Why They Are Here: As bad a year as the Cubs had at the big-league level, that's how good a year they had down on the farm, as 2008 draftees stepped forward, international signees shined, and plenty of others stepped forward. Throw in a first-round draft steal in Brett Jackson, and things are looking very, very up.With few (if any) top prospects likely to graduate this year (looks like Castro and Cashner have outside chances), the Cubs could be even higher next year, which is an exciting thing if you're a member of what the Cardinal fanbase likes to call the Hyperventilating Prospect Geek Fraternity (HPGF for short).
Where They Will Be Next Year: Chances are good that all of these players should still be eligible next year, and while I don't see the true star potential in Starlin Castro that others do, it's reasonable to expect good performances from Josh Vitters and Hak-Ju Lee. The aging big-league team needs help now, but this might take awhile.
BP's Organizational Rankings and Links
Illinois engineering student, way too emotionally invested in the Cubs.
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Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein, one of the the top prospect writers out there, ranked the Cubs farm system 8th on his organizational rankings today (subscription required), up from 26th last season.
Elsewhere in the prospect world, Carrie Muskat pens the most Starlin
Castro-centric Darwin
Barney feature of all time, which is aptly subtitled 'Cubs
infielder overshadowed by top prospect Castro and mentions Castro by
name about a dozen times. Sorry Darwin, maybe next time you'll get
interviewed about, you know, yourself.
And at the Tribune, Paul Sullivan writes a pretty bland piece about James Russell and John Gaub and their quests for bullpen jobs. Synopsis: Angel Guzman is hurt, Lou Piniella is looking for a replacement, Gaub and Russell are hoping to win the spot. You know everything else already.
Also, I realized I never linked the Barney/Blanco comparison done by MB21 at Another Cubs Blog, in which he concludes that Barney is pretty useless right now and Blanco is better. I would tend to disagree with his assertion that Blanco is a better hitter than Barney, but I have no solid argument until the stats back me up, which I think they will after this season. I expect Barney to improve by a good amount on his Iowa stats and raise his stock.
And at the Tribune, Paul Sullivan writes a pretty bland piece about James Russell and John Gaub and their quests for bullpen jobs. Synopsis: Angel Guzman is hurt, Lou Piniella is looking for a replacement, Gaub and Russell are hoping to win the spot. You know everything else already.
Also, I realized I never linked the Barney/Blanco comparison done by MB21 at Another Cubs Blog, in which he concludes that Barney is pretty useless right now and Blanco is better. I would tend to disagree with his assertion that Blanco is a better hitter than Barney, but I have no solid argument until the stats back me up, which I think they will after this season. I expect Barney to improve by a good amount on his Iowa stats and raise his stock.
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2 Comments
G. Guest said:
Not to be a jerk, but do you have permission from BP to re-post what you acknowledge to be content that they require a paid subscription to read?
Matt Swain said:
Gavin,
I agree that there's a limit on how much I should re-print and I try to respect that. Certainly there are many websites out there that give away much more and it wouldn't be hard to find this same information elsewhere.
But the net benefit of me linking to BP and endorsing a subscription (which I do quite often) along with enhancing Goldstein's reputation as an expert outweighs the value they lose when I give away 4 sentences of an 1,800 word article. I'm sure they would agree, and I would also posit that if it weren't for people linking and giving clips from their work, they wouldn't be nearly the online presence they are today.
Again, what you saw is about the upper limit of what I would ever repost from a subscription article. But the internet is based on a certain amount of sharing and I would have to think BP would appreciate any traffic I steer in their direction. If they were opposed to it, I'd be glad to take it down, but I just don't think they would be.
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