Cubs' Draft Reputation Is A 'Little Below Average'
(WSCR) The Chicago Cubs' lone representative in Sunday's MLB Futures game was Matt Szczur, an outfielder playing for the team's Single-A affiliate. Szczur, selected in the fifth round, is one of a few Cubs draft picks who appears to be showing promise, highlighting an organizational weakness.
Of the Cubs' last 10 first round picks prior to 2011, only two have made it to the majors: Tyler Colvin and Andrew Cashner.
"When they added Tim Wilken as their scouting director, everyone got very excited, and with very good reason," Kevin Goldstein, of Baseball Prospectus, said on the Danny Mac Show. "I mean, Tim Wilken's track record coming to the Cubs was absolutely outstanding. I mean, he's one of the most well respected guys in the scouting industry. But his drafts with the Cubs have been very inconsistent...and at times downright weird.
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"Tim Wilken is guy who always had a reputation for going off the board, if you will. And obviously he did that last year with Hayden Simpson in the first round, a pick that had everyone raising their eyebrows and looking around the room trying to figure out who he was, and then obviously Simpson has been awful this year. And so there's been just, you know, these mixed results and some strange moves, you know. The [Jeff] Samardzija move was a weird move, and a questionable one, and I think we see how that worked out. So I mean, at this point, I think they're reputation might be a little below average."
