The key position the Cubs lack true depth in their farm system is pitching. Most of their pitching talent, prospect-wise, lies in the lower levels of minor league baseball, within the arms of babes.
They do have Arodys Vizcaino—whom they received in the August trade with Atlanta and should be considered their best pitching prospect—but he had Tommy John surgery in March, leaving the club’s hopes of stocking their pitching staff with players from within the organization still a few years away.
The Cubs will need to focus on college pitching prospects so they can have talent to develop at Iowa in 2014, rather than rushing the development of their current young pitching prospects.
Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you would like to view it—the Cubs have the second pick in the 2013 MLB Draft, due to having the second-worst record in the league. They should come away with at least one pitching prospect that they could immediately assign to Iowa.
The Cubs will essentially have the second pick in every round with the exception of the Compensatory round. The proceeding list will cover three options the Cubs should consider with their first-round pick—which turned out to be the same top three 2013 draft prospects named by Baseball America in August, which I didn’t realize until researching Sean Manea—as well as two players to look at with their second-round selection, which will be projected to be around the No. 57 to No. 64 pick.