Is this the same John Sickles that ranked prospects over at rotowire?
Nothing matches.

Along with Fox, what was it that made you drop Moore from last year's B-?

Didn't he get non-tendered?  Dunno if I missed him getting back with the Cubs.

Not even a David Eckstein type player?

Off the top of my head that looks very high for a guy that looks like he MIGHT be a solid 2B.

BABIP is an amazing thing.  Mark Reed had a .571 BABIP in April, followed by .339 and .405 in May and June.  On June 29, Kevin Goldstein listed him as 3rd Honorable Mention among all catching prospects in the minors (or 13th overall?  Here's the link: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5251).

Then, after posting BABIP's of .197 and .250 in July and August (thanks, Jeff Sackman), he doesn't even warrant mentioning among the top 31 Cubs.

Yikes!

P.S. I'm not saying he's great, or even that he was snubbed, but I do think he'll make next year's Cubs' top-20.  The Midwest league is a tough place to hit, and his defense is supposedly great... so, when he hits .270/.330/.355 next year at high-A (assuming he earns the promotion!), he'll get back on lists, I'm guessing.  He actually sort of reminds me of another lefty-hitting catcher in Chicago named "Mark" - Mark Johnson.

I know he was on the list last year. He had some control issues when he jumped from AA to the Cubs rotation this year. However Marmol obviously has great stuff. Mid to upper 90's fastball and a drop down 12-6 curveball. His future should be in late relief in all honesty. But when he is on. He looks like the reincarntion of Gregg Olsen in his prime. Stuff wise anyway.

It seems like catchers, especially the good-field good-pitch calling kind, often get the short end of the stick in these prospect evaluations.  Some of this is my bias towards those types.  Look at all of the playoff teams over the past couple of years and almost all of them had catchers that first and foremost could call a game.  Some also happened to be good hitters, but the common denominator was their fielding.  Look at Cubs pitching health and success with Barrett versus Miller/Bako.  The latter regularly got pitchers out of jams, saving their era's and their arms.  With the cost of pitching, that ability is beyond huge.  I've never seen Barrett as a guy who HELPS a pitcher.
So, having said that, I support the rating for Fox, who is like Barrett, but would encourage higher ratings for Soto and Chris Robinson, who are both good fielders by all accounts.  I don't know how good Reed is behind the plate, so I would encourage this criteria to factor heavily into his rating.

John, what do you think?

Ouch, no wonder the Cubs are locking up free agents long term.

John,

I was curious why you lowered Jae-Kuk Ryu's grade from last year. He seemed to enjoy a very good season for a 23-year-old in his first prolonged exposure to the Pacific Coast League.

Were you concerned about the slight slippage in his control, did you give more weight to his disastrous major-league debut, or did you develop a sudden affection for our fine-feathered friends?

All in all, not much I disagree with.  I think most Cubs fans recognize that our system, for the last few years, does a good job at producing "solid" guys, but few top tier guys, along with our base issues in developing positional talent.

I probably would've give Eric Patterson a B+.  I don't think he's on Pie and Veal's level yet.  For all the talk about his AAA and winter stats, they are small sample sizes.  His AA work indicate a lot more work is needed.  Certainly, he's improved, and he's cut down that swing from his college/A ball days.

I'm fine with Pawelek's B, but I tend to think more of his issues had to do with the mechanical changes he had to go through.  Certainly, he needs to be in better shape, but I don't think that was the biggest issue.

I probably would've given Colvin a B.  He had an extremely long year and had to adjust to wooden bats.  His defense was fine, including when he was in CF, although he is more suited to a corner role long run.  Either way, 2007 will be big years for several Cubs, including Colvin/Pawelek.

I would've put Ryu as a C+.  I just don't see a B- talent there.  He seems like, at best, an end of the rotation or pen arm type.  The loss of control in AAA is also worrisome, although I don't think it's that big an issue.

I probably would give Scott Moore a B-.  The overall defensive improvements plus maintaining consistency with his bat were good signs.  That said, I'm fine with a B-.

I certainly would not have Ryan Theriot as 10th in our system.  While we don't have a deep system, there's nothing real impressive about Ryan, outside of his hot start in the bigs.  I don't think that lasts.  His minor league numbers aren't that impressive.  I think he could be a nice utility player, and while we have system issues, I can't agree with him 10th.  For example,
I'd have Mateo ahead of him.  The drop in the K rate was quite worrisome in AA, but passable performance in the bigs indicate that he can probably still be an end of the rotation or perhaps a decent pen arm.

I'm fine with Atkins C+, but I think he also could've been ahead of Theriot.  He has a projectable body and decent stuff for the age.  Jake Fox's bat picked up after a slow start, and I think he deserves to be ahead of Theriot as well.

I found the comments on Rocky Cherry to be quite funny.  Not often you see that on righties.

All in all, pretty fair, and I'm probably nitpicking in a couple circumstances.

re: "I think most Cubs fans recognize that our system, for the last few years, does a good job at producing "solid" guys, but few top tier guys, along with our base issues in developing positional talent."

Actually, as a Cubs fan, I think the string of: Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Willis is pretty amazing.  And I disagree with the "producing 'solid guys'" comment, for the most part - which of the Cubs' 2nd-tier talent has come from the system?  Almost none.  It's been like the anti-Twins, bringing in players from everywhere else to fill even the smallest roles on the bench (I know that's not quite true, as usually there's a couple guys in the pen who came up through the system like Ohman and Wuertz).  Paying millions of dollars to crappy bit players because the farm hasn't developed any sub-$500k proxies for Daryl Ward or Henry Blanco is embarassing.

I guess I see the Cubs' strengths in their farm system as such: a) producing more potential front-line SP than most teams, b) producing a reasonable number of #4-type starters in the past couple years (some could be better... Nolasco, Pinto, Marmol, Marshall, Hill[likely better]), c) producing relievers who are functional, but not good enough to setup or close, d) marketing the guys who are in the system for the purpose of making advantageous trades (A-Ram, D-Lee, Nomar/Murton, not done so well with Pierre).

I think it's easy to suggest that the Cubs don't produce front-line talent because of the injuries, but just looking at the Active Career Pitching Leader lists (top 10), Wood, Zambrano, and Prior appear a LOT in the ratio categories (K/9, QS%, BAA, etc.)

What have we really had in the system, from say, 2004-2006?  I probably should've clarified my "last few years" comment with specific time frames.  But that's all I was really pointing to, the last 3 or so years, our system has lacked top tier talent.  The value in the system, over this span, had few top tier players.  

On a few specific points,

Willis, when he was dealt, he wasn't considered a top tier value.  A good value, and one that Hendry didn't want to deal, but Hendry didn't make that decision.  Even the Pierre trade, which was bad, didn't necessarily deal high ceiling guys.  I liked all three, but none of them were considered high value chips.  We've had some flops (Christensen, Brownlie, Johnson come to mind) over the last few years of some of our higher picks.

As Will Carroll and others have noted, over the last few years, our system's done a good job of producing "solid" talent, but few top tier guys.  This doesn't mean that there aren't guys who may eventually blossom.  Looking through our system right now, Veal/Pie are the only guys who have high value, and Veal isn't particularly considered to be one of the premier pitching prospects in baseball.  Now, if he gets the walks down, he may, but his value isn't there right now.

Even looking at who John had number 3, Gallagher.  I really like Gallagher, and coming into 2006, I thought he was extremely underrated.  Good stuff for 2005.  He's stepped it up a notch.  But even the best fans would say that he's not a frontline projection.

There are some guys with the raw tools in the system (Pawelek, Colvin, Samardzija if he plays, Huseby, perhaps Rundle, and maybe 1 or 2 more) with potential high value potential.  But they aren't there developmentally yet.

Sorry, this may be awkwardly worded as it's late (or early).  BUt in short, I'm looking at the recent few years.  Remember how the Wellemeyer/Mitre/Leicester grouping was discussed for awhile (was never a big Leicester fan ... he never produced that well in the minors to begin with).

is huseby recovered from his injury? what about billek..he was good his first year then his numbers were bad last year..is he that bad?

My only question about this ranking is why Veal is rated so highly. John may have seen him pitch more often than I have, but the "excellent stuff" comment seems counter to my observations.

Veal relies on his fastball quite a bit, and while it's a healthy low 90's two-seamer/four-seamer combo, I don't know if it's really going to be considered "excellent" against more advanced hitters who might not be thrown off by his delivery and know to just sit on his fastball since he is really struggling to put together his secondary pitches.

The inconsistent control and lack of any other average/plus pitch besides a solid fastball suggests Veal he has multiple hurdles to overcome before he can be successful at the highest levels of competition. The odds of him putting it all together seem low, particularly if you buy into the idea that his unorthodox delivery is causing some of these problems.

Good list.  I'm big on Patterson and think that some of the concerns people voice about him are overblown.

My thoughts:  I think Soto should be higher.  He's got a pretty low ceiling, but I think he will be a decent backup catcher at the big league level, and is good defensively and a good signal-caller.  In a pretty lousy system, I think he's definitely a top-20 player.  Apparently the Cubs don't agree since they keep throwing lots of money at mediocre backup catchers.

I like Holliman more than some guys ahead of him in this list.  Can't really say why - just a gut feeling.  Rundle actually shows plate discipline, and while he's raw, I think he could be promising.  Larry Suarez was a fairly expensive Venezuelan signing, but I'm guessing there's not a lot of info on him yet.

A couple of questions.  Who do you think the Cubs should look at with the #3 (overall) pick in 2007?  And, how would some the two pitchers who barely used up their eligibility (Marmol and Guzman) rank on this list?  I'm especially interested in Guzman and whether you think his stuff is as good as it once was.