Did the Cubs dodge a bullet yesterday?

The Rule 5 draft has come and gone, and Marquez Smith is still a Cub. I’m definitely happy about this– last week I questioned the Cubs’ omission of Smith from the 40-man roster, but wondered whether it signaled doubts about his ability to contribute at the major league level this year:

I’m honestly not sure what the rationale for leaving Smith off the 40-man was. We have to acknowledge that, theoretically, teams know their own players better than anyone, so perhaps the Cubs simply have a better feel for what kind of player he really is, or what the demand for a guy like him will be in the Rule V Draft. Maybe they just don’t think teams are confident he could stick on their big league roster all year.

Maybe the fact he went undrafted says something about him, but I say its still a good thing no one scooped him up. For one– I’m not sure I buy that he couldn’t have at least held his own somewhere in the National League. A few weeks ago over at FanGraphs, Smith was highlighted along with four other AAA hitters from 2010 who posted impressive MLEs (major league equivalencies; a rough approximation of how his performance in AAA would have translated in the majors). His .314/.384/.574 line in 341 PA comes out to .278/.340/.502 in the big leagues–good for a (roughly) .366 wOBA.

Between that and the praise he’s earned for his defensive chops, there’s definitely good reason to think he could be of some use to the 2011 Cubs. Aramis Ramirez, who’ll be 33 in June, has seen each of his past two seasons derailed by injuries, and has always been a good bet to get banged up a couple times a year. And if you think Smith can slide over to second base no problem, you could almost argue he’d be a potential upgrade over the DeWitt/Baker/Barney combo expected to get most of the ABs there next year.

Even if we don’t end up seeing much of him in 2011, given the future uncertainty at the position with Ramirez in a walk year, Smith could be the perfect placeholder for top prospect Josh Vitters, or who knows?– maybe he’ll earn the job long-term. I guess the organization didn’t think highly enough to even put him on the 40-man, and the fact he’s almost 26 years old could have a little to do with that, but he’s begun to get attention from some of the prospect mavens out there, and there’s still the chance he could break into the big leagues in time for him to enjoy a few nice years before he hits the other side of 30.

I can’t speak to the need for a third baseman among any non-competitive teams that could’ve been patient with a guy like Smith, but I was surprised nonetheless to see him go untaken. I suppose you can’t just let a young player like him simply ride the pine all year, but I find it hard to believe no one out there could have afforded to take a flier on a potential asset like him.

Time will only tell whether any of this actually matters, or whether I’ve wasted upwards of 2000 words between two different posts about an old-ish prospect who just blew up over a small sample size in a good hitter’s environment. He’ll probably get his chance to show what he can do next spring though, so I for one will be watching closely to see if he opens any eyes.

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I was thinking of doing a quick post about a few of the pitchers we’ve heard the Cubs linked to, but I think I’m gonna save that for Sunday. Instead, I’d like to leave a link to this video up for the rest of the weekend. At this point, I feel like the only perspective I can contribute on the passing of Ron Santo is this: I’m only 22, so I obviously never got to see Santo play, but after seeing stuff like this, I really wish I could have.