Prospect Pipeline

Every year, baseball fans' excitement about top prospects in major league spring training seems to grow. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy to overlook some of the game's less glamorous, under-the-radar prospects.

Besides providing an opportunity for players to fine-tune their skills in anticipation of the season, participating in major league camp also offers prospects the chance to make a strong impression in front of the entire organization.

The last half-decade has been rough for the Chicago Cubs.

The franchise owns a 356-453 overall record since its last playoff berth in 2008, recording only one winning season (2009) during that span. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Cubs are coming off back-to-back dismal seasons in which they combined for 197 losses.

However, help is on the way.

While it will be several years until most of the 2013 draft picks are ready for the major leagues, there exists a small contingent of players with the potential to contribute at the highest level in 2014.

When you are a 21-year-old baseball player with 18 games of professional experience under your belt and a team trusts you to take over as the starting third baseman in the middle of the American League Championship Series, odds are good that you have special abilities. 

Spring training has barely begun, and already, a trade involving a trio of prospects has taken place.

It’s doubtful the St. Louis Cardinals would have finished with the best record in the National League and reached the World Series last season without the contributions from their rookie pitchers.

Using 12 different rookies during the regular season, the Cardinals’ collection of promising young arms posted a 36-22 record with a 3.17 ERA, 8.79 K/9 and 2.99 BB/9 in 553.2 innings.

Being a prospect in Major League Baseball requires a degree of patience that few people in the world can match. These are players who, for the most part, have been signed or drafted to multi-million dollar contracts when they are between the ages of 18 and 21. 

One common term you will hear, especially during the spring when some stats can get inflated by small sample sizes and inconsistent competition is "MLB ready." Is this guy ready to step into the big leagues today and play a significant role for their team?

It’s hard to believe it’s been roughly two decades since the last great wave of shortstop prospects reached the major leagues.

From 1994 to 1998, Major League Baseball saw the arrival of five future All-Star shortstops: Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, Edgar Renteria, Alex Rodriguez and Miguel Tejada.

Oscar Taveras was widely regarded as the top offensive prospect in baseball headed into the 2013 season and was expected to make an immediate impact upon reaching the major leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals.

On a superficial level, the New York Yankees spending nearly $500 million on Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann and Masahiro Tanaka this offseason makes sense because the team missed the playoffs last year and had significant questions about the future.