Chicago Cubs Preliminary Prospect List

I see him 4th on that post above.

for an arm injury, I believe. I want to say shoulder, but I could be way off. There wasn’t much news leaking out about it.

I liked him enough last year, but with the injury, and with the lack of an overpowering fastball, he profiles more as a middle reliever, and I’m fine with him off the list.

I don’t remember all my conversations online, but I feel like we talked about him in the summer, and while I have personal bias and hope he does well, what separates him from Luis Liria? I’ll leave Peralta/Paulino/Arias/Cruz and others out of it, since all those guys are raw, but Liria arguably has better upside and showed a decent feel for things in Peoria, and even he’s on the outside looking in for John’s list, and I wasn’t going to fight that hard to get Liria on here.

long time dtpolitt. his control was always an issue dating back to his days as a starter. from what I gather, he just had a trying time finding consistency this year. He goes to the 4-seamer a bit more, as he can just let it rip, as you know, but I always felt the 2-seamer was much better for him than the 4-seamer.

He goes have elite closing potential with his stuff, and I do expect his command will bounce back a bit, but I don’t know if he’ll ever find the consistency to be a dominant year to year closer. Command/control was an issue even before the collapse this year.

I’m also still clinging, barely, onto the Darvill train as well (why, I don’t know … I guess I recall seeing some clips of Darvill was a Canadian prepster and being intrigued). I like Geiger, but there’s some bad reviews about his glove at 3rd, so if he’s a first baseman, the bat’s really going to have to shine a bit more, and the power is going to have to come. And I want to say his swing is, for lack of a better term right now, a bit loopy. I expect the Cubs may give him a longer look at 3rd to start 2012 (while I’d love to see Marco Hernandez at Peoria to start, I’m thinking Geiger may get 3rd to start, with Baez at short).

I’m in agreement with John for leaving him off. He’s in that 50-70 range for me, but as I’ve said elsewhere, wouldn’t surprise me if a handful of the 50-80 guys this year end up being better than some of the top 10 guys. There’s a fair amount of upside that’s just in the development stage that needs to be molded, and it’s hard to rank those guys high this year. For example, as RynoRooter noted in the other thread, the early talk on Jose Arias is fairly intriguing, but it’s only instructs reviews right now, so for me, I’m waiting to see, but he’s a guy that could make a huge jump next year.

so i can’t blame John leaving them off when I don’t have them in the top 30, because the back end of the top 30 was the start of the C’s, and thus, it’s fairly muddied up there and a lot is personal opinion.

Cruz/Raley/Harman/Rosscup/Hicks/Del Valle are all, relatively speaking, “soft-tossing” lefties. I’d actually take several of those ahead of Kirk/Jokisch personally, but Kirk had a strong run and draft pedigree, and John had his reasons for taking Jokisch (above). I am curious how a healthy Rosscup/Hicks do, and curious if Cruz gets stronger and better command.

After a red-hot start, Bour simply collapsed and looked a lot worse at the plate later in the year. For a corner guy with poor physique, tough to place him high. I mean, is Bour better than Rebel Ridling right now?

Seale had a decent bounce back year but still profiles more as a middle relief guy out of the pen with some fringe setup potential. Hard to place him high. Crawford has fringy discipline, for lack of a better morning term right now, for his skillset, so not really buying the slash lines as a sign of improvement yet.

Burke’s fascinating and was close to my own top 30, but he’s so unknown right now that I think it’s hard to rank him in there. Peralta is very raw, and while there’s projectable upside, it’s hard to differentiate him from a guy like Liria (who did make my top 30)/Paulino and others. Urban/ShouldersSchlect are fairly unknown, and in Schlect’s case, a lot of good early reviews, but curious how the power shows. Was a bit discouraged by some of the comments about Martin early as it related to his swing/approach, so very curious why a lot of pubs tabbed him as a sleeper, but he’s raw and unknown.

That leaves, uh, Abreu and Silva. I have a hard time ranking Abreu enough because I’ve seen him and just don’t buy it. Raw toolsy kid with such an … aggressive approach and clear holes in his swing. Not a great combination. Was worth the lottery ticket gamble in the trade, but he’s a “prove it” guy to me.

Silva will be an interesting guy to follow. Guessing A+ in his age 22/23 season. Prior to the Torreyes move, he mgiht’ve gotten some 2nd base time there. Some pop in his bat, but the discipline is poor.