Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 486: Jason Parks on the Top 50 Prospects in Baseball

Episode Date: July 7, 2014

Ben and and Sam talk to Jason Parks about the BP Mid-Season Top 50 Prospects List.

task of filling up the blanks rather leave to you but it really doesn't matter whom you put up on the list for that none of them be missed they'd none of them be missed good morning and welcome to episode 486 of effectively wild the daily podcast from baseball prospectus presented by the baseballballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller. Hello, Sam. Hey, Ben. So today is one of the big days on the Baseball Prospectus calendar. It is the day that the midseason top 50 prospects list comes out.

season top 50 prospects list comes out. It is up now at Baseball Prospectus, unless you're one of the especially dedicated fans who listens to this the second it goes on the internet. And as you can tell from that chuckle snicker just now, we are joined by Jason Parks, who led the charge in producing this list. Hello, Jason. Hello, guys. Thanks for having me on your podcast. It's always a treat. Of course. A daily treat. Yes, you enjoy it every day. Every single day, everyone.

Drink your coffee. So tell us about this list. It is a long, long list. It has 50 prospects on it as advertised, but the list itself is quite long, as Sam and I discovered when we looked at it a little earlier today. So tell us about what is different about the list and also about the process of producing the list. Well, in the offseason, you know, we put together the 101. You know, it's obviously it's more comprehensive um and you know that gives us a chance to you know really see what the the recent draftees have brought to the table both in terms of pro reports and um from the season and pro and player development reports from instructs and afl on our

updated top 50 we don't rank any player um that is currently a prospect that is currently in the majors. And teams, you know, have really thinned the pool, so to speak, because they keep promoting players to the major league level. So this list got pretty thin pretty quick. And we don't include any recent draftees. And the reason is, as I just described, is that for the most part, what we're working with are amateur reports on these guys. And most teams don't alter a player after they sign them. Like, you're not going to mess with the pitcher's mechanics. You're not going to really mess with the hitter's mechanics. You just let them come in and do their work

for the brief two months that they're in the minors. And then you start to work with them when they get into instruct. So we're hesitant about how to rank players with other pro amateur players with pro players when they haven't had any kind of pro adjustment yet. So we omit all recent draftees until we can get good pro reports and then good player dev reports from Instructs and AFL. And that's why they will appear on the offseason list. So this list is very bare bones, no draftees, no players who might be prospect eligible who are currently in the majors like we would in the 101. So it's a very condensed sort of who are the best players in the minors right now

under the aforementioned criteria. And it's a good list, but as you can tell, it gets kind of thin towards the end for a lot of reasons. You know, the ones I just mentioned in the fact that a lot of players have been promoted this year aggressively. I like that you just described this list as bare bones and condensed, and it's about 7,500 words long. You know, I like a platform, so I'm like, I'm going to get a little verbose. Obviously, I have to write my flowy intro with too many adverbs and adjectives. That's just the style.

Then we let Nick Filaris participate in it so you know that there's going to be a word count issue. What we wanted to do is that I had Filaris because he's so good at recognizing draft talent and compartmentalizing it. We're going to get so many questions about, well, especially about like, you know, where would Schwarber rank or, you know, where would Aiken rank if he signs or, you know, all these things. And, um, you know,

so I asked Nick, you know, to write some capsules about that, where, where he thinks that they will end up on the one-on-one so that people can have a frame of reference of where they might, you know, slot. Everybody thinks that, guy like Aitken, for example, who gets these completely ridiculous Kershaw comps, that he would be a top 10 prospect in baseball. And I think that Filaris mentioned that he would fall somewhere in the 30 to 40 range. And I think that that's good to have on there just to show the depth of the product that we're putting out.

And yeah, it got a little wordy, but you know what? I mean, I want to offer the most, it's a thin list, but I want to offer the most comprehensive product we possibly can. And that comes with capsules and links to scouting reports. And we want people to click on the top 50 and get everything they can possibly get information wise about those players. So you sometimes talk about how AA is like the real test for a lot of these guys. It's like the year where you really see whether they're legit in a lot of cases. And I was

wondering when you're talking about not evaluating pro players based on amateur scouting reports, is the gap between amateur and pro more instructive than the gap between, say, single A and double A, and more instructive than the gap between, say, triple A and the majors? How do those sort of three tiers rank as far as, you know, like kind of show me moments? I mean, that's a really, really good question and something that I think that I wouldn't even mind flushing that out and writing a, you know, a better article about it. But I think the gap, no matter what, the gap between what is happening in the minors at any level and what is happening in the majors is the most extreme in sports. I think that we've seen this so many times.

You could be a really high-end prospect and just absolutely crush AAA and then go to the majors and get absolutely crushed. I think that that's the biggest difference. Obviously, amateur, depending on where you're coming from in amateur. If you're coming from the Latin American markets, obviously that jump to the pro level is going to be extreme. If you're in high school, obviously that jump is going to be extreme. But if you're in college, and let's say you're in the SEC or something like that, jumping to the complex level isn't really going to present that much of a challenge,

nor should it. So I think you have to look specifically at the player we're talking about. I mean, when you're looking at a high school player that maybe he did the showcases but he didn't really play at a high level or against high competition in high school, that jump to the pro level can tell you a lot. It may not be able to tell you a lot in the two-month summer sample, but once you start getting into Instructs, once you start getting there, you find out some player dev updates from teams. This is what we're working on. This is the way the player looks. I remember the first time I saw Francisco Lindor. He

was 17 years old when he was drafted. I got to see him in his first instructs, and that's when it really started the wave of, like, wow, Lindor is really, really good. That's when that started to happen because he was playing on a much higher level than just the showcase circuit where everybody had seen him before. And then now you had him on a field with a ton of other prospects, and he was really starting to stand out. So, I mean, to answer your question,

I think the jump from the low A's to double A is really extreme. And I think that it's kind of a, it will tell you who's real and who isn't real, or it'll start to show you that. I think that it's harder when it's dealing with amateur talent, you know, uh, assimilating to professional baseball in general. There's a lot to get used to, you know, pitchers are throwing every fifth day instead of once a week. You're taking these really insane bus rides in some situations. You're living with a hodgepodge of people, both Latin Americans, you know, all different types of people brought from all different parts of the world, basically. And there's a lot of adjustment there culturally, you know, emotionally. And so it's really a hard level to

evaluate because the talent levels are so different. You know, you're so different culturally. But when you get to double A, you know, most of those guys have been in the pro ranks for a little bit then. You should be able to ride a bus. You should be able to adjust to having certain teammates. You should be able to adjust to life on the road. And so you can get a better judge of the talent. So, you know, it's, you have to really look at all this kind of stuff when you're evaluating talent, because it's really, it's really, really tough to, because every player is going to be at a different developmental point in their path. So some people got to see some of the behind thethe-scenes stuff going on in producing this list.

We ran the debate series last week that Nick moderated, and you were another member of the prospect staff, argued for or against a certain prospect. But there were emails flying back and forth for weeks as you put this thing together. The list went through many iterations as you spoke to people in the industry and incorporated input from the staff. Is there anyone who stands out as, you know, from the first version of the list to the final version that moved the most? Or did your opinion of where to put someone change significantly from the beginning of that process to the end? Well, I mean, we definitely had, we didn't all agree. And, you know, I think that a lot of people think that, you know, I say something and

everybody on the prospect team is just going to agree and that's just the way it's going to be. But that's not the way it's set up at all. You know, these guys go out and they're watching talent too. They have their opinions and the reason they were brought on is because they will stand by them. They have conviction in them. And so, you know, there were some good fights, some fights that didn't even make it.

I mean, the debate series was a lot more structured. There were kind of, you know, things were set up on a tee for us to play with. I mean, the real behind-the-scenes stuff is a little more terse. We did have some pretty testy exchanges about certain players of going like, man, I just completely fundamentally disagree with you. We had some, Mark Appel was a guy that was really tough to rank. This is – it's a 1-1 guy and when he's on, I mean it's 94 to 98, big time slider with tons of tilt, turns over a changeup, looks the part, body, everything.

But when he struggles, the makeup concerns that existed in college start to pop up. You know, the low energy or just the low affect, the bad body language, the depressed stuff, the mentality that, you know, it's more passive. It's not an attack profile. And, like, some people when they're watching baseball, when they're watching a pitcher, they judge this kind of stuff. And if you remember Appel having a good start, you might fight for him because he was a 1-1 guy. He had the appendectomy in the offseason, didn't really get a spring training, you know, got rushed to high A, got put into a tandem system that he openly bitched about. You know, there were a lot of things developmentally speaking that weren't, you speaking, that weren't on the same page. And you can understand a young player coming into professional ball, despite the fact he came from a big college program, having some ups and downs.

You've got to give a guy leeway for that. The problem is that we had a lot of guys on the site who had seen him perform in the California League and came away very unimpressed. unimpressed. And, you know, we did have some fights because on, if he's, if he is Mark Appel, the guy who was taken one, one, I think he's a top 20 guy in baseball. Problem is we haven't seen that guy and we can only go by what we scout. And we had too many eyes on him to, to hold up, you know, and I, I originally fought for that. And then I fell off because, man, these guys have seen him this year. They do not believe in the profile to that level. They think he's more of a mid-rotation guy if he gets there. And so that caused him to fall down the list a little bit. And so he was definitely one that we had some debates about. We also had some debates about guys like Mookie Betts or

Polanco or guys who are no longer in the equation. When we first started the discussions, we've had so many guys promoted that it's kind of removed them from the equation, which is interesting. I'm wondering sort of how far a prospect could potentially drop in three months. Because Appel has kind of had almost the worst case case, you know, first half of the season. The performance has been terrible. The reports have been terrible. The sort of, I don't know, like intangible stuff around him has been terrible. It's all been pretty brutal.

It's been terrible. Yeah, we did that redraft of that, what we did the redraft of the 2013 draft and Appel dropped to like what 15th or something like that right um and and yet he's only dropped from I think 21 in the preseason uh top 100 to I think 34 on this one and so I'm wondering like kind of in the abstract what is the most you can imagine uh say a number 21 prospect dropping in three months? Because obviously his talent level is somewhat anchored in his genes and in his neurology and in the way he's been brought up and in his body and all those sorts of things. So how much damage can you really imagine a prospect doing

in three months? Is that the most or is Appel's ranking that high still sort of suggestive that there have been some things that have mitigated the nightmare this spring? Well, I mean, it has been a nightmare. And I think that the shoulder concerns, I mean, obviously there's been some whispers that he has a shoulder ailment. Injury will cause a guy to fall just out of a general attrition, you know, just out of wanting to promote healthy guys, because especially when you have an arm, it's never a given, you know, Dylan Bundy fell a little bit because of the injury, and now we moved him back up because he is showing that he is healthy again. Jameson Tyon slipped down because of the injury.

You know, I think it's just got to be case-specific. But with Appel, you know, you still like the sample of him sucking is not very substantial. And there are circumstances that you can look at and rationalize, if you will, of why he's come out of the gate slow. I mean, it's not the start that he wanted. I'm sure it's not the start that the Astros wanted. But, I mean, this guy in camp, in his limited-looking camp,

was 94-98 with a really wipeout slider. It's not that he can't do it. The talent is still there. Maybe the profile is a little iffy now, but barring injury – and here's the thing. I mean, it's all subjective, but I didn't get to see Appel suck in person. And I tell you what, though. I don't have a problem like – as I say in my intro, I don't have a problem. Like, as I say in my intro, like, I don't care where we ranked a guy before. I really don't, man. I'm not out to like, prove to people that like, oh, I'm trying to have some sort of consistency here. And like,

oh, you didn't move this guy up 20 spots, but you move this guy up 60 spots. You know, I don't really care. If I see a guy and he has shown improvement or he has regressed, I'll point it out. You know, Joey Gallo, we came in, this is a guy who was has shown improvement or he has regressed I'll point it out you know Joey Gallo we came in this is a guy who was in the 90s or something 99 98 or something like that man he said he's near a top tier guy right now and the reason is is because you know he's kicking ass and you can't ignore it and you know he came into camp with just, you know, weighing like 245 pounds, a chisel, working out, you know, showing more agility, like, and it showed as he came into the season. You know, destroyed the Carolina League.

I mean, obviously he's got a lot of swing and miss, and I think that that's kind of what's tempering him being even in the higher tier. But, like, the same is true of David Dahl. David Dahl, we ranked him like a hundred because he had a lost season last year you know but you know what that was way way too low the problem is we couldn't put eyes on him you know we put eyes on just about everybody else we couldn't put eyes on doll i put eyes on doll in camp um we've had a couple of guys put eyes on him so far this season and it's obvious that he's a top tier guy it's obvious

and so we we we uh you know made an adjustment we said you know who gives it who gives a crap if like we're going to jump this guy 70 spots or 80 spots it's we were too low we've put eyes on him now it's time to adjust i'll do the same thing for a guy who falls if i see a guy and i think he sucks i'll pull him down i don't care you know if i see a guy and he's not worth it or he's slipping down or i think that his profile is not nearly as good as it's been suggested or that I've even suggested before I have no problem looking at that and making an adjustment and pulling that guy off a list yeah I was gonna ask you about those two players because you called you know shortly after that list came out before the season before there was any more action to go on you called that if there

were going to be two guys who took big jumps, it would probably be Gallo and Dahl. And you said as much on a fringe average episode. So I'm wondering, you know, the next time this situation arises with your ranking guys again this winter, and you're thinking this guy is likely to take a huge jump in the mid-season list, will you then think maybe I should just bump him up now? Will you take it as a message from your intuition,

whatever your sense of prospects are, that it's trying to tell you that maybe these guys should be higher? Or is it just a case where you have to wait and see no matter what? I mean, that's one way of looking at it. It'd probably be good. But then I couldn't say, hey, but I was right. See, told you I had to pull it up. Because if I bump them up too much and I'm wrong, then I don't look as good and it's hard to run away from it. Got to cover our tracks in this business. Actually, I don't care. You know, yeah, maybe I should have. And, you know, we had some internal debates this offseason about

wanting to move those guys up. The problem was, is that Joey Gallo was coming off a season where he basically struck out 37% of the time in low way. All right. And as Ryan Parker broke down in his amazing, uh, and you looked at it too, and you're a really nice Grantland article. Um, you know, Joey Gallo changed. This is not something that we often see in prospects. I mean, this is all I do for a living. You see little adjustments, but you don't see things that are like, oh, wow, he became better. I mean, look, when you see a guy who struck out 37% of the time in low A, the list of guys who have overcome that is very, very short.

Very short. And Gallo, I mean, he's still got a lot of swing and miss, but he really altered himself to become a better hitter. He became a better all around hitter and really allowed that power to play. And, you know, that's, that's why that, you know, he made this adjustment in the, coming into camp and then throughout, once he got to Myrtle beach that continued at Myrtle beach to start the season, we saw him in camp and he still was showing some signs of being the old Joey Gallo, the way he would pinch his hips in and really swing for the fences with everything. I have a one spot, one speed type of guy. You know, you know, it's we were justified in the low ranking just as we're justified.

and paying attention to the climate of the moment and moving him to where he belongs on a list because that's where he belongs on a list right now, in my opinion. The same is true of David Dahl. He had a lost year last year. There were injuries. He was still the same kid, but what you wanted to see was how he responded again. You wanted to see a kid who came into camp with the same physicality, with the same bat-to-ball ability, with the same ability to play center field.

And the injuries didn't limit him. He looked like the same kid. He was incredible in camp. The numbers aren't incredible yet, but, I mean, the Rockies have a developmental plan for him. We'll see if it takes. But a guy like that, man, I have no problem jumping him 70-plus spots because the ceiling is an all-star.

And even if he's not, as Ryan Parker put in his scouting report, he's Drew Stubbs. He's Drew Stubbs as a floor. And for all that, I know that that's not the most glamorous name in baseball, but, man, if that's his floor, man, that's a hell of a prospect. It's not quite the Torrey hunter floor for byron buxton who is the next guy that i was gonna ask you about uh so so buxton still at the top of the list even though he has barely played this year he just finally got back on the field today for the first time in a couple months yeah and got pulled off but it was just a

precautionary move so he was removed from the game after diving for a ball. And so you debated Buxton versus Correa with Ron Shaw on Friday, so people can go read some more in-depth thoughts there. But what was the thought process there in Buxton holding off Correa, holding off Bryant, whoever else, despite sort of having a lost season to this point? He has a physical profile that nobody else in the minors has. It's, you know, on a raw tool level, he grades out double plus to elite and far as projection on almost everything. I mean, it's really, it's irresponsible. Now, the promise of that is why he is still on the list. I mean, he plays a premium position. I know that Correa does too, but he plays a premium position.

It's a no-brainer that he's staying there. It's a no-brainer that in 10 years Byron Buxton is a center fielder. It's going to happen. He's got pole-to-pole range, true 80-grade runner, big-time weapon of an arm. So, you know, he's got a plus arm. He's got pull-to-pull range, true 80-grade runner, big-time weapon of an arm. So he's got a plus arm. He's got elite speed.

He's got a double-plus projection on the hit tool. He hasn't even learned to tap into his power yet, but when he wants to, he can hit 440-foot bombs. The guy has just about everything you could possibly want in a baseball player except for the fact fact that he lost a season, you know, and he lost a year developmentally speaking. I'm not going to knock him for that. I mean, I guess I do knock him for that, but his physical tools outweigh any kind of, you know, step down that he would take. I mean, if this were a guy who had like plus tools and they were still really sexy, but

they weren't like what they have now. Yeah, I could see him falling down the list a bit, but nobody in the minor leagues has his physical profile, and it's really not even close. I mean, he's a freak. And if he comes together, it's completely abnormal. I mean, just look at his production as a kid in the minors. I mean, he's really performed at a high level when he's healthy and on the field.

And a lot of people didn't think that coming out of high school. A lot of people thought that this was the prototypical raw athlete transferring his raw athleticism to a baseball field, a baseball profile, becoming more skill-oriented and tool-oriented. And, man, I think that right out of the gate he proved, man, I have baseball skills. You know, I can read and route and center. You know, his angles for the ball are crisp. This is a true center fielder, a guy who can really emerge as a perennial

gold glove type of guy in that position. His bat to ball was a lot better than people realized. Just one hell of a – and he had a mature approach. Just one hell of a baseball player. And a mature approach. Just one hell of a baseball player. And I hate the fact that he lost a year. And I really hope that the injury doesn't become something that we start seeing every season, Buxton going down with an injury. Because it would be – it would really hurt because this is a guy who can bring

a lot to the game of baseball. And not just because he would bring a lot to a team. I like the fact that somebody with his profile could emerge as not only the top prospect in baseball but hopefully one of the top players in the highest level of the game because i think it would be really really good for youth baseball um so once you get to number one it's hard to put that uh in any more perspective than number one right i mean he's number one there's nowhere else to put him he's at the top so i'm just curious, where does he rank as far as recent number ones have gone or have been in your mind? And just to refresh your memory, recent number ones on BP

have been Jerickson Profar, Matt Moore, Bryce Harper, Steven Strasburg, and Matt Wieters. And you probably can go even further back faster than I can look him up. So is he a elite number one, or is he just a number one by kind of his contemporaries' standards? I think that he has a chance to be an elite number one. I think that we're going to need a little bit of revisionist history there

to look back and go, do we get this right or do we get this wrong i mean is he does he have the fanfare of bryce harper no he doesn't um you know matt moore was obviously a serious dude and he was missing a ton of bats and you know there's a lot of there was a lot of sex appeal there i get that um i would i wasn't a matt moore number one type of guy, especially because that was in the same class of where people were like, oh, well, maybe Trout didn't get the love that he should have. Trout never really got the love he should have, but it doesn't matter. All that really matters, and I'm not saying the prospect list don't matter.

I think they're good for looking at what they're taking the temperature of the minor leagues at any given moment. But what really matters, where these guys will find their value is when they prove it at the major league level. Everything else is just abstract. Everything else is just, hey, this is what this guy could be. This is how I'm ranking him based on what he could be. And I do think that he is a number one. I do think he could be an elite number one. The only way he's actually going to be an elite number one is that if he takes that and moves to the highest level and proves that, hey, man, this was not only justified, but you guys, you know, it should have been universally accepted, which it almost is with Buxton. But it all comes down to what you become. You know, this is all nice. And it's it's cool to tease people with like, this is what

your your your future could look like. This is guy's going to play for your team. You're going to get to watch this guy on television. That's all great. But until you do and until he does, man, it's all really abstract. So we got to talk about the Cubs. You've been trolling Cubs fans on Twitter, telling them that none of their guys is in the top 50. Surprisingly successfully, by the way. Just looking at the replies to those tweets, surprising number of people fell for that. Yes, they did. But we couldn't give them their due now. They have five guys on the top 50, would be six if you were counting Schwarber. They have three in the top 10 and four in the top 20. So how does this compare, I guess,

to the best systems you have evaluated? Has this, I guess, become the top system in baseball? Has it leapfrogged Minnesota's? And how does this compare to the Royals of a few years ago or whatever the best systems you've seen are? Three in the top six, by the way. Three in the top six. That's way. Three in the top six. That's pretty impressive, yeah.

Yeah, that's good. That's a good thing. Obviously, the top, here's the thing about the Cubs system, and like, obviously, I don't try to troll Chicago, but like, okay, for example, I have four radio spots tomorrow in Chicago. Every station, almost an hour apart.

So, I mean, I am saturated in the Chicago media. Half of my Twitter followers are probably lunatic Cub fans, and that's fantastic. But, I mean, I answer a lot of Cubs questions. And so that's what leads me to troll them sometimes. First, it's easy, and then second, I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. But to your question i mean it's it's don't get me wrong it's they had a really nice draft and they have these these top tier guys and it's a very top heavy uh farm system they have some serious dangerous horses

you know they have guys like bryant who is an impact guy bias he could have the highest ceiling of anybody in the minors you know um bringing russell in i mean russell's a dude russell is well-rounded russell's going to become something okay he's definitely going to be i think that's the shortstop of their future they have a lot and ed man and i love alcantara i love rsm in the arcantara alcantara that guy is. He's a really good baseball player. So, I mean, I like their farm system a lot. And, you know, obviously adding Russell is a big deal. McKinney's an okay guy.

It's not that I don't think he's a system-changing guy. But, you know, one of the reasons I like the Twins so much is that I think that you can find a lot of talent almost at every single level of the minors, you know, and it's, they're also top heavy, but I think that they also have a lot of depth. And I think that the Cubs have just started to, to put that depth in place. Now they always had the high end guys. I don't really care that it's the balance isn't there. It's, you know, it's obviously very positional heavy, but it's all the same to me. It's all currency.

But that said, I don't think that they – I think you can make a case that they're the top system. Just Russell's a serious, serious dude. Problem is is that I look at some of the other systems, Pittsburgh, man, hell, even the Astros, they have a lot of depth. So after that top tier erodes, after you lose Bryant, after you lose Alcantara, after you lose Baez, you know, the system doesn't go from number one to number 10. You know, it's a system that I think that the Cubs might have that kind of

action. You know, obviously they're trying to add to the depth now, but I think that it's very, very top heavy. Whereas the Twins, I think that it's very, very top-heavy. Whereas the Twins, I think that they can keep restocking this. They've had some really interesting drafts. They've had some really interesting trades. They've been really good in Latin America, and I think the Cubs are starting to do this. I think that they're starting to do this, though, and I think that a team like the Twins,

they're still a little bit ahead in that department, and if I'm not ranking the systems right now, if I were, I think it would be close between the Twins and the Cubs. Hard to argue against the Cubs' pure talent, impact talent. They definitely have more impact names than any other team. But as far as depth, the depth is not quite the top organization yet. yet and historically that's what i mean that's what made the the royals system a few years ago so impressive is that man there was there was so much depth in that farm system that the guys who were at the very bottom of the miners when that happened are starting to work their way up now and you know they're the players so i mean it's obviously that system didn't yield the same fruit

that you would want from such a historic class but but man, when does it ever come on, you know? Right. So, I mean, even before the acquisition of Russell and McKinney, people were talking about how the system skewed toward position players and Theo Epstein told Joe Pesnanski last week that he's trying to build a behemoth of position players. Do you like this strategy? I mean, first of all, do you, do you think that there is a place for all of these guys?

You know, if, if Russell's the shortstop of the future and, and Bryant sticks at third, then where does Baez go? Is there, is there a problem there that they have to sort out or do you think they can fit all of those pieces in? And just, you know, generally, do you think this is a good idea to build around position players and figure out pitching some other way? Look, talent is talent. And I think that as valuable as pitching talent is, and I think that you can easily make a case that, you know, pitching is what wins baseball games, especially at the highest level, and that stockpiling arms is never a bad thing because, you know, the attrition rate of pitchers. That said, man, there's also, you know, there's a hunger at the major league level for power. And, you know, there's a lack of power. There's like,

you just don't see the power bats that you use to. then when you can put that sort of, you know, commodity in the hands of somebody who can play the middle infield, I think that you can then make a case that you hold the highest value, that you hold the most valuable commodity in baseball. And the Cubs have decided to stockpile all the badass middle infielders that they possibly can. You know, they, I mean, Alcantara was a shortstop. This is a guy who can play a little shortstop. He's a, he's a, a dynamic player in that regard. And he's got pop. Baez obviously has crazy pop. Bryant's not a shortstop, but he's a, is an infielder for now, but he is a power

bat and it comes down to power again. You know, there's not a lotstop, but he's an infielder for now. But he is a power bat, and it comes down to power again. There's not a lot of power out there. Look at all the systems in baseball and go through the guys who have 70 potential power. There aren't a lot of them, and the Cubs seem to have all of them. Guys who can hit 30 home runs at the major league level. Sort out the positions later. It's a first world problem. It's one of the best problems that you could possibly have.

You decide that Russell's your go-to guy. I think that he's the guy. He is going to be the face of the Chicago Cubs. That is going to be the guy. I believe in Addison Russell. I think that Bryant is a good candidate to eventually move to right field just because he is a very big kid. He doesn't have the best lower body when it comes to movement and agility, although he is a decent athlete.

I think he would thrive in right field. I think he would be a very good right fielder. So that problem could be solved. Alcantara is a guy that I think that he can play second. I think that he could probably play left field. There's some versatility there. Here's the thing about shortstops. Shortstops are, you know, that's where you put your alpha guy

when you're coming up through the ranks. If you're the best player in your high school team, you're probably playing shortstop. That's just the way of the world. And when you can play shortstop, you can go play other positions. You can go play third because you probably have the arm for it. You can play second because you have the agility and athleticism for it. You can move to the outfield because you probably have the range.

You definitely have the arm. You can be a weapon just about anywhere if you start at shortstop. And now they have all these guys that are shortstops. And so it gives them this ability to fan out and eventually have like, oh, wow, guess what? We have all these shortstops on the field. I remember talking to one of the player dev guys for the rangers and he was like oh man check this out what if like if we got rid of if kinsler actually moved over to first base when that was in discussion before the trade they could have had a situation where they had basically you know the whole infield would have been former short stops

you know and that would have been former shortstops. And that would have just been really, really impressive. It gives you a lot of versatility. Obviously, Beltre hadn't been a shortstop for a very, very long time. But when you have Elvis, when you have Profar, when you even have Kinsler, when you have Odor, when you have guys like that, you have all these former shortstops. And obviously, Kinsler gets traded and whatnot, so that's smooth. But there's still a ton of shortstops in the middle of that infield.

And that's never a bad thing. It's never a bad thing to have too many premium shortstops. You know, it gives you a lot of currency to play with. And I think when the time is right for the Chicago Cubs, you know, that front office is going to have the firepower to go out and make some serious deals. Because as I said, because of the dearth of power, other teams are going to find that sexually appetizing. And so they say, well, guess what? We have this – we're out of the race.

We've got this guy. We like him. He's probably a number three starter. But, man, we don't have any kind of power in our system. Here's this guy. Give me Baez and you know the Cubs might be willing to do something like that in 2015 and I think that that's when they're going to build something that's going to be a behemoth were you surprised that the A's

surrendered Russell in that deal I mean obviously they've they've built their they've kind of built this team by trading prospects but at the same time, Russell was... Not that guy. Right, yeah. So, I mean, did you think that was too much, or is it a flags fly forever kind of case where you understand it? You know, Billy Bean has been on top of the game for such a long time. I would be pissed off if I didn't have at least, you know, a banner or something, you know. I think that... Actually, what I think this is,

is I think that he's tired of seeing David For force name as the future gm of other teams he want to go he wants to go ahead and get his flag and move force up into the position and just quell all of that look they saw the team they have they saw the landscape of baseball they know what they need to do you know and they had a chance to to acquire two starting pitchers one for a year and a half um they can come in and do they're both going to do very well in Oakland. That's going to make that staff very, very dangerous. It's going to give them arguably – I mean I don't – I haven't really looked at this kind of stuff,

but I mean they look like the team to beat right now in the American League, and that gives them a chance to get to a World Series and do something, and I know that that's the goal of every front office. And eventually, as nice as we like prospects, and I appreciate Billy Beans' Barry Larkin comp for Russell, I don't think that that's hyperbole. I think that that could be possible. You know, you eventually have to say, look, man, we need to win.

I'm tired of finishing first and going out in the first round. I'm tired of this. I want the horses that will take me to the World Series. And that's the goal of any front office. That's what it comes down to. And it's going to hurt for years watching Russell play in Chicago. But if they get to the World Series, everything will be forgotten. Does it nudge your assessment of a guy at all when his team trades him?

It depends on how he's traded i mean is there you know was he traded because they don't think he can be developed or was he traded because the team has a surplus at the position and he became expendable as a result or was he traded because in this context the team needed to acquire arms that would take them to the next level i think that i don't think that they wanted to trade Addison Russell. I think that it took Addison Russell, and I think that it probably took a couple of sleepless nights with that deal on the table,

because that's a big ball's move to go for that. I mean, trading a guy that could be that good, a franchise guy. But I think Oakland has shown that they can grab guys to go for that. I mean, trading a guy that could be that good, a franchise guy. But, you know, I think Oakland has shown that they can grab guys that have been discarded by other teams. They trust in their scouting department. They trust in their ability to go find, you know, the market inefficiencies out there. And, you know, I think that this shows the confidence in their ability to, in talent procurement and development. they think that they can do this again what they can't get right now is two quality major league starters and that's what they got and you know more power to them that was an awesome baseball trade so mike farron is waiting to talk to you on the radio we don't want to keep mike waiting

yes last thing who was the most agonizing omission from this list? Who was going to keep you up because you couldn't find a spot for him? I think not putting Clint Frazier on the list is bothering me just a little bit. As I wrote in the list, I mean, I could change this. I'm glad I sent it into editing because I would want to tinker with it a little bit more. Clint Frazier did not make the list. He's a guy that hasn't had the best first full pro season. The thing is with him is that he's got the kind of bat speed that will just turn your lights out.

When he gets it, when it clicks, it's going to be special. And there's bumps in the developmental road. The problem is that you look at the landscape of baseball, there's so many good players, there's so many players that have had good, positive steps forward, developmentally speaking. I couldn't justify putting him on there just because of talent. And obviously there's some slight makeup concerns.

He's a really cocky kid. He rubs people the wrong way. None of this will matter when he starts to hit. And I will think back and go man you know what i should have put him in the top 50 because i know he's a top 50 talent in the minors all right well everyone go read the list go follow jason on twitter at professor parks if you're a cubs fan don't take anything he says too seriously and uh thanks for joining us jason of course guys all right please support our sponsor baseball reference go to baseball reference.com subscribe to the play index using the coupon code

bp to get the discounted price of 30 on a one-year subscription please send us some emails for this week's listener email show at podcast at baseball prospectus.com and we'll be back with a new show tomorrow. Still on multiples of five. Aren't you pleased? I actually found that fairly grotesque. Was Russell's idea. He said he was doing me a service as my therapist so that I wouldn't have to suffer through non-multiples of five so as my therapist if i'm obsessive compulsive he would just

recommend i wash my hands again and maybe that'll help i think so hello hello where are you where am i yeah you mean like metaphysically