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Please vote for the Cubs #28 prospect (serious votes only, please!). Please post your rationale below.

If someone convinces you that someone else should be higher, please feel free to change your vote anytime between now and Thursday.

For this vote, you should select the players you feel should be #28, #29 and #30. If we end up with multiple players having similar vote totals at the end of the voting period, there will be a run-off with just those players.

Results so far:

#1: Javier Baez
#2: Jorge Soler
#3: Albert Almora
#4: Arodys Vizcaino
#5: Dan Vogelbach
#6: Brett Jackson
#7: Juan Paniagua
#8: Christian Villanueva
#9: Dillon Maples
#10: Josh Vitters
#11: Pierce Johnson
#12: Junior Lake
#13: Jeimer Candelario
#14: Duane Underwood
#15: Matt Szczur
#16: Arismendy Alcantara
#17: Ronald Torreyes
#18: Marco Hernandez
#19: Gioskar Amaya
#20: Alberto Cabrera
#21: Logan Watkins
#22: Rob Whitenack
#23: Barrett Loux
#24: Ben Wells
#25: Paul Blackburn
#26: Hector Rondon
#27: Tony Zych

Jensen, Martin, McNutt.

Jensen's numbers from last season (especially his 7.5 H/9) as an age appropriate starter in A ball speak for themselves. Add in a decent scouting report of low 90s fastball, solid breaking ball and above average control, and I'm voting for him for 28th.

I like Martin's upside a lot. The early reports are that he can play a major league CF right now. He hit well as a 19 year old in short season Boise. He'll be a year young for Kane County this year when we should find out more. His athleticism seems unquestioned. He's my 29th best.

McNutt could be Alberto Cabrera. He could contribute to the pen this year (more likely next) and then be stretched out after achieving some success as a reliever. In 2015, he'll still be just 25 years old. It's a long shot, but we're talking about the 30th best prospect.

I can understand considering Ha. The problem for me is that his ceiling is probably 4th OFer. He is pretty likely to reach it though, at least be a serviceable 5th OFer. So he is worth looking at here, but I'm a upside guy. Each one of these guys has a higher ceiling than Ha, so I'm leaving him off my top 30.

_________________
"I know my title is general manager, but I consider myself the director of spending for the N.Y. Yankees." — Brian Cashman.

Jensen - This guy had a great year and I would not be surprised to see that continue.
Bruno - Such an interesting prospect. Jack of all trades defensively. Won a batting title while being shuttled from position to position. It will be interesting to see if the catching experiment continues.
Martin - how much talent was really at Boise last year anyway.

Ha - Tools (average power potential offensively, strong arm, solid range to perhaps fit in CF), 2nd half performance, improvement in key areas justifies a spot this late, IMO. He's awful young for the level. Yes, I think his ceiling is probably that of a fourth starter, but I think it should be noted that the raw tools suggests a guy who could potentially be more if he improves on his approach.

Jensen - I've been voting Jensen for awhile, but not ... gung-ho about it. That said, he has the pitches to have a mid-rotation ceiling and is coming off a solid year. Could be a late inning pen arm if moved in that direction.

The 30th spot is a bit tougher. I absolutely love Bruno, but if I'm going to knock Torreyes in my rankings, I have to show a similar level of apprehension towards a similar guy and acknowledge that, as a college bat, he really needs to do it at a higher level, offensively, with his limited plus tools. Add in the defensive uncertainty as of now, and it's hard. I love Arias' potential. If you rank the arm potential in the system, you could make a case for him top 5. If I knew Jose Rosario's health situation, he'd probably be in my top 30. I really like Martin, but I still wonder if there's going to be some swing work done with him and how that impacts things. I'm really thinking of McNutt/Scott/Struck here. Tempted with Scott, but I just feel like I want to get a better idea of what his ceiling is before pushing him ahead of McNutt/Struck. I'm going Struck for now. His ceiling is that of an end of the rotation arm as a starter, but he does have 3 pitches, and he attacks. Command has to tighten a bit. I still wonder about him in the pen, though.

I can't vote for Marra (too much unknown right now), Golden (too much unknown), Contreras, Carreno (hard to buy him over Struck ... both are more end of the rotation types, Struck has a bit better velocity and is higher up), Dunston Jr., McNeill.

I went Martin, Ha, and Scott.

I went Jensen, Bruno, Scott.

As cubswin and others have noted, Jensen had very good numbers and has very favorable scouting. I'm pretty interested. If he was two inches taller, he'd get tons more respect.

Bilbo's been lobbying for Bruno for a while now, so given the number of questions that everybody has, I'll give him a vote. I'm kind of a skeptic for six reasons: a) I suspect he plays a lot of positions because he isn't really big-league good at any one of them; b) he struck out 47 times in 252 short-season A, that's high for a pure contact guy; c) he's 5'9" so I don't project real HR power; d) he took some Boise walks, but his college profile was strongly anti-walk; e) I've seen lots of guys have some nice hitting stats in the Northwest League who got buried in full season; and f) his BABIP was like .436. So it will be no surprise if he's totally off the prospect map by July. But, a guy who consistently hit really well in a top college conference and who went .938 OPS in pro might really be a hitter. May just be a natural, instinctive baseball guy with a good stroke who's a quick study and will be able to adapt as needed, and really will hit. Or maybe the catcher thing will actually work? For all my doubts, a .442 OBP is a pretty good reason to keep a guy in view.

Taylor Scott had a good year. He seems to have quite a good fastball, and he showed surprising progress with his control. I was very pleasantly surprised that he could get promoted to Boise (I'd thought he'd be in Mesa), and post a 2.52 ERA with "only" 29 walks in 72 innings. (Not good, but I expected he'd be super wildman supreme.) Boise has traditionally been a fairly HR-possible park, but he allowed zero. HR-allowance is a huge factor for pitchers, so if he's largely living on his fastball, hitters know a lot of them are coming, but he still allowed zero HR's, that's very encouraging to me. Obviously it's projection to imagine a put away breaking pitch ever developing that will all him to be a strikeout guy, and by accounts he's awfully skinny, so who knows whether he'll grow into really serious velocity. But I think he's a pretty interesting projection guy.

I don't pretend to be a scout, I just think the season he (Bruno) had, with all the talent on that club, I give him the benefit of the doubt until he shows he can't bring it to the next level. I understand that most folks want him to prove it at full season ball first but.......call it a fan's bias.

There is something about a .442 OBP that kind of commands some interest. And with 25 extra-base hits in 67 games, that isn't Barney/Theriot either. Probably nothing real, but whatever.

28. Ha - Very likely to be a quality 4th OF.
29. McNutt - Stuff and proximity to the bigs.


At 30 I keep flip flopping between a bunch of guys. Jensen, Bruno, Scott, Struck, Martin, mostly. I'm voting Jensen right now, but could be swayed by the arguments I'm seeing.

McNutt
Ha
Jensen

Couple quick comments on Bruno -

I absolutely love him. I was in the camp that wondered if he might've been a better shortstop than Chris Taylor (UVA's shortstop, same year as Bruno, went 2 rounds higher to the Mariners). It's easy to forget, but entering their sophomore year, Bruno was viewed as the Wahoos heir apparent at shortstop (to Tyler Cannon), with Chris Taylor slated for the OF. Bruno arguably had the higher pedigree, was arguably viewed as an equal athlete, and had the arm. Bruno got hurt early, Wahoos had a hole there, and Taylor was moved in. Taylor had an excellent sophomore year, became the "Hero of Irvine", and kept the job the next year (despite erratic shortstop play early in the year). Now, Taylor is viewed as a very solid defensive shortstop prospect (that has some ironing out to do). This isn't to say that Bruno would definitely have been solid at short, but I was in the camp that wondered. Athletically, he can handle most positions (I've always joked that UVA would be a great farm system for the Cubs considering the type of players they try to target ... really not many, big sluggish types), and he's a smart enough kid that I don't worry about him picking things up. That said, offensive question marks pretty much leave him as an up-the-middle option, barring a team that has a significant amount of power elsewhere.

As for power and approach, there's two schools of thoughts on Bruno. First, I think the bat speed is good enough for him to hit for a high average. His lack of walks is a bit questionable, as he doesn't project as a middle of the order bat. Is it a worrisome flaw? There are those that believed that Bruno can be a patient kid, but he was the best hitter on the UVA team and was largely told to swing away, and thus, I think when he got to pro ball, there was some adjustment to be made. You could probably live with the strikeout rate if it stayed flat, but I actually wonder, as he adjusts, if the K rate slides down a bit. Not that it means THAT much, as he was tearing up Boise, but his walk rate did increase by August. His junior year at UVA, he only walked 14 times in 238 AB's ... but he did walk 12 times in 98 AB's in 2010. It does feel like I'm trying to sell one view of him, which I apologize for, but as I am high on him, I do believe that he can be more patient. I can't for certain, but I do believe in the kid's ability to be a disciplined hitter at the plate (and as a fairly high pick, my guess is that Theo/Jed/McLeod probably believe in that as well).

The power is a bigger question mark. There's bat speed and some loft in his swing, but physically, he's just not going to be a big power guy. But ... does he have enough power? The SLG numbers at Boise and his junior year at UVA don't mean that much. Off the top, and since I followed him, I have actually never really gone and looked for a scouting report on Bruno, I think (if he develops) he can probably be a 10-12 HR hitter, maybe a tick more on a good year, a tick less on a down year. What I do wonder, though, is if the combination of bat speed and loft can help him generate a healthy amount of doubles. I was somewhat joking about the Pedoria comparison in-season, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had Mike Fontenot/Todd Walker-ish type pop in him, with potentially better contact ability.

I buy him, I buy him a heck of a lot, and that profile, at 2nd, would be a very solid player. Probably not a star, but a solid player. At catcher? If he could do that for a couple years, that would be a heck of a player. Still, for the above reasons, I have a tough time voting him that high. Maybe I'll revisit at 30 if he's still available, as I don't really love anyone there.

toonster, I don't think SS defense is at issue. We've got other SS's, and if pro scouts thought he was a big-league SS defensively he'd not have lasted till 7th round.

But whether he can play solid 2B/3B/LF or C is important, and I'm taking your answer to be "yes".

Offensively, I see his ticket being as an OBP guy, so I don't think the HR power is a big deal. 10HR is plenty for 2B/utility.

But to be an OBP guy, K's and HR's matter as well as walks. Hard to have a high batting average if you K quite often but HR rarely. Also easier to support a strong BABIP if you can use the whole field, including all the way to the fences, and keep the outfielders honest.

Often college guys who K like he did at Boise get killed in full season, where the pitching gets way better. So his K-rate is obviously a scouting red-flag. But I agree, he was trying to make some adjustments to become more patient and take some walks. So hopefully he'll find a new equilibrium in which the walks become consistently good but the K's are manageable and don't get in the way of a big-league OBP.

Craig, that was my roundabout way of saying that I'd be fairly confident of his defensive abilities elsewhere ... provided he had the time to learn the position. Now catcher is a different beast, so that one, I wouldn't dare go out on a limb to make a proclamation for.

As a side note, there was still some chirping of Bruno getting a look at short when the draft rolled around last year. I'm not certain how serious that chirping was, but once he was drafted by us, the chances of him getting a look at short essentially disappeared.

In short, I buy him, so obviously, if you asked my personal belief, I'd sell you on the idea that he was told to swing away at UVA and should be able to adjust to become a more disciplined hitter professionally. The profile, though, is just tough for me to rank too highly without upper level data. Now, back end top 30, there's obviously a case for it.

Only Bruno and McNutt, as my #30 isn't on the list.

Who is your #30? I can add him.

no one I can rationally justify, really. But I just think Pugliese is there.

I added him but clearly didnt think this through. Apparently that wiped everyone's votes. I'm sorry, but can everyone vote again?

Hey that makes it seem to go faster somehow.

Anymore re-votes?

Vote totals are really falling. I do recall that it was 15-15 Ha and McNutt at some point. A part of me wonders if we shouldn't just call it a day on this (and go with Ha/McNutt/Jensen, the top three current vote-getters), although I guess Bruno is within striking distance of taking down Jensen.

Anyhow, I feel like, at this late stage, with fewer vote and spring training really right around the corner, that we could skip the run-offs if someone is a vote ahead.

I wouldn't read too much into the falling vote total on this one. A lot of people vote and don't check back in on the thread until the next one comes up. I'm sure a few missed the opportunity to re-vote.

Yeah, a couple of guys were above 20 when I screwed up the poll.

I only felt really strongly about my votes through the top 15 or so. After that I wasn't really adding anything since I had so many players lumped together

Go ahead and take the top 3. So many folk are voting for the same guys every time but because they are not consensus choices they go back into the pot for the next vote. It gets to be slow. Don't fret the reset. We all make silly mistakes. Still fun.

I still think it's fun. Where else would we be debating the relative merits of Jensen, Zych, McNutt, Ha, Bruno, and prospects of that caliber? Obviously not a ton of separation in this area, and not many guys who are going to end up being asset starters. But I think it's fun.