PCA – Pic via 670 the Score

Welcome to our second look at a prospect list this week. Today’s entry comes from Joe Doyle of Future Stars Series. Joe is an essential read when it comes to the draft and prospect analysis and has moved on from Prospects Live, but is producing some amazing content now at Future Stars Series. His prospect lists are a little different as he has links to the top five or six guys, but his whole list is a chart for everyone to see.

What I like about Joe is that he is not afraid to write a hot take on a prospect or to place him much higher than other more conservative lists that tend to favor older players. It’s not uncommon to see a guy in rookie league on Joe’s lists.

His Cubs list starts out, just like everybody else’s does, with Pete Crow-Armstrong at the top. Slotted in the number two spot is none other than Cade Horton and then this is where things start to go a little different. Ben Brown came in at three, Matt Shaw at four and Jackson Ferris bumped his way up to the number five spot. And at number six is Matt Mervis, followed by Owen Caissie at seven.

Let’s take a break here and discuss.

What Joe is looking at here are players with big tools who produce. It’s not just about projection or skills. Their performance exceeds those around them. It’s strange seeing Jackson Ferris that high. It’s a bold move and we’re going to see how it works out over the next year, or until Joe’s winter list comes out.

For me, I am having a lot of recency bias about the performance of Owen Caissie. Since the second half began, and the Southern League stopped using pre-tacked baseballs, he is just dominating that environment and Caissie probably has an argument to be ranked as his number two on some lists. Myself, I would probably have Owen at three, but I would weigh considerations of other people for that number two spot. 

The last part of the top 10 has Jordan Wicks, James Triantos, and Kevin Alcantara. When I saw Triantos ahead of Alcántara, I snickered to myself because there’s a wide gap between Alcantara’s and Triantos’ skills and ceilings. As someone who saw them in person on a regular basis all summer, Alcántara’s skill set and ceiling is semi-other wordly.

The Second Ten 

It was also cool to see Alexander Canario sitting at #11. And then Joe kept going with two more draft picks as he placed Jaxon Wiggins at 14 followed closely followed by my guy, Josh Rivera, at 15. Youngsters Jefferson Rojas and Derniche Valdez came in at 17 and 18 while draft pick Will Sanders got some love at 21.

I love the freshness of this section of the list including Michael Arias, who is actually all the way up at 13. Joe, unlike the major prospect writers, is not afraid to add some youth to a list. While Rojas is at 17, he could probably go about 4 or 5 higher and probably will this winter. 

The Final Ten

Again, Joe went with the youth in the 20s section of his list. Alfosnin Rosario at 29 and Chris Paciolla at 30 were the biggest surprises for me. Most of the other selections were pretty much standard prospect fare. There was the inclusion of Ryan Jensen on the list, who was actually in the system when Joe finished the article. 

Tonight, we will be back with our third prospect list in two days as MLB Pipeline will be releasing their newest top 100 list tonight along with a new top 30 for every team. And by every team, I mean the Cubs. 

Someone here at NSB will cover that for you!