Cubs Top 15 Prospects' Analysis

by initram on Feb 15, 2008 9:34 AM CST

The author of the annual "Minor League Baseball Analyst" book Deric McKamey recently offered up some answers to readers' questions.

You can find the article here.

I haven't really been following analysis of farm systems (yet), and notice that this is an often discussed topic here at BCB. We constantly talk about it when we are speculating new trades and attempt to value prospects against one another. We talk about it as we speculate what the Cubs future looks like during the coming season (fill in existing holes we have, or may have due to injury, etc.) and beyond.

Minimally, I figured I'd share this article, because he goes into some interesting (and believable) detail as to why he ranks certain players in the Cubs organization a certain way. While he seems to be harsh, I was wondering how credible Deric McKamey is with his ratings?

Also, he has a letter and number connotation with his ratings. Does anyone know what this rating scale looks like?

Discuss. Update [2008-2-15 15:32:18 by initram]: Here's the rating scales (I had this as a block quote, and the formatting in preview looked poor, so I figured it would be easier to just keep the link in there).

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or Al Yellon, managing editor (unless it's a FanPost posted by Al). FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable baseball fans.

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Very interesting

article. The points he makes are very detailed in some areas. He mentions the hands of Thomas at second, seems he needs to improve. My question is I am wondering if his coaches are away of these things? You would hope so they can help him to improve.

"You can't take life to seriously, you don't get out of it alive"

by wild bill on Feb 15, 2008 10:35 AM CST reply actions

Interesting to see

that Harvey may be going the route of Brooks Keischnick.

by davidalanu on Feb 15, 2008 10:38 AM CST reply actions

Harvey

wishes he could have the career of Brooks Kieschnick. Kieschnick played in the majors.

While I never want to completely write off someone with that kind of power, I think we call him a bust. And as far as pitching goes, I think Matt Bush has got a far better chance of making the majors as one than Harvey does, and I'm not real optimistic about Bush.

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by Josh Timmers on Feb 15, 2008 12:04 PM CST up reply actions

The ranking scheme...

...is in two parts. Number is "ceiling" - a 9 is a guy who has a shot at being a Hall of Famer kind of player, a 5 is a guy that plays every day but isn't spectacular, a 3 is a bench guy. (This is from memory, so take with a grain of salt.) Letter is chance of reaching that ceiling - A means a player has a 90% chance of making their ceiling, a C is something like a 65% chance, etc.

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by cwyers on Feb 15, 2008 11:07 AM CST reply actions

Excellent...

... thanks.

Jacque Jones is gone and I doubt Ivan DeJesus would mind this!

by initram on Feb 15, 2008 11:10 AM CST up reply actions

Ceda is a starter again?

Cool with me.

"Losing is my only fear"

by Unique on Feb 15, 2008 12:40 PM CST reply actions

Not me.

Ceda's stuff has "future closer" written all over it.

"That's my opinion and if you don't like it, well, I have others." ~ Groucho Marx

by Al Yellon on Feb 15, 2008 2:28 PM CST up reply actions

Some interesting stuff. Thanks.

Scout sometimes is quite different than other rankings. For the Cubs, they seem in-line. I do like their double ranking scheme.

They say that Vitters and Samardzija have the highest ceiling (9). The likelihood for both reaching it is pretty low. Vitters isn't a big surprise as he's still years away from the majors.

I found Veal's interesting. His ceiling is listed as Solid Regular (8) but only a 30% chance of making that. They don't seem optimistic.

There has been a lot of discussion around here on Gallagher and his upside. He is listed with an Average Player (7) ceiling but a 70% chance of reaching it. Seems accurate to me but I know some here will disagree with the ceiling.

by rlpete on Feb 15, 2008 1:20 PM CST reply actions

This confuses

me. Veal has a sealing of (8) but only 30% of making it. Why not give him a ceiling of (5) with a 100% of making it?

"You can't take life to seriously, you don't get out of it alive"

by wild bill on Feb 15, 2008 1:44 PM CST up reply actions

Because it's completely different?

A prospect's ranking is based on two things:

How good you think he could be
How close he is to being it

Guys like Donnie Veal are rare - you don't find a lot of left-handed pitchers with his sort of power very often. If everything goes right for Veal, he will be a top-of-the-rotation starter. But he's currently strugging with his command in AA, and God only knows if he'll make it to the bigs.

On the other end of the spectrum is a guy like Sean Gallagher, who is a guy more in the mold of a Joe Blanton/John Lackey/John Lieber/Jason Marquis sort - he's a good pitcher to have, but you're not likely to make the postseason if he's the best pitcher in your rotation. (We can discuss my specific issues with Marquis some other time.) But he's very ready to do that now - we don't have to wait around for him to develop, because he's ready to pitch in the majors.

I has a blog.

by cwyers on Feb 15, 2008 1:50 PM CST up reply actions

I was hoping

you would come to my rescue once again. Thank you for very good explaination. In my head I was on the right track, but have a much better understanding now.

"You can't take life to seriously, you don't get out of it alive"

by wild bill on Feb 15, 2008 2:04 PM CST up reply actions