see what happens when you face the astros? you look GOOD

you see c*bs fans, we are determined to grab that number one pick 2 years in a row and get another great hall of famer to be like carlos correa and delino deshields jr amd jiovanni mier!!!!!

Cubs will probably still finish at the bottom of the NL Central, but Rizzo's presence has made the team more intriguing to watch.

RIZZO IS TEH AWESOMEIST!

RIZZO IS ON PACE FOR 46 HOME RUNS!!!!!!!!
RIZZO IS ON PACE FOR 46 DOUBLE!!!!!
HE HAS A .348 ISO!!!!!!
THE CUBS ARE ON PACE TO GO 74-15 WITH RIZZO!!!!!!!
WE LOVE RIZZO!!!!!!!11111112

But seriously, it's been a fun first 6 games. It would be nice to think that between him and Castro we have a couple players who will be good for a long while.

you see c*bs fans, we are determined to grab that number one pick 2 years in a row and get another great hall of famer to be like carlos correa and delino deshields jr amd jiovanni mier!!!!!

Your continued dismissal of anything having to do with minor leaguers is pretty weird.

I just wish Castro would be good now.

But Anthony Rizzo is awesome! ...in the PCL
Really, I just enjoy watching him play. And I'm a Brewers fan.

Cubs will probably still finish at the bottom of the NL Central, but Rizzo's presence has made the team more intriguing to watch.

Well, they're only a game and a half behind Houston, so I wouldn't bet on it. (Notwithstanding their early-season flirtation with respectability, the Astros are pretty bad.) Of course, if the Cubs end up trading Dempster and/or Garza and/or LaHair and/or Soriano, all bets are off.

As to your general point: yes.

The Keith Law Blog Blah Blah (battlekow) Posted: July 03, 2012 at 12:14 PM (#4172142)

you see c*bs fans, we are determined to grab that number one pick 2 years in a row and get another great hall of famer to be like carlos correa and delino deshields jr amd jiovanni mier!!!!!

Your continued dismissal of anything having to do with minor leaguers is pretty weird.

- ANYTHING???!!!
don't be ridickulis (as balky would have said)

i see that the only 2 really top notch prospects that the astros have had since 2000 are hunter pence and chris burke (whose career they completely wasted)

i think that prospect raters are too obsessed with the round of the draft that someone was picked and they should evaluate all players as if they were picked in the last round. putting someone on a top prospect list who can't hit or field, because he was picked in the first round is beyond crazy. refusing to consider someone as a prospect because he started his career "late" is also beyond stupid. 2 future years of greatness from a 29 year old is superior to 6 future years of suckage from a 20 year old.

fact is that the astros have NOT done well with their top 5 picks and the guys who were obtained in trades for pence, oswalt and bourn are not exactly great. since 2000, my organization has not EVER drafted a evan longoria, a tim lincecum, a ryan braun. no guy even in the top 10 % of major leaguers - hunter pence coming the closest, but he's not a STAR!!! no STAR!!! even in the lower rounds.

if your idea of a top prospect or even a first round quality pick is delino deshields jr, whose claim to fame is the number of stolen bases he has, or jason castro, or jiovanni mier, you can have em. now george springer looks decent, but hey, he's still in A ball.

i take it back - they DID draft brian bogusevic, but they wasted 3 years of his development trying to get him to get out Aball hitters and he really could have been another hunter pence, which is to say, good.

i've looked back through the Organizations' top prospect lists for years and, well, let's say i'm not impressed and you shouldn't be neither. and too many guys who ended up on top prospect lists didn't start out in the astros Organization, neither.

"Top 10% of major leaguers" is roughly 75 guys (25 roster spots times 30 teams divided by 10). Average distribution would be 2.5 players per team.

How many current major leaguers have been drafted since 2000? I don't know how to find that data. Let's cheat. 42 players have appeared in a game for the Red Sox this year. 17 are older than 29 which I'll use as a rough measure of having been drafted prior to 2000. So we'll say 60% of major league players, roughly, have been drafted since 2000. Take 60% the top 75 guys in the league and you're left with 45 - so on average 1.5 players meeting this description per org. I'm no mathematician, but in a normal distribution what are the chances that you'd expect some teams to have 0? Pretty high.

There have been around 850 players to have played at least 1 game this year that debuted in 2003 or later. Obviosly not all of them were drafted in 2000 or later and not all players drafted in 2000 had to wait until 2003 to debut. I believe a small handful debut between 2000-2002.

There are 160 players that have played at least 1 game this year that debuted before 2003.

Here are the Astros top five draft picks who have made it to MLB since 2000:

Rd bWAR
2008
1 Jason Castro 0.3
1 Jordan Lyles -1.8
2006
4 Chris Johnson -1.0
2005
1 Brian Bogusevich 2.3
3 Tommy Manzella -1.5
3 (Josh Lindblom DNS)
2004
2 Hunter Pence 18.4
2003
2 Jason Hirsh -0.5
3 (Drew Stubbs DNS)
4 Josh Anderson 0.2
2002
2 Mitch Talbot -0.8
4 Mark McLemore 0.4
5 Pat Misch 0.4
2001
1 Chris Burke -1.5
3 Kirk Saarloos 0.6
4 Philip Barzilla 0.0
5 Charlton Jimerson 0.3
2000
2 Chad Qualls 3.8

This is not good.

That's nothing.

Cubs:
2009
2nd: DJ LeMahieu -.6 WAR

2008
1st: Andrew Cashner 0.4
1s: Ryan Flaherty -0.6
3rd: Chris Carpenter 0.2

2007
1s: Josh Donaldson -0.7
4th: Darwin Barney 5.6 and largely because of the shift
5th: Brandon Guyer 0.1

2006
1st: Tyler Colvin 1.1
5th: Jeff Samardzija 0.1

2005
2nd: Donnie Veal -0.3

2004
None from the top 5 made it to the bigs.

2003
3rd: Jake Fox -0.9

2002
3rd: Billy Petrick -0.2
4th: Rich Hill 3.5

2001:
1st: Mark Prior 15.9
2nd: Andy Sisco 0.5
3rd: Ryan Theriot 5.9
4th: Ricky Nolasco 7.2
5th: Brendan Harris -0.8

2000
1st: Luis Montanez -1.4
2nd: Bobby Hill 0.1
4th: Todd Wellemeyer -1.8

The Padres haven't drafted (and signed) a star sign Jake Peavy in 1999. Jason Bartlett has the most WAR of all draftees since then, but he's never been a star (even if he had a good year or two). The 2004-6 draft classes brought the prospect cohort of Headley, Hundley, Venable, Latos, Freese and Blanks. While 5 of those 6 have had decent careers and look like solid/better players for years to come, none have been true star quality (Headley's had a couple quite good years now, and Latos was awesome for about 2/3 of 2010).

If a team is the type that signs top-quality players, and your farm system develops secondary players like this, that's fantastic. If a team depends on these guys to be the core, signing washed-up vets to fill in around them (or worse, trading Freese for Edmonds), it's just not nearly enough.

And we see why they are battling for the basement in the weakest division in baseball.

Verlander is the only player the Tigers have drafted in the first five rounds in the last 25 years who is (a) a star and (b) still in Detroit. The only other players who were drafted Top 5 by the Tigers since '87 with at least 15 WAR are Granderson (gone) and Brandon Inge (ouch).

So quit complaining.

So quit complaining.

Um, the Cubs wish they had it that good,

#15, I'd bet there are 5-10 teams that have zero "star" level players that were drafted and developed and still with that team.

Although I guess that depends on your definition of star.