He finds it waning at the moment.
Potash writes "While
most Cub fans wait with anticipation for the Big Four — Javier Baez,
Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler and Albert Almora — to lead a
player-development renaissance that turns Theo Epstein’s woebegone Cubs
into a perennial contender, there’s another faction of Cub loyalists
that considers Epstein and Jed Hoyer flim-flam men whose baseball
judgment is not nearly as keen as they would like us to believe.
"Edwin Jackson continues to be
Exhibits A, B and C for that faction and that contention. The signing of
a pitcher with such a well-established record of fool’s gold to a
four-year, $52 million contract in January of 2013 reeked before the ink
was even dry. A fairly predictably dreadful season in which Jackson
habitually pitched poorly enough to lose — either falling behind early
or blowing sizable leads — made it clear that Epstein & Co. were
guilty of either signing a guy off some cherry-picked numbers or
terribly misjudging Jackson’s ability to compete."
Jackson may become the poster boy of what is wrong with the Cubs baseball plans. The system is lacking quality starting pitching, but the Cardinals seem to keep finding good arms like the 22-year-old Wacha who bested Jackson in the first St. Louis series of the year. And the issue is that the Cubs could have drafted Wacha, but instead chose Almora. The Cardinals picked 13 places later to select Wacha, who in less than two years made it to the majors.
Find talent. Evaluate talent. Draft talent. Quickly develop talent. Insert talent in majors. That has been the factory assembly line of young players being promoted to the Cardinals roster.
Even if you like the Cubs new focus farm
system is encouraging, the emphasis has been on taking prospects who will take longer to develop than a Wacha. And that may be the flaw in the Cubs current model: not signing enough major league ready talent that need only one plus years in the minors for seasoning.
But the Cubs will claim they drafted a slew of college pitchers one year. That is a true statement, but the team then assigned them to rookie and low A ball where some have been mired for years. At some point, caution has to be thrown out and the birds must leave the nest to see if they can fly at the next level of promotion.
It could be that since new ownership, the models keep on changing: first it was the continuation of the Tribune entertainment model; then it was the Boston Way; then it was the minor league way of the Rays; and now people think the Cubs should pattern their organization after the rival Cardinals.
But it seems the Cubs front office is desperately trying to hold back talent to build of a surge of great young players hitting the majors at the same time to overwhelm the NL Central. But trying to "time" the arrival date of a low minor league prospect is like trying to time the stock market. It rarely works.
The Cubs are steadfast that their baseball model will work. They continue to draft higher than the rival Cardinals, who continue to have their prospects beat the Cubs' prospects to the majors. It seems the Cubs are standing still while the Cardinals to continue to beat them to the punch.
