With convenient timing, the midseason prospect rankings are starting to be pumped out. I was made aware of this by this article on Bleacher Nation. Anyway, today I'm going to focus on the negative, which is rare for me and look at the guys who have seen a reasonable drop in their value over the last few months. The players in question will be Albert Almora, Jorge Soler, and CJ Edwards. The lists in mind are from Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America. I will not totally forget the guys that have moved up, and I will be using the Bleacher Nation article linked above as my main reference, at least with where the players are ranked, especially since you need a subscription to view the Baseball Prospectus list anyway. The opinions and views will be my own.
The first player I'll look at is Jorge Soler, since he's really the headliner of those three. It's obvious why Soler's stock has taken a hit, he hasn't been able to stay healthy over the last couple of years. He missed the majority of last season with a stress fracture. That healed, but then during his first game this season he goes down with a hamstring injury. He comes back, then injures the other hamstring. The first thing I'll say is that they made sure the stress fracture was totally healed before bringing him back, and that hasn't come back at all. Second, I've never seen a player in their early 20's have their career end early because of hamstring problems. Still though, he's been out, and for minor league players, the longer you're out, the higher the chances of your stock dropping. Now, this wasn't the case with Minnesota's big duo in Buxton and Sano, Buxton being the top prospect, and Sano being a top 10 guy (massive power, but he really ends it there), from being top 10 prospects, but in their case it's been for a shorter time.
Still, if you ask me, the fall for Soler is a bit much. JJ Cooper, someone who at least had a hand in the Baseball America list noted in the comments section that he thinks Soler has gotten bigger, but has slowed down a bit, but he says it almost in a way where it seems like Soler's added strength at the risk of speed. If he still has a strong throwing arm and isn't too slow to a corner outfield spot, I really don't care if he's not a base stealer, as that wasn't the allure that he really brought. It was known that his speed would probably be the weakest of his 5 tools, but he was seen at the time of the signing as a 5 tool guy, and if he still has solid speed, then he's still a 5 tool guy, but I'd still say that 4, with his bat (just hit another home run tonight and has his average at AA at .394 in 27 at bats, small sample, yes, but hitting the cover off of the ball still), can keep him in the top 50. The bottom line is that in reality I think that Mr. Cooper may have been trying to defend his decision after it being pointed out that Sano and Buxton didn't get knocked down at all. Still, the only real thing he had to use was that Soler has been hurt for about a year and a half at this point.
Next up is Albert Almora. I imagine that this list was put together starting a few weeks ago when Almora had just gotten started on his recent run. Almora was having a miserable year up until just a few weeks ago. However, since then he hasn't just been hot, he's been absolutely on fire. He's gotten his average from the low .200's to .275. On top of that, he's starting to flash some of that power, hitting a home run in each of the games in tonight's double header to get his home run total to 5 on the season. He's not going to be a guy who hits 25 home runs in a season at any point, but as he grows and develops, being a 15-20 home run guy is more what he'll bring. He's also a guy who brings a lot of things that don't show up in the stat sheet. He's a great defender at a premium position. Any lack of speed is made up for by his ability to know where a fly ball will land before the pitcher even throws it (yes, there's some hyperbole there). Still, Mr. Cooper, in the comments section for Baseball America, mentioned that Almora isn't a high prospect for his toolsy outlook, but more for his head, which is true, and he is exactly right that if Almora isn't performing.
However, I still don't think he looked at the whole picture with Almora either. Almora has, for the majority of his time in the minor leagues, performed at a very high level. Sure, he had a long slump, but it's looking, at this point, that the slump was the exception as far as his play goes. There's at least more of a chance, at this point, of that being the case rather than that he's going to top out as a mediocre high A player. I can see him falling a little bit because of this, and if he was in the low 40's or lower, then okay, but he's been falling 10+ spots. It's clear to me that these lists were being compiled at least 3 weeks ago, which is still understandable, given that they have a huge list of guys to go over, but the comments made after the fact can at least admit this much. Still, I do understand the fall, but I think it was a bit extreme and reactionary, but then again, that's about par for the course for most media sources that don't report straight up facts (which is all these days). So while this one sounds like a bunch of complaining from me, it's more of an I understand, but you freaked out a little too much there type of thing.
CJ Edwards is the last one. While he never was in the top 50 for Baseball Prospectus, he was #28 in Baseball America's list before the season and completely fell off. If there as an overreaction on Almora, then this was a total freak out. Given, I think they were a bit high on Edwards to start, I think 35-45 was really what was fair for him, so in that case it wouldn't have been a huge deal, but dropping more than 22 spots because of one injury? That's nuts. The reasoning given by Cooper was that this injury is proof that people who didn't think he would be able to hold up are right. That's a facepalm right there if I've ever seen one. Sure, he may not hold up, and it does look more like it at this point, but this is far from proof. First, the injury occurred 20.2 innings into the season...really, that's all I need. At that point in the season it's not wearing down, it's just getting injured. The injury was shoulder inflammation. Now, I understand the worries, as that does yell wearing down, but again, 20.2 innings into the season after he had plenty of time off. Plenty of starters have had this issue throughout their careers, and the extended time that he's been off for it is more due to the Cubs being overly cautious rather than Edwards not being able to pitch. He's scheduled to get back on the horse very soon. To throw more into that, at AA he was pitching with an ERA well under 3, and that's despite one of his 4 starts being a bad one (by his standards, 5 innings, 3 earned runs). So just imagine what those other starts were like (I'll spoil it, 1 earned run over 9.2 innings in his last 2 starts). So the injury is the only thing that can be making the difference here, and again, it's an overreaction on the part of Baseball America, which is a shame, because I otherwise have viewed Baseball America as an excellent publication, even when there were very few Cubs players even at the bottom of lists like this.
Now, I will say this to stick up a bit for Baseball America. There may have been something in them that realized that they had valued some of the Cubs prospects too highly. Edwards was at 28, Soler at 41 (with his character in question, the bat incident seems to be fading), and Almora had been at 36. That's a very likely scenario, although Almora and Soler were both there for a couple of years, so that they overreacted on those guys last year is very unlikely, but with Edwards it really is a possibility. Anyway, I'm not saying that it's completely nuts for Baseball America to knock these 3 out of the top 50, I see where they're coming from. I just think they've overreacted to a few things. That seems to be what happens with prospects in the 20-50 zone though when the slightest thing goes wrong. I'm sure that there are prospects in other organizations that were victims of worse overreactions. I just don't know of any.
To the positive side, the Cubs do have their 3 guys in both top 10's. Kris Bryant is #3 for Baseball Prospectus, and #2 for Baseball America. I feel like Baseball America got this right, especially considering the injury that Correa suffered, which is one that is much more worrisome than any injury to any of the major Cubs prospects, despite how great he has been. I still would have him in my top 5. I could argue for him to be #1, but I can see where Buxton is above him as far as being a complete player goes. Javier Baez is #5 for Baseball Prospectus, and #7 for Baseball America. I wouldn't have been surprised to see him fall to the 8/9 spots myself, so again, I can't complain, and you can see where the struggling of a 1-10 prospects causes a lot less overreaction than it does for someone in the 20-50 range. Baez had been #5 before the season from Baseball America before the season, so some drop was to be expected, and I thought it would be more. Addison Russell is the last of those 3, he is #6 for Baseball Prospectus and #5 for Baseball America. Those are both very nice places for him, so having 3 guys between #2 and #7 between the 2 lists is really pretty awesome. Another prospect worth mentioning is Arismendy Alcantara, who is #18 for Baseball Prospectus and #33 from Baseball America, a huge boost in his status. I think both were worried that his breakout season last year was something that needed to be proven more, and he's done that this year. He was never playing horribly this year, but he did have a rough patch, but he's just been so good for so much more of the year. It's good to see him getting recognized, and it's great that he will very likely be up to the show by the start of next month.
Also of note, Addison Russell remains hitless so far for the Cubs, but again, it's a very small sample size in comparison to the rest of his minor league career, and him still having a .275 average despite 2 hitless games in a row in only 69 at bats this year shows how good he really had been before the trade and how good we can expect him to be once he adjusts a bit. Remember, he's also still very young for AA. On the other hand, Billy McKinney made his Daytona debut today and played in both games of the double header, going 2 for 6 with 2 singles. Also, Dan Straily made his first start in Iowa. He got the loss, giving up 4 runs, but all of those were unearned.
So, in summary, I understand the tumble of some of the top Cubs prospects who were outside of the top 20 range, but at the same time, I think they're a bit exaggerated. It's almost like they forgot what happens often when prospects go to new levels, that injuries happen, that slumps happen, and what ages are normal for different levels of a team's farm system. Still, I understand where they are coming from, so I won't dig into them too much. Despite that, it's great to see that the Cubs have those 3 guys in both top 10's (top 7's if you want to be more specific). They seem to be charting new territory with their prospects, and I can't wait to see what happens next for all of them.
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