Cade Horton – Picture by Todd Johnson

Yesterday, Baseball Prospectus dropped their Top 101 Prospect List. That compendium contained 9 Cubs!

Today, Baseball America answered quickly with their own top 100.

Last time on Baseball America, the Cubs only placed four Cubs on BA’s top 100 list. PCA was at 12, Cade Horton was all the way up to 17, Matt Shaw was at 80, and Owen Caissie was at 95. That list came out at the beginning of September.

So, to prepare for today’s list, I ran a poll last night to see how many Cubs people on Twitter thought would make the list. I doubted it would be nine. That is just unreal. However, I was thinking 6 would not be out of the range of possibility.

Let’s get to the results!

The Cubs placed 5 in the top 100. Wait a second…let me rephrase that. 5 in the top 50!!!!!!!!

PCA got the collection going at 18 followed by Cade Horton at 24. Matt Shaw came in at 31 while Matt Busch was at 43 and Owen Caissie was the caboose at 47.

That’s pretty cool to see 5 in the top 50!

And that might be the bigger picture here. What seperates this era of Cubs prospects from the 2015 era is the issue of elite talent vs depth. This year’s grouping is catching. Yes, the Cubs could have more names later in the year, but the simple fact that they have 5 in the top 50 is exceptional. To paraphrase Theo, this cookie might be turning into the main course, and quickly, as all five of these guys could be in Chicago by year’s end.

However, it was disappointing to not see Kevin Alcantara or Moises Ballesteros or James Triantos or even Jordan Wicks. We probably were a little spoiled by BP’s list yesterday.

WIth MLB Pipeline set to drop their top 100 next Friday, we won’t have to wait long to do a little more comparison between the major compilations. However, who knows when ESPN and The Athletic will drop. I am always curious to see who puts whom on a list because it is always different. Still, having a certain number of prospects should be similar because of the depth of the system. The issue then becomes preferability. Some writers gush over ceilings and skillsets while others balance performance and the level at which they play.

We shall find out more soon as Prospect List Season continues.