In perhaps the best sign yet that the Cubs are respectable, not one shit has been given as to where the Cubs might draft in 2016. A 73-win campaign has given the Cubs the #9 spot in today’s draft, which is widely considered one of the weakest in recent memory.
I won’t pretend that I know anything about who will be around when the Cubs will pick at #9; that would be disingenuous of me. GW, our resident draft jabroni, has more important things to do this year than talk about the draft this year, so it’s fallen on me to point you in the right direction.
People Who Know What They Are Talking About:
The prospect team at Baseball Prospectus generally have good information, though they don’t really have team-specific targets. It can give you an idea basically of who won’t be available to the Cubs at #9; the Cubs have shown that they don’t care about industry boards and trust their own.
Baseball America has long been the industry standard for minor-league/amateur baseball, and their draft coverage is no different. If you’re very interested in the minutiae of college and high-school baseball, you could do a lot worse than BA.
FanGraphs is wading into the draft waters with their Kiley McDaniel pickup, and for 100% free content it’s great (BP and BA both require a membership, though certain articles are free). Kiley is all-around a good entry point for scouting in general, and I read a lot of his work.
For Cubs-centric scouting information, there are 2 good draft sources; all of our competitors, basically. Cubs Den does a good job of rounding up all the pertinent information surrounding the draft, and Luke Blaize at Bleacher Nation does good work as well.
There are simply too many names to talk about any one of them with specificity, so I won’t be saying anything about who the Cubs might target. Once the Cubs make their selection, I will dig into who that player is, and we’ll go from there.
UPDATE: It’s Happening.
#Cubs select OF Ian Happ out of the University of Cincinnati
— Bruce Miles (@BruceMiles2112) June 9, 2015
Now that I’ve got that terrible pun out the way, a little bit on Ian Happ:
He’s a 2B/OF from the Cincinnati Bearcats, and not many people think he can stick anywhere except left field. That shouldn’t be a problem if he hits like anything resembling what he has in college. More on this to come.