Let me state quite firmly up front that it’s hardly a BAD thing to have excellent young talent transition from being a top-100-type prospect to a big league contributor. It’s also hardly a bad thing to use top-100-type prospect talent in trades for big league impact. So a lot of what I’m saying here on that front is qualitatively neutral, at worst. The Chicago Cubs have had a lot of very recent top-100 types.
But it’s just factual – and not good in isolation – that the Cubs have seen the top tier of their farm system thin considerably over the last two years, and it’s not at all surprising that the organization doesn’t have much representation in the new top-100 prospects list at Baseball America:
36. Moises Ballesteros, C78. Jaxon Wiggins, RHP
That’s it.
Now, even setting aside the throat-clearing at the start, let me point out some bright signs. For one thing, that’s a VERY lofty ranking for Moises Ballesteros, given that even BA sees him as probably limited to designated hitter. You don’t really see true bat-only guys ranked close to the top-30 in baseball, and it means BA (like the Cubs) are huge believers in the bat.
As for Jaxon Wiggins, remember that he was a guy who ended last season without many of the national publications describing him as an obvious top-100 guy (which felt off). So, it’s nice to see that, yet again in the pre-season rankings, he’s getting a lot of deserved love now that the full scouting reports have come in. He didn’t just sneak into the top-100. He’s solidly in there.
You’d like to see more Cubs prospects make it into top-100 consideration by midseason (I’d already/still have Jefferson Rojas there, but whatever), but the Cubs will also see Ballesteros graduate by then, and it’s possible Wiggins also comes up at some point this year. Gonna need some big breakouts again this year, plus a fantastic draft, and maybe also a clever trade to re-stock the farm a bit (because it’s not just thin at the top now, there are also significant questions about the quality depth at the lower levels).
Speaking of more top-100s in the future, though, the Cubs were well-represented on the list of 20 prospects who just missed!
Not only did Rojas make that particular cut, but also Cubs first and second rounders Ethan Conrad and Kane Kepley. So, hey, if you want to say there are 5 Cubs prospects in the top-120 instead of 3 in the top-100, that’s fine by me.
Rojas is still very young for Double-A, Kepley has been getting a whole lot of love after his huge pro debut, and Conrad has yet to make his pro debut (but it’s heavily anticipated this year). It’s not at all hard to see Rojas or Conrad breaking out early and becoming an obvious top-100 type, but that’s been a little harder to see with Kepley because of the skill set (speed and defense, contact-oriented, not a lot of power). It isn’t the type of guy we usually see get top-100 consideration, so I consider his inclusion on this list to be the biggest compliment of the three.
The praise from BA for Kepley, who was not necessarily seen as a top draft prospect, is quite high after people got to see him as a professional:
“At North Carolina, Kepley earned a reputation as a pure hitter. As a pro, he backed it up. Kepley is light on power but high on contact and spent his first summer in the minor leagues peppering line drives, drawing walks and stealing bases. He pairs a potentially plus hit tool with similarly graded speed and double-plus defense in center field. Put it all together, and you’ve got the makings of a classic leadoff hitter.”
If you were curious, Cubs prospects Kevin Alcantara and Jonathon Long also received at least one top-100 vote from at least one BA writer, so that’s nice, too. That said, seven total vote-getting prospects is not an especially large group compared to the rest of the league (it looks to be around average).
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