It was like watching one of those overhyped gold mining reality shows . . . there are hours of episodes but at the end of the season the miners crap out.
Last season, more fans spent their time researching, watching and following the Cubs vaulted minor league prospects. Several, including Javier Baez and Kris Bryant, were tearing the cover off the ball. It was more enjoyable to invest time and resources in tracking the development of those prospects than watch the major league team stumble from series to series.
But all reality shows get stale real fast.
So far, word from down on the farm is that those golden prospects have tarnished to brass.
No one at AAA Iowa is so far above the fray as to demand a call-up to the major league roster. And that is a bad sign. The Cubs front office signed a bunch of young prospects and put them in the low minors because they had "high ceilings." The question becomes when do the prospects actually "hit" their ceilings. If it is at the AAA level, then those prospects have crapped out like the gold miners.
The season is still young, but slow starts seem to compound on young players. Take Brett Jackson for example. After his blazing AAA season, he earned a call-up to the majors at the end of the season. He struggled badly. The next year, he was back at AAA, and he struggled so badly he was demoted to AA by the end of the year. He is back in AAA, but only hitting .198.
Jackson is the poster boy for prospect gold. He was the five tool outfield prospect that was the "can't miss" Kid. Now at age 25, he is not even on the radar for a major league job.
But it is not that unusual. Most prospects have the fate of Jackson. But when the major league team is so poor, it can only sell one thing: the future. But the future may not be as bright as presented; and if the vaulted prospects don't pan out, the Cubs may be in store for decades of poor teams. I don't think the current fan base will support a second "ten year" rebuild plan for this organization.
