I was perusing the internet and saw that Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus had posted their updated Cubs' Top Prospects lists. I hadn't seen them discussed here, so I thought I would post their rankings to open up some discussion on the Cubs' system. Here is the link to the Baseball Prospectus list, and here is the link to the Fangraphs list. For those who just want the lists, here they are:

Baseball Prospectus

1. Albert Almora (OF)

2. Javier Baez (SS)

3. Jorge Soler (OF)

4. Arodys Vizcaino (RHP)

5. Dan Vogelbach (1B)

6. Brett Jackson (OF)

7. Pierce Johnson (RHP)

8. Duane Underwood (RHP)

9. Christian Villanueva (3B)

10. Dillon Maples (RHP)

Fangraphs

1. Javier Baez (SS)

2. Albert Almora (OF)

3. Jorge Soler (OF)

4. Dillon Maples (RHP)

5. Dan Vogelbach (1B)

6. Arodys Vizcaino (RHP)

7. Brett Jackson (OF)

8. Matt Szczur (OF)

9. Christian Villanueva (3B)

10. Josh Vitters (3B)

11. Marco Hernandez (SS)

12. Jeimer Candelario (3B)

13. Junior Lake (SS)

14. Duane Underwood (RHP)

15. Trey Martin (OF)

Interesting to see BP rank Almora over Baez. I'm personally not as high as most people are on Almora. I would've liked to have seen a bit more plate discipline for someone as polished as Almora is. I know that he's fresh out of high school, but I don't know if it's fair to expect him to have as much upside as most other kids his age given how developed his skills are already. He's also not quite as toolsy as I like my CF prospects to be.

I'm also surprised that Logan Watkins and Jae Hoon Ha didn't make the cut on the Fangraphs list. Neither one is likely to be a star, but both are good bets to be at least decent major leaguers, which is a lot more valuable to me than a low-minors guy like Candelario or Martin, since there's just so much that has to go right in the next 5-6 years for either one to develop into a solid major leaguer.

Anyways, at the end of the day, we have a very nice crop of potential high-impact bats in the low minor leagues in Baez, Soler, Almora and Vogelbach. We also have a bunch of 4th OF/super-utility IF/borderline starter types in the high minors (Jackson, Szczur, Ha, Watkins, Lake, Vitters) and a bunch of toolsy infielders with high ceilings in the low minors (Villanueva, Candelario, Hernandez, Amaya). We're clearly weakest when it comes to pitching and catching, although we do have some intriguing low-minors arms.