Albertos was never top four, let alone two, this preseason with Eloy, Happ, Cease, and Almora all ahead of him. And it's not that big a jump when guys leave the system but in the case of Ademan and Velazquez, they passed active prospects in the system, not just moving up the ladder because of graduations/trades.
I'm basically saying a guy going from behind eight or nine guys at the midseason (according to one site) and then being ahead of all those guys in one half of a season when the guy doesn't do anything amazing (but Ademan had a very good showing in rookie ball) is a strange jump to make for him. I obviously think he's a future starting SS but the jump he got from BA seems weird to me.
And it's also weird that a guy with a .236/.333/.536 slash with a high K rate after being drafted in round 5 (even above slot) makes the top 10 for BA. To me, they're undervaluing a lot of the arms the Cubs have if they think he's a top 10 guy right now.
On Ademan, i mean its unusual but not unprecedented. As I said, the thought prior to this year was he was a good glove SS who wouldn't hit amazingly. But when you go out at 18 and hit .286/.365/.466 in A- people start to reevaluate. I think he's where he's at because they already knew he was a good glove but now believe more in his bat. And let's not forget here that the cubs gave him $2 mil when they signed him. It's not like he was some $300k cheap signing that sprouted up. In a normal IFA class(which 2015 wasn't because of all the cubans) he's probably a top 5 or top 10 signing. Eloy if memory serves only got $3 mil. So, clearly the cubs viewed him as a very good talent.
On Velazquez, as I said he went to HS in puerto rico which I believe isn't as heavily scouted as the US. So he was a bit of an unknown. Around the draft there was very little info on him publicly. Maybe teams had more but we don't know. So, the fact he was a 5th round pick really shouldn't surprise you. As for where he is now, Sure he hit .236/.333/.536 in mesa but do you know what Eloy hit in mesa? .227/.268/.367 over 164 PAs. Velazquez had a .300 ISO while Jimenez had a .140 ISO. Now granted Eloy was 17 and Velazquez was 18 and frankly a .300 ISO isn't sustainable but we know what kind of power Jimenez has. And most view him as a LF only. Velazquez played 72.1 innings in CF, 133.0 in LF and 9.0 in RF.
Now I don't k now for certain that he'll be a long term CF. Like I said earlier I want to see what scouting says on him because frankly there's not much out there about his defense. But the guy stole 5 bases in 32 games which tells me he's likely got good speed(also read that on the draft scouting). But if he does stick do you realize how absurd that kind of power is out of a CF? I'm going to throw another comparison at you. Look at Lewis Brinson who was another raw HS CF prospect.
At 18 in rookie league he hit .283/.345/.523 with 7.9%/27.9% bb/k rates and a wRC+ of 122. Velazquez also at 18 hit .236/.333/.536 with 11.9%/31.0% bb/k rates and a wRC+ of 129. Brinson was the 29th pick in the 2012 draft. Brinson had more PAs so his 14 SB look superior but at the rate Velazquez was stealing over similar PAs he would have had 11 so that's pretty close. And while .283 vs .236 looks like a hammering, Brinson had a .377 BABIP compared to .286 for Velazquez. Velazquez has a slightly bigger issue with k rate but was quite a bit better in terms of his walk rate and power.
If you want to quibble that Brinson was better at the same age I'm not really interested in arguing the point. However, what I will point out is the two in any argument are relatively similar. And as of mlb.com's midseason rankings Brinson was the #12 prospect in all of baseball. So while it's easy to say "oh he's just a 5th round pick," context is important. League average among CF in ISO last year was .164. So you could literally cut his ISO in half and it would still be league average for what you'd expect out of a CF and the kid is 18. He's going to get bigger and stronger. Brinson was given 60 grade power by mlb.com and at the same age Velazquez has shown more power.
Velazquez obviously has work to do with regards to his K rate but ask yourself this... have this cubs front office missed on any bat? For example between their draft picks and the IFA signings who are the worst guys they gotten? The only semi-questionable IFA that comes to mind is Eddy Martinez who hasn't been terrible just not worth what he signed for thus far. But basically everyone else who's been given big money has hit and in the cases of Torres/Ademan/Jimenez they've hit well enough to turn in to apparent big time prospects. In terms of drafted guys in the first 10 round I can only really name Krist who's a C. Maybe Darryl Wilson hasn't quite lived up to expectations but scouts still like him quite a bit. But you contrast that with the numerous guys they have who've been better than people thought like Schwarber and to a lessor extent Bryant.
So while I get that people are going to feel like Velazquez is a "WHO?," I don't think them putting him at #10 is unwarranted. He ran a faster 60 yard than the #1 pick Royce Lewis who mlb.com had as 70 grade on speed. When you put that together with the kind of power he showed in mesa and an apparent ability to play CF there's just not many players who can do that. I mean if you conservatively say he's got 25 HR power that is something only 7 MLB CF did. And only 3 of those 7 stole more than 10 bases(McCutchen, Trout, Charlie Blackmon).
He's a player cubs fans should be excited over. And if you're talking about player ceilings their may not be a cub prospect with a higher ceiling. And if we're being real here who deserves to be ahead of him? There's really only 3 names I see on the cubs top 30 that even warrant consideration. Maples I could see but he's basically already in the majors and a reliever. So leaving him off isn't a big deal to me. Keegan Thompson and Cory Abbott I think you could make a case for but I doubt either has as much upside as Velazquez. And while I love Michael Rucker from a stats point of view scouting on him doesn't seem as keen.
