True but at the spots pitchers were the consensus choice
Well I'm just saying the cubs haven't drafted someone like Rodon who should be ready for the majors maybe as early as midseason. Generally when you're drafting 2nd-10th round players they will either be lessor college players(because college age players are more "sure things") or they will be 18 year olds out of high school. To use Rodon as a corollary again, he's presently 22.2 years old. So you're talking about roughly a 23 year old before he hits the majors. That's 5 years of development over an 18 year old. As for the lessor, college players obviously those types have a skill but don't have the whole toolset yet and need to work on things which again likely means they emerge at say 25-26 rather than 23-24.
Here's a list of the pitchers they drafted in the first 10 rounds since theo took over.
Pierce Johnson
Paul Blackburn
Duane Underwood
Ryan McNeil
Joshua Conway
Anthony Prieto
Trey Lang
Michael Heesch
Chad Martin
Rob Zastryzny
Tyler Skulina
Trey Masek
Scott Frazier
David Garner
Sam Wilson
Zack Godley
Jake Stinnett
Carson Sands
Justin Steele
Dylan Cease
James Norwood
Tommy Thorpe
James Farris
Ryan Williams
That's 24 pitchers out of the 32 possible picks they had(they got 2 extras in 2012) in the first 10 rounds of the draft. So, it's unfair to say they've "passed" on pitching. What they passed on was using a top 10 pick on it likely because the bust rate on pitching is so high. Now, of those players unless you're a pretty hardcore cubs fan Pierce Johnson is the one name you may have hard of. Paul Blackburn and Duane Underwood have been interesting names the past year or so. Rob Zastryzny and Tyler Skulina have got a little play from places diving deeper(mainly cubs blogs). Sands and some of the pitchers from this year have also got a little play because they were over slot guys essentially making up for signing Schwarber cheap.
The thing is take a guy like Zastryzny. Last season in A+ he had a 9.00 k/9 and a 2.70 bb/9. Those are solid numbers. But no one cares largely because he's a 22 in A+ and because he had a 4.66 ERA(though his FIP was substantially lower at 3.66). When fangraphs did their prospect ranking thing they gave him a 40 which basically means they think he'll be a AAAA player. The thing is that the minors are littered with tons of guys like this. The thing is though some of those players become Cliff Lee. He was literally a throw in player with Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore as part of the Bartolo Colon trade to the Expos and was a former 4th round pick.
Now obviously I'm picking an extreme case here but if you look at some of the top pitching last season you'll find guys like Corey Kluber(4th round pick 134 overall), Jon Lester(2nd round pick 57), Jordan Zimmermann(2nd round pick 67), Jeff Samardzija(5th round pick 149), Dallas Keuchel(7th round pick 221), James Shields(16th round pick 466), Mark Buehrle(round 38 pick 1139 overall), and Chris Archer(round 5 pick 161). That's what 8 guys out of the top 30 in fWAR including guys like King Felix who signed as IFA's and weren't drafted.
Admittedly you're going to have a better success rate drafting a pitcher in the first 20 picks. But the thing to remember is just where the cubs were 3 years ago in terms of their farm system. There's not been much talent coming out of the high minors these past few years. We're talking Shark, Cashner, Beeler, Russell, Jokisch, Parker, Rosscup and Rusin. What i'm getting at here is it's not just about your Jon Lester's of the world. Honestly some teams could benefit far more by having two 3ish WAR pitchers than a 6 WAR Lester and whatever they can pull out of AAA for a 5th starter. Hell if we go back to the god awful 2012 cubs you can see this. Justin Germano(12 starts 6.75 ERA), Chris Volstad(21 starts 6.31 ERA), Chris Rusin(7 starts 6.37 ERA), Brooks Raley(5 starts 8.14 ERA), Jason Berken(4 starts 4.82 ERA), and Randy Wells(4 starts 5.34 ERA) accounted for a total of 53 starts with a pretty terrible ERA.
Additionally, you can look at the players brought back in trades/claims. Volstad as stated above was clearly a bust. But the other names brought back are contributing. Rondon was a pretty good closer last season and they rule 5'd him. Hendricks, Arreita, Grimm, Strop, Wood, and Ramirez were all recent trade pieces. Again this isn't sexy because it's depth not peak performance but as I stated above, sometimes depth can be as valuable which clearly in the 2012 cubs case it would have been. They're now getting to a point where having frontliners is a bigger deal. By drafting the way they have, they've taken a lot of players in the hopes of finding a undervalued pitcher. However, they've also potentially given themselves lessor pieces in trade. Either way, by adding this much depth of pitching they are likely reaching a point where they don't necessarily need to go out and drop $8 mil a year on someone like Hammel in say 3 years. They may have someone like Zastryzny develop and become a some what decent 4th/5th starter. That in turn is $8 mil they can use to buy a frontline starter if they must. Or they could get lucky with someone like the Indians did with Kluber.
I don't mean this to come of sounding like they are some genius group that can't fail because it's entirely possible none of those names above become anything. All i'm attempting to illustrate is they are using sound logic. Thus far Almora looks like the "worst" of their positional picks and most people would argue at the very least his defense will make him a starter caliber player if he can hit anything approaching respectable. Given the bust rate of prospects even high round ones I think most teams would take that any day.
