The Top-Five Cubs Prospects by Projected WAR

Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Chicago Cubs. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Chicago’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Cubs system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Cubs system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

5. Kyle Schwarber, C/OF (Profile)

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR
415	.219	.278	.353	74	0.8

Calculating a projection for Schwarber presents some difficulties insofar as (a) he’s clearly more valuable at catcher than left field, presuming he’s an average defender at both, but also (b) he’s probably not an average defensive catcher. Not currently, at least. As McDaniel notes, however, the Cubs are committed for the time being to developing Schwarber behind the plate. His offensive profile, complemented by the benefit of a catcher’s positional adjustment, would conspire to create an impressive major leaguer.

4. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP (Profile)

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR
150	7.8	3.9	1.0	4.28	0.8

Vizcaino’s numbers here are prorated to a generic starter’s (as opposed to reliever’s) workload — and, indeed, Vizcaino appears to have the necessary repertoire to have success as a starting pitcher. What he’s lacked in recent years is the requisite health, however — the finer points of which it’s impossible for a projection system to integrate entirely. What the projected line here represents, then, is a scenario in which a healthy and mechanically sound emerges in 2015. What reports like McDaniel’s indicate, however, is that other scenarios are more likely.

3. Addison Russell, SS (Profile)

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR
550	.240	.295	.370	91	1.9

It’s possible that Russell won’t even make his major-league debut this season — or, not until September roster expansion, at least. Nevertheless, the projections indicate that, were he to receive a promotion to the parent club, that he’d produce wins at something like a league-average rate. The plate-discipline profile isn’t ideal at the moment, putting more pressure on the quality of Russell’s contact, but that’s also a concern mitigated by Russell’s positional adjustment and — so far as the future is concerned — how he’s turning only 21 years old.

2. Jorge Soler, OF (Profile)

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR
550	.271	.330	.470	121	2.5

In Bryant, Russell, and Soler, the Cubs have a striking collection of prospects who offer not just substantial future, but also compelling present, value. According to Steamer’s computer math, the Cubs could extract nearly eight wins from that triumvirate over a full major-league season in 2015 — more than half, that figure, than the WAR total produced collectively by the club’s batters in 2014. Soler is the only member of the group to have recorded major-league playing time, the offensive skills he exhibited at both Double- and Triple-A in 2014 translating in surprisingly predictable fashion to the majors over 97 plate appearances.

1. Kris Bryant, 3B (Profile)

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR
550	.265	.344	.489	130	4.0

Bryant’s four-win projection for 2015 is more than a win greater than the league’s next rookie-eligible player, other very powerful third-base prospect Miguel Sano‘s. His prorated 29 home-run projection (per 600 PAs) is equal to Miguel Cabrera‘s, Nelson Cruz‘s, and teammate Anthony Rizzo’s — players whom the reader will recognize as accomplished major-league hitters. It’s not fair, of course, to expect a top-level offensive performance from a player who’s recorded zero major-league plate appearances. On the other hand, the cold and unfeeling algorithms inside the Steamer computer are uninfluenced by the enthusiasm concerning Bryant’s future and have produced the projection here by means of the same methodology used to produce all the other, less impressive ones.