whole lot else out there.
I rather look for Epstein and Hoyer to be drafting college pitchers hard in this year's amateur draft.
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