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2007 Top Cubs Prospects

Cubs top 30 prospects

Only 6 days until pitchers and catchers report!

The 2007 Baseball America Prospect Handbook has finally been released and after reading it through it for a few days I thought I’d post the Cubs top 30 prospects as well as Baseball America’s organizational rankings (with the couple of sentences BA includes about each team in this section for all teams in the NL Central and the White Sox for those of you who are also White Sox fans).  And a couple other lists as well…

Talent Rankings

1. Tampa Bay Devil Rays
2. Colorado Rockies
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
4. Los Angeles Angels
5. Milwaukee Brewers—The Brewers join the Angels as regular residents in the top five, with their fourth straight season.  And like the Rays and Rockies, the Brewers really should rank highly considering their last winning season was 1991.
6. Los Angeles Dodgers
7. New York Yankees
8. Minnesota Twins
9. Boston Red Sox
10. Cleveland Indians
11. Kansas City Royals
12. Cincinnati Reds—The biggest mover on the list from last year (dead last), the Reds have three player who would rank highly in any organization in Homer Bailey, Jay Bruce, and Joey Votto.  After that, well, it gets dicey thanks to a slew of 2006 trades. 
13. New York Mets
14. Detroit Tigers
15. Florida Marlins
16. Atlanta Braves
17. Baltimore Orioles
18. Chicago Cubs—The Cubs’ farm system keeps sliding in concert with its major league win-loss record, and the Cubs haven’t spent as wildly to keep pace in the minors.  Top prospects such as Felix Pie and Donald Veal have tools but lack polish.
19. Pittsburgh Pirates—Despite a streak of losing seasons that started in 1993, the Pirates have been unable to accumulate significant talent.  Outfielder Andrew McCutchen and 2006 first-rounder Brad Lincoln highlight and otherwise tepid group.
20. San Francisco Giants
21. Philadelphia Phillies
22. Houston Astros—The Astros’ 2004 draft props up an otherwise uninspiring group that took a hit when Jason Hirsh was traded to the Rockies.  Houston’s Venezuelan pipeline hasn’t completely dried up, but there are no Bob Abreus here either.
23. St. Louis Cardinals—The reigning World Series Champions have done just enough in the farm system to make trades to help the big league club.  The system’s track record going forward hinges on Jeff Luhnow, put in charge of scouting and player development.
24. Seattle Mariners
25. Toronto Blue Jays
26. Chicago White Sox—Few GMs have ever been more aggressive about trading their farm products than Kenny Williams, and it’s hard to argue with the man who ended an 88-year World Series drought.  Bet he’d like that Chris Young deal with the Diamondbacks back, though.
27. Oakland A’s
28. Texas Rangers
29. San Diego Padres
30. Washington Nationals

The Cubs top prospects

1. Felix Pie, of
2. Donald Veal, lhp
3. Tyler Colvin, of
4. Jeff Samardzija, rhp
5. Sean Gallagher, rhp
6. Eric Patterson, 2b
7. Scott Moore, 3b
8. Ryan Harvey, of
9. Chris Huseby, rhp
10. Mark Pawelek, lhp
11. Juan Mateo, rhp
12. Brian Dopirak, 1b
13. Jae Kuk Ryu, rhp
14. Mark Reed, c
15. Drew Rundle, of
16. Rocky Cherry, rhp
17. Geovany Soto, c
18. Billy Petrick, rhp
19. Dylan Johnston, ss
20. Josh Lansford, 3b
21. Sammy Baez, ss
22. Chris Robinson, c
23. Mark Holliman, rhp
24. Jake Fox, c
25. Larry Suarez, rhp
26. Rocky Roquet, rhp
27. Sam Fuld, of
28. Scott Taylor, rhp
29. Mitch Atkins, rhp
30. Mike Fontenot, 2b

Best Tools

• Best Hitter for Average:  Tyler Colvin
• Best Power Hitter:  Ryan Harvey
• Best Strike-zone Discipline:  Sam Fuld
• Fastest Baserunner:  Chris Walker
• Best Athlete:  Felix Pie
• Best Fastball:  Jeff Samaradzija
• Best Curveball:  Donald Veal
• Best Slider:  Rocky Cherry
• Best Changeup:  Billy Muldowney
• Best Control:  Scott Taylor
• Best Defensive Catcher:  Jake Muyco
• Best Defensive Infielder:  Josh Lansford
• Best Infield Arm:  Josh Lansford
• Best Defensive Outfielder:  Felix Pie
• Best Outfield Arm:  Ryan Harvey

Projected 2010 Lineup

• Catcher:  Michael Barrett
• First Base:  Derrek Lee
• Second Base:  Eric Patterson
• Third Base:  Aramis Ramirez
• Shortstop:  Ronny Cedeno
• Left Field:  Alfonso Soriano
• Center Field:  Felix Pie
• Right Field:  Tyler Colvin
• No. 1 Starter:  Carlos Zambrano
• No. 2 Starter:  Mark Prior
• No. 3 Starter:  Donald Veal
• No. 4 Starter:  Ted Lilly*
• No. 5 Starter:  Sean Gallagher
• Closer:  Jeff Samardzija

* During the online chat with Jim Callis, he admits to forgetting about including Rich Hill who he says should be among the starters.  I just assumed it would Lilly who he would replace.

PECOTA likes Cubs’ prospects

In yesterday’s Prospectus Matchups, Jim Baker takes a look at the rookie’s who are expected to perform the best in 2007 based on the recent PECOTA projections. Here they are:

Catcher: Jarrod Saltalamacchia, ATL (19.7 projected VORP) First Base: Joey Votto, CIN (31.0) Second Base: Eric Patterson, CHC (34.9) Third Base: Alex Gordon, KCR (34.2) Shortstop: Brent Lillibridge, ATL (29.7*) Left field: Jonathan Jay, STL (19.4) Center field: Felix Pie, CHC (25.3) Right field: Hunter Pence, HOU (21.1) Pitcher: Daisuke Matsuzaka, BOS (34.9)

As you can tell, the Cubs prospects, Eric Patterson and Felix Pie, represent two of the nine positions. Eric Patterson’s projected VORP of 34.9 is the highest among all rookies (tied with a guy who should not be a rookie in Matsuzaka). It’s important to note that even BP doesn’t believe Patterson is going to get this much playing time in 2007:

Among position players with no big league experience, Patterson has the highest projected VORP heading into 2007. That and $4.50 will not get him a cup of coffee at a Wrigleyville Starbucks. Looking at the Cubs depth chart, he’s buried behind Mark DeRosa and The Riot (as read by Sean Connery as rendered by Darrell Hammond). The DeRosa signing remains a curiosity. Should it fail—and PECOTA is thinking it will with De Rosa at 7.2—Patterson will be right there in Iowa, logging his first real Triple-A time.

This is what Baker says about Felix Pie:

Pie has a higher projection than every Cubs outfielder save for newcomer Alfonso Soriano. He’s higher than Matt Murton and Jacque Jones—the other two projected starters—and much higher than Daryle Ward and Angel Pagan, the backups. Another year in Triple-A won’t kill him since he will only be turning 22 in a couple of weeks.

Now that PECOTA cards are available, I took a look last night at E-Pat’s and Pie’s PECOTA projections, being particularly interested not just what they thought they’d do in 2007, but what the computer says about their talent in, say, 2010. I was pleased. PECOTA likes both of these players. They like Felix Pie a tad bit more (projected WARP of 26 over the next 5 seasons) than they do Eric Patterson (projected WARP of 26.1 over the next 5 seasons). However, it’s in the player’s progression that you see the difference.

Eric Patterson projected batting line:

2007: .293/.358/.479

2008: .289/.354/.472

2009: .297/.359/.492

2010: .288/.351/.479

2011: .291/.357/.486

Felix Pie’s projected batting line:

2007: .288/.342/.480

2008: .290/.346/.492

2009: .296/.353/.507

2010: .299/.363/.516

2011: .300/.356/.516

Eric Patterson is a couple years older and his 2007 season will be his age 24 season. It will be the age 22 season for Pie. Pie’s next 5 years show consistent improvement, particularly in slugging percentage. There isn’t much improvement at all in E-Pat’s stats from 2007 to 2011. In fact, they’re pretty much the same. Still, the projections like both of these players’ chances of having not just success at the next level, but quite possibly a great deal of success.

Marginal Value Over Replacement Player (MORP) is based on the recent free agent markets and establishes a dollar value that players, well, it’s what they deserve. Obviously these two players aren’t eligible to reach free agency for at least 6 more years and will not make nearly as much money, but it is a good way to look at a player and see how much he might be worth on the open market. Over the next 5 seasons, each of these two players are worth a total of $71 million. Over this span, the Cubs will pay them less than $10 million each.

Adjusting VORP for league difficulty and including Fielding Runs Above Average is what BP calls SuperVORP. Don’t ask me why they went with such a cheesy abbreviation, but they did. E-Pat’s S-VORP (that’s what I’ll call it) over the next 5 seasons is projected to be 131.3 with an Upside of 147.7 (from BP itself…UPSIDE is determined by evaluating the performance of a player’s PECOTA comparables. If a comparable player turned in a performance better than league average, including both his batting and fielding performance, then twice the number of runs he contributed above average is counted toward his UPSIDE. If the player was worse than league average, or he dropped out of the database, the performance is counted as zero.). Felix Pie’s S-VORP projection over the next 5 years is slightly higher at 137.9 and his Upside is 158.5.

This is good news for Cubs fans. No, this doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to succeed or that they’ll even reach these projections. It does mean, however, that those who employ statistical analysis to baseball find that both of these players are, well, two of the best at their respective position who are close to entering the league. Scouts have long been raving about these two and the skills they both have. For once, it seems to me anyway, the Cubs have two prospects who both scouts and statisticians are raving about. The most recent Cubs prospect to have this honor would be Rich Hill. Let’s hope it works out well for him in 2007.