The top young players in the Cubs’ system received more publicity Monday when Baseball Prospectus released its list of the Top 101 Prospects in the game. Less than a week after placing seven players on MLB.com’s ranking of the 100 best minor leaguers, the Cubs’ system ended up with seven players on BP’s list.
Javier Baez (4), Kris Bryant (17), Albert Almora (25), Jorge Soler (45), C.J. Edwards (81), Arismendy Alcantara (83) and Pierce Johnson (91) are among the top 101 prospects in baseball according to Baseball Prospectus. The Cubs system is the second best in the game according to BP, behind first place Minnesota and one ahead of the Pirates.
Jason Parks questioned his ranking of Javier Baez as the fourth best prospect in the game recently and said a case could be made for him to be the best young player in baseball. Parks said Baez’s ceiling is a 40 homer shortstop and while he is not sure if that is likely, it is possible.
Javier Baez jumped into the top five after coming in at no. 20 a year ago. Albert Almora slipped seven spots from the 2013 rankings. And Jorge Soler dropped from 36 last year to 45 in this year’s pre-season rankings. C.J. Edwards, Arismendy Alcantara and Pierce Johnson cracked BP’s ranking for the first time.
As for a position-by-position breakdown, Kris Bryant falls in behind Miguel Sano (Twins) as the second best third base prospect and Arismendy Alcantara ended up as the sixth best second base prospect. Javier Baez was ranked behind Xander Bogaerts (Red Sox) on the shortstops list. On the long list of outfielders, Albert Almora is seventh and Jorge Soler is eighth.
Cubs 2014 Prospect Rankings
- Baseball America’s Top 10 Cubs Prospects for 2014
- Minor League Ball’s Top Cubs Prospects for 2014
- Baseball Prospectus Top 10 Cubs Prospects for 2014
- FanGraphs Top 15 Cubs Prospects for 2014
- Cubs Place Seven Players on MLB.com’s Top 100 Prospects List
Baseball Prospectus’ player grades are very interesting and well worth the read. If you missed the grades that BP handed out to Javier Baez, Albert Almora, Kris Bryant and the top 10 prospects in the system click here.
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