is this common for young minor leaguers like this, or is this common to the Cubs system only? It seems like low OBP/poor plate discipline is common to almost every Cubs prospect. Cubs problem, or common minor league problem? Curious as to your thoughts.

I haven’t been following Samardzija much, but I can’t believe he has fallen out of the top ten prosepcts. Hopefully he can turn it around

Was just promoted to Daytona along with Chris Carpenter.

http://muskat.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/06/629_vitters_to_daytona.html

These descriptions make it sound like our system isn’t THAT bad…Just that most are a couple years away…

-I do not like Archer…yet. His ability to miss bats is nice and the fact that he’s left-handed is a bonus…but holy hell does his control suck. Lefties with a history of control problems do not have a good history. Unless he figures out his control problems, he’s going to get eaten alive at higher levels. The fact that he’s repeating Low A doesn’t help, either.

-Huseby and Parker are nice relief prospects and all, but ehhhhh. There are a handful of other guys who have higher ceilings at more premium positions who are more deserving of consideration on this list (Kyler Burke, Brett Jackson, Junior Lake, Ryan Searle, Hak Ju Lee, etc.). Plus, I saw Huseby early in the season and came away unimpressed. He had nice bite on his breaking pitch, but his velocity was high 80s/touching low 90s. He may have improved since then, but until I see something that states otherwise, I’m not going to be thrilled with a relief prospect in Low A.

-My mid-season thoughts were posted here earlier.

My top 30 has been a bit fluid this year, but the top 12 would be something like (off the top, haven’t done a new ranking in a few weeks)

1. Josh Vitters, A-/B+. He had a superbly hot streak, followed by a superbly cold run. I’ve had some Cubs fans tell me “bad luck contributed to the poor run of late”, but to say that, you’d have to say good luck helped him during his good run. That said, overall, he’s shown enough to really get some momentum going amongst prospect followers (over at Sickels, there was an interesting discussion during his hot streak on how high he’d rate – easy for Cubs fans to forget he was a borderline top 50 guy this past offseason). I’ll be very curious how he does at Daytona, but he’s exceeded my expectations on this season so far.

2. Jay Jackson, B+/A-. I was overly high on him last year, and I think I’m higher than most on him still. Ryno’s been talking about his four quality pitches – if his change and curve have stepped up that much, watch out. After a slow start, he’s been flat out dominant. I still think he’s potentially a TOR guy, with a worst case scenario of being a top late inning pen arm.

3. Andrew Cashner, B/B+. He’s had an excellent season, and I’ll be the first to say I’m surprised that the extended outings experiment has worked as well as it has. I’ll be curious if the Cubs keep him starting, or perhaps ponder pushing him as a pen arm. I expect the former, but I can’t rule out the latter, particularly if we need pen help and are in the playoff chase.

4. Jeff Samardzija, B. It seems quite unlikely that he’ll reach the innings limit this year. Granted, only 19 innings away, so who knows. He qualifies, for now. At some point, I think, depending on how the other arms develop, the Cubs need to ask themselves if Samardzija’s value as a pen arm, where he could perhaps be a late inning guy, might be greater than his value as a starter. Now, I actually don’t expect them to answer that this year, and he may have a shot at the rotation next year (Harden’s spot), but with Randy Wells strong development, and several strong arms behind him, I think they should. The lack of secondary development, by most accounts, has to be disappointing.

I think the top 4 is fairly set, in my mind. It’ll take a lot for me to see someone crack that top 4. After that, though, it’s a huge mess to work through. My attempt as of now would be

5. Starlin Castro, B-. Have to be superbly pleased with how his season has gone. He jumped to Daytona and has not only held his own, but excelled. He was the FSL ASG MVP, and is headed to the Futures game. Still some more work needed at the plate, and while he has the potential to be an excellent glove, he’s still inconsistent back there. That said, he’s young.

6. Dan McDaniel, B-. He struggled in June, but he was jumped to Daytona. Some struggles should’ve been expected. I’ll be curious how he finishes the year, but I still love his upside. At his best, this is a guy with good velo on his fastball, a sinker that moves, and a couple breaking pitches to confuse batters. That’s my type of guy, a guy that has the potential to get the groundballs when need be, while having enough bite to get the K’s. Add in his frame, and I am just fascinated by it. That said … he’s definitely a work in progress, so this is more an upside nod.

7. Hak-ju Lee, B-/C+. He’s been fine in Boise so far, but this is more an upside nod as well. Loaded with tools, it’ll be interesting following this kid.

8. Tyler Colvin, ?. Taking a wait and see on this one.

9. Brett Jackson, B-/C+. This is a tools nod. I’ve expressed this elsewhere, but I didn’t hate the pick. I didn’t like it either, was okay with it.

10. Jose Ascanio, B-/C+. I think it’s very likely that he won’t be a prospect by season’s end due to pitching enough innings, but his strong season deserves mention and he’s still a prospect.

11. Casey Coleman, C+. I was superbly high on him, but even I didn’t expect this. If his curve improves (or if the slider he’s working on develops), he’ll be that much better. I love his honesty in interviews. In a recent ITI interview, he acknowledged he was a mid-end of the rotation type and that he’s stopped throwing for velocity. I like a kid who knows what he’s able to do and what he’s good at. It was a very good read.

12. Dae-Eun Rhee C+*- This is more an upside nod as well. He flashed extremely exciting potential, and here’s hoping he can work his way back. I’m usually a bit hesitant on injuries, but it’s been that type of year.

Several guys could compete in the back of the top 12, like Brandon Guyer (was pushed, struggled and had some bad luck), Larry Suarez (upside), Chris Carpenter (I really, really like him, but let’s see how his stuff plays in Daytona and how his arm holds up, along with whether his control can improve), Chris Archer (love the upside, but if we’re comparing low A performances, Rhee’s was reportedly that much more intriguing, but I can buy Archer as top 10 in our system), Kyler Burke (taking a wait and see on how the rest of his season goes), Steve Clevenger (wonder if he’s our backup backstop in 2010). I want to include Ryan Flaherty in there, but I’m really not sure how I feel, and a lot of people seem down. I’m still lukewarm on Searle. There’s some guys that I don’t know enough of down in Boise, namely Ha and Jung, but both sound intriguing enough.
Considering how long a lit of names I’m going through, Barney would be in the top 20-25. There’s a whole host of pen arms, such as Blake Parker and Alessandro Maestri.
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Anyhow, been awhile since I worked on a list, so that was sort of shoot from the hip.

General thoughts on system (in response to above commentator): We’re still at the end of the rankings. The system has had some struggles this year. Actually, off the top, a case could be made that we’re the worst system in the game. That said, I’m still fairly excited by the system. I think I used the phrase once, but I think there’s light at the end of the tunnel in regards to the system.

As I’ve noted before, I’d love a bang-up system, top to bottom filled with talent … and moreover, different types of talent. We don’t have that. Now, this year has been terrible to follow at the big league level, but what we do finally have are some promising assets in the system, quality pitching arms and high upside positional talent. That’s been sorely lacking in recent years. With the setup of our current MLB squad, we’ve got to have the high value assets in the lower levels to work with when our current core is out the door. Value’s the keyword – most of the guys won’t pan out, but if we can create value, that could help us in trades.

Its great to revisit what we have and what we need. If we have to put stock in BA then we’re in alot of trouble, they’ve been off for about three yrs at least, since Josh Boyd and others have left and went to different MLB clubs. I think its pretty good for a 1st full season like Coleman to be pitching as well as he had. I’ve seen him at times and he’s been anywhere from 87 to 93 sitting mostly 89 to 91 with a couple of decent breaking balls and a good change. For a 15th rounder to have 8 wins under his belt is impressive. Huseby is quite the story, because after reading stories about him last year in the Arizona League and pitching between 80 and 83 not being used much and hearing stories from AZ Phil that it was a struggle for him to throw strikes to what we have now and have seen stories that now he’s 90 to 93 with an ungodly strikeout/walk ratio is quite the turnaround. Thanks for all the stories, its good to stay in touch.

Most of the radar guns at minor league parks arent very accurate. The ones that are accurate for the most part are the ones the scouts have because they tune them everyday.