The recent drafting history for both the Cubs and the Sox:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL DRAFT
'Win now' policy takes toll on Cubs
Desire to produce immediate results hurts team in area of player development
By Dave van Dyck
Tribune staff reporter
June 5, 2006, 11:39 PM CDT
Trivia question: Who was the last position player drafted and developed by the Cubs to be chosen an All-Star as a Cub?
A. Corey Patterson
B. Ryne Sandberg
C. Mark Grace
D. Shawon Dunston
OK, it's a trick question. The correct answer is Joe Girardi, who made the All-Star team in 2000.
Girardi, now manager of the Florida Marlins, was the Cubs' fifth-round choice in 1986, during the Dallas Green regime. And even he had been gone and come back to the Cubs before 2000.
For the record, Patterson never made the All-Star team, Sandberg was not drafted by the Cubs, Grace was last a Cubs All-Star in 1997 and Dunston in 1990.
If you get the idea the post-Green Cubs have been lacking in drafting and keeping good position players, you would be correct.
You want another chance?
Who was the last position player the White Sox drafted and developed into an All-Star with the club?
A. Paul Konerko
B. Magglio Ordonez
C. Frank Thomas
D. Ray Durham
The correct answer is Durham, who was selected an All-Star in 2000. He was a fifth-round choice of the Sox in 1990. Konerko was not drafted by the Sox, the foreign-born Ordonez was not eligible for the draft and Thomas' last All-Star year was 1997.
The Sox, however, have done a much better job in recent years than the Cubs of drafting position players who were not necessarily No. 1 choices. Joe Crede and Brian Anderson play for the current team. Aaron Rowand was used to get Jim Thome; Jeremy Reed to get Freddy Garcia; Mike Cameron to get Konerko; Chris Young as part of the package to get Javier Vazquez; and Aaron Miles to get Juan Uribe.
Ordonez and Carlos Lee are proof the Sox have done a better job producing undrafted players from other countries.
Longtime Sox scouting director Duane Shaffer, who drafted all of the players whom the Sox used for trades in the above-mentioned deals, said:
"You build around 'tool guys,' hoping to get an All-Star in the first round. But the lower draft makes your organization."
The Cubs? Well, Patterson—the third player chosen in the 1998 draft—brought pitcher Carlos Perez and infielder Nate Spears from Baltimore. Neither is in the major leagues. Brooks Kieschnick, Gary Scott and David Kelton all have been busts. So has 2000 first-round choice Luis Montanez, although he is starting to play better in the minor leagues. The Cubs did use draft choice Bobby Hill as part of a package to get Aramis Ramirez.
The Cubs, however, certainly have not produced their own superstar hitter, a la Albert Pujols of the Cardinals, a 13th-round pick who not even the Cardinals foresaw becoming the greatest hitter in the game.
"Patterson was the one we feel really failed, for whatever reason," said Cubs general manager Jim Hendry, who oversaw Cubs drafts in the middle- and late 1990s.
"It's so hard to judge [amateur] hitters with aluminum bats. The gap has probably never been wider between pro and amateur. It's hard now to get quality athletes to choose our game. There's a safety factor [in drafting] a [pitcher] who can be measured with a radar gun."
In last year's draft, the Cubs' top three picks and nine of their top 15 picks were pitchers.
Shaffer remembers 1999, "when 14 of the first 15 we drafted were pitchers." None turned into top-notch starters.
Experts' view
Baseball America, considered the foremost authority on amateur and minor-league baseball, had the Cubs' organizational talent level listed No. 1 as recently as 2002. It has slipped since to third, seventh, 10th and currently 15th.
"We look at their blue-chip or elite talent, their depth and their balance," said Jim Callis, the Cubs' organization expert for the publication. "Remember, it's easy to get excited about guys at Class A before attrition and injuries. And depth is nice, but you still win with stars.
"It's always easy to look back. But you're not going to get a lot of good players out of the draft."
Tuesday being amateur draft day, let's look back on the Cubs' failure to produce any of their own stars—at least stars who can hit—from the draft itself.
There are several factors involved, although they are not necessarily reasons to let their miserable recent history slide.
Five scouts, all of whom have worked on the amateur player side, were asked about the Cubs' lack of success. Three were at least somewhat sympathetic toward the Cubs, one said they had not done a good job and another said in the post-Hendry draft period they have been "awful."
Here are their some of their observations:
The Cubs have been caught in a "win-now" mentality, like most high-payroll teams. They have not had the luxury of tearing down the team and starting over, because fans would not accept it. The Tigers, for instance, could do that because their fan base had reached bottom.
Teams who sign free agents to keep winning lose draft picks in the first and/or second rounds. The Cubs had no first-round pick in 2004.
"For some [teams], it's easier to sign free agents who are already proven, or to trade your young guys for guys already proven," one scout said.
Because of watered-down talent, there are only 10-12 can't-miss players in most drafts. And that includes pitchers. So it's a crapshoot for teams picking in the bottom half of the first round and a real guessing game in later rounds.
"You might only get 40 players, ones who stay in the majors, out of every draft," one draft expert said. "It's not anything like it used to be."
"If you pick late [in the first round]," one veteran talent evaluator said, "you better not miss."
Sox's grand haul
The days of the Sox getting such talent as Jack McDowell, Robin Ventura, Frank Thomas and Alex Fernandez in four consecutive years are long gone. The first-round Sox selections in the following years were Scott Ruffcorn, Eddie Pearson, Scott Christman and Mark Johnson.
"Not every team can be the Atlanta Braves," one scout said. "They pour a lot of money into it, but they also have a great development system."
The Braves' current starting lineup includes five of their own draft choices, not counting Andruw Jones, whom they signed out of Curacao.
Most teams currently get their hitting talent from Latin American countries and the Pacific Rim. Those players are not lumped into the "amateur draft" category, as are American and Puerto Rican players.
The top two players most recently produced by the Cubs—infielder Ronny Cedeno and outfielder Felix Pie—were not drafted because they are from Latin America, Cedeno from Venezuela and Pie from the Dominican Republic. Another current starter, Matt Murton, came in the Nomar Garciaparra trade.
Two of their top pitching prospects, Angel Guzman and Jae Kuk Ryu, were signed as free agents because they are from the Dominican Republic and Korea. Venezuelan Carlos Zambrano is also a Cubs original who was not subject to the draft.
The Cubs have produced pitchers in recent years, some of them used to acquire talent, some of whom are in the majors.
In 1995 the Cubs' Al Goldis selected Kerry Wood with the fourth pick over Todd Helton. In 2001 the Cubs picked Mark Prior over Mark Teixeira, now a Texas All-Star. Sean Marshall was a sixth-round draftee.
The also used Ricky Nolasco as part of a package to get Juan Pierre and Michael Nannini along with Hee-Seop Choi (a Cubs farm product but undrafted because he is Korean) to land Derrek Lee.
When Prior returns from the disabled list, the Cubs might have an entire rotation that came through their minor-league system: Prior, Wood, Marshall, Greg Maddux and Zambrano.
But hitters? For whatever reason, that remains a mystery to the Cubs, whether it be American or foreign-born. If Pie fails, he will continue a very long slump.
dvandyck@tribune.com
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